I made (i think) the first automatic face swap app back in 2012 when face detection first appeared in iOS.
It did pretty well, got into the top 10 around the world. #1 for a bit. Made me some money.
But there were tonnes of copies. One guy even flew over to meet me first from SF and said he wanted to buy the app. Offered me half a million dollars. Then when I said yes cut it to half that after he spoke to ‘the board’. Then said half that again - at which point I told him to go F himself - he’d also added into the contract I had to take the app offline and send him the source code for them to review before finalising, which would have ruined the purely viral growth.
Within 2 weeks he had launched a virtually identical app - and I mean identical. Just a different name and icon. The entire UI was copied down to the smallest detail. So obviously he’d been working on it before I said no.
I think this was his plan all along. To copy my app and use the potential buy out as distraction / disruption.
He then sent me a really angry email with the choice line “if someone offer/ you a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask which seat”.
I sympathize with how you feel and if it was the case that they literally took the code or images you created you would have at least an argument but I don't think that there is any reason to allow anyone to own a particular arrangement of icons or the idea of how to do something.
Giving such ownership makes the entire human race poorer and doing so to protect entertainment is really weakens the justification further.
It did OK. He had one of those businesses that other developers pay to be ‘featured’ for a day so had an easy way to slot his own apps in there and give them exposure. Ultimately mine won out I think. Can’t see his online anymore. I guess copying other people’s ideas can only get you so far (unless you’re Facebook…)
I made (i think) the first automatic face swap app back in 2012 when face detection first appeared in iOS.
It did pretty well, got into the top 10 around the world. #1 for a bit. Made me some money.
But there were tonnes of copies. One guy even flew over to meet me first from SF and said he wanted to buy the app. Offered me half a million dollars. Then when I said yes cut it to half that after he spoke to ‘the board’. Then said half that again - at which point I told him to go F himself - he’d also added into the contract I had to take the app offline and send him the source code for them to review before finalising, which would have ruined the purely viral growth.
Within 2 weeks he had launched a virtually identical app - and I mean identical. Just a different name and icon. The entire UI was copied down to the smallest detail. So obviously he’d been working on it before I said no.
I think this was his plan all along. To copy my app and use the potential buy out as distraction / disruption.
He then sent me a really angry email with the choice line “if someone offer/ you a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask which seat”.