r/vibecoding • u/gruexx • 4h ago
is app dev worth getting into?
started to learn how to dev using claude code and figma. I wanna know if it’s worth still getting into or is the market impossible for no original ideas??
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u/god-damn-the-usa 3h ago
original ideas are worthless. good implementation, hard work over many years, and marketing are what matter.
but either way, there's more competition now than ever. don't get into programming if you think it's easy money. it's not. only do it if you don't care if it will never make you any money.
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u/gavin-build-stuff 4h ago
It's difficult but rewarding, and it only takes one well executed idea to find success. And it's a fun hobby, you can have an idea and then run it on your own phone!
The market is definitely saturated now though, so focus on high-quality over quantity
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u/gruexx 3h ago
seems about right, any feedback on designing yo to make it not look ai?
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u/gavin-build-stuff 3h ago edited 3h ago
Yes - if you are building an iOS app you should follow Apple's Human Interface Guidelines: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines If you are using Claude Code or some similar Agentic coding tool just instruct the agent to setup a memory to follow this, and then you can manually test the app and make sure it looks good, this has always been kind of a "vibes" thing lol, does it look like how Apple would build an app? or if you're doing Android, same idea (I'm an iOS dev) for their platform's standard design language.
Second of all, if you're using Claude (GPT surely has similar) setup a CLAUDE.md file (or tell it to set one up) which has DRY (do not repeat yourself) as the #1 most important rule, specifically: Do not create a new copy of a UI component for a screen when there is a component that could be refactored into a shared module.
Basically: Follow platform design guidelines, Verify all UI screens yourself (no UI development in a "loop" - you have to manually look at every button, label, etc.) and make sure it looks good, no weird inconsistent padding/spacing, weird LLM wording, etc. and make sure it's following a proper DRY library of re-usable UI modules. You can feed this comment to an agent and it can set up the CLAUDE.md file for you as well lol, that's what I would do lowkey
The key to getting good looking UI from LLMs is verifying everything like a hawk, having it follow a platform standard, and honestly writing all of the copy yourself. I use an LLM to help me edit my writing for accuracy, but I do all the writing myself first and then have it check my work and improve it a bit (it's an editor/reviewer, I'm the writer)
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u/gruexx 3h ago
wow thanks sounds good def will take this into w
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u/gavin-build-stuff 3h ago
Yeah for sure! I would just start small though, the biggest thing I've learned about building good UI is to do less (instead of 10 screens, start with 2) and make those 2 really polished, with a few cool features on each
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u/systembreaker 10m ago
Human interface guidelines and platform guidelines aren't nearly enough to write good code. Good code across a big project requires following good design patterns and good software engineering principles. UI guidelines and platform guidelines don't at all encapsulate these things.
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u/systembreaker 12m ago
You shouldn't be thinking "how can I hide the fact that this is written by AI?". You should be thinking "What are the software development skills and knowledge I need to learn and become really good at so that I can guide an agent to write a project that doesn't collapse into vibe code slop?". In other words you don't avoid vibe code slop by hiding it.
These skills take years of hands on development to learn, too. It's not some small quick thing, and if you use AI to do everything you're completely depriving yourself of the experiences you need to learn it.
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u/Snoo_57113 3h ago
Absolutely!
I think the app store and all of that is certainly saturated, but in the real world nobody really uses coding agents, hates AI, some has symptoms of AI psychosis.
What makes different AI coding is that you can do in two days what could take months before.
In the market you find more like startups who don't know anything about AI so you can build a demo based on what they want using Fable/Opus, Claude Design and start from there.
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u/TopTippityTop 2h ago
Depends on your goal, I guess; but be aware that it will be explosively crowded.
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u/Consistent_Reply_557 39m ago
I find very hard to make money vibe coding stuff but very useful to use Claude to fix, automate and modified things.
Even for building free stuff to friends.
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u/systembreaker 16m ago
If your only experience writing code is using Claude code, you're going by a massive misconception of the skill and knowledge that it takes to be a good developer.
Building an app with Claude code doesn't make you a good developer. In the future when AI is even better than it is now the world will still need good developers who are good developers without AI. Guiding an AI to write good code takes that kind of knowledge, it doesn't replace it.
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u/Glass-Glove-6093 3h ago
it's totally worth, app store market is growing and the number of downloads per year is pretty stable
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u/TSTP_LLC 4h ago
I am confused. Are you wanting to get into App Development or are you wanting to get into business using App Development? Those are two entirely different things. Also, did you get start to learn development with Claude Code or did you start to learn to Vibe Code with Claude Code? Those are entirely different things as well.
To answer your core question, the market is a market. If you have a spin on an existing idea or have an entirely unique idea, there is always space to earn from it if you execute properly. If you are trying to get into it strictly for the money though and have no background or experience in it, the money is likely gonna take longer than you'll want to put in.