I've got 2 modestly successful Mac apps, Mi-Fi Monitor[1], and Codepoints[2].
Mi-Fi Monitor for Mac (there's an older iOS version[3]) alone has been much more successful than I ever imagined, despite being a simple little utility, doing no advertising, and having an automatically limited market of potential users (people who own a Novatel Mi-Fi).
At the time the original iOS version was written, it was just something I myself needed, not something I intended to publish anywhere. But as I discovered after putting it up for sale, a lot of other people needed it too. Novatel's own executives were using it, I talked to one of them on the phone for quite a while, 2 others emailed me about it, I reported some API bugs to them, etc. Very satisfying experience for me.
And then when I put up Mi-Fi Monitor for Mac on the MAS, it got featured on TUAW[4], which caused sales to skyrocket far beyond the iOS version and far beyond what I expected from something that was originally a "scratch my own itch" thing.
I'd love to build something larger for Mac and go down the indie path, but I'm primarily working as a consultant now on both platforms. I do absolutely love when Mac projects come my way though, I like building for that platform a lot more than iOS.
Mi-Fi Monitor for Mac (there's an older iOS version[3]) alone has been much more successful than I ever imagined, despite being a simple little utility, doing no advertising, and having an automatically limited market of potential users (people who own a Novatel Mi-Fi).
At the time the original iOS version was written, it was just something I myself needed, not something I intended to publish anywhere. But as I discovered after putting it up for sale, a lot of other people needed it too. Novatel's own executives were using it, I talked to one of them on the phone for quite a while, 2 others emailed me about it, I reported some API bugs to them, etc. Very satisfying experience for me.
And then when I put up Mi-Fi Monitor for Mac on the MAS, it got featured on TUAW[4], which caused sales to skyrocket far beyond the iOS version and far beyond what I expected from something that was originally a "scratch my own itch" thing.
I'd love to build something larger for Mac and go down the indie path, but I'm primarily working as a consultant now on both platforms. I do absolutely love when Mac projects come my way though, I like building for that platform a lot more than iOS.
[1] http://infincia.com/apps/mi-fi-monitor-mac
[2] http://infincia.com/apps/codepoints
[3] http://infincia.com/apps/mi-fi-monitor-ios
[4] http://www.tuaw.com/2011/12/13/daily-mac-app-mi-fi-monitor/