Do Not Let Similar Apps Stop You - Apple Rejects Clones, Not Categories
Do Not Let Similar Apps Stop You - Apple Rejects Clones, Not Categories
You found five apps that do something similar to what you want to build. Your instinct says "the market is saturated, move on." That instinct is wrong.
Competition Means Demand Exists
Zero competitors is a warning sign, not an opportunity. It usually means either nobody wants this or nobody has figured out how to monetize it. Five competitors means paying customers exist and you just need to be different enough to capture some of them.
Apple does not reject apps for being in a popular category. They reject apps that are direct clones - same UI, same features, same flow. If your note-taking app looks exactly like Bear with the same layout and icons, that gets rejected. If your note-taking app has a meaningfully different approach, it gets approved.
What "Different Enough" Means
You do not need to reinvent the category. You need one clear differentiator that matters to a segment of users. Maybe it is privacy (local-first vs cloud). Maybe it is workflow (voice-first vs keyboard-first). Maybe it is integration (works with tools the others do not support).
Pick the thing that annoys you about the existing options and build around fixing that. Your frustration is probably shared by thousands of people who settled for "good enough."
The Real Risk Is Not Shipping
The risk of building something similar to existing apps is that you waste time on a product nobody switches to. The risk of not building anything is that you definitely waste time. At least the first option produces something you learn from.
Most successful apps were not first to market. They were better for a specific audience. Slack was not the first team chat. Notion was not the first wiki. They found an angle and executed well on it.
Start With Your Use Case
Build the version you want to use. If it exists already and you are not using it, something about the existing options does not work for you. That gap is your product.
Fazm is an open source macOS AI agent. Open source on GitHub.