Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: I built a local-first daily planner for iOS

apps.apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 85 posts

Re: Show HN: I built a local-first daily planner for iOS

#51

Post by blktiger »

artdigital wrote: post #30
lnxg33k1 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the guy enjoys some food every now and then

I’m with the parent on this. I don’t mind subscriptions if a service is provided that justifies the recurring cost. If it’s a local offline app then I don’t see it justified. Price it accordingly or at least give an option for one-time. But yes, sub vs non-sub model is a very divisive topic. Personally would never subscribe to something like a offline local todo list

A one time cost is fine if you don’t mind the app breaking next time Apple updates iOS. There is an ongoing cost to ensuring the app continues to work.

Re: Show HN: I built a local-first daily planner for iOS

#52

Post by r0fl »

blktiger wrote: post #51
artdigital wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m with the parent on this. I don’t mind subscriptions if a service is provided that justifies the recurring cost. If it’s a local offline app then I don’t see it justified. Price it accordingly or at least give an option for one-time. But yes, sub vs non-sub model is a very divisive topic. Personally would never subscribe to something like a offline local todo list

A one time cost is fine if you don’t mind the app breaking next time Apple updates iOS. There is an ongoing cost to ensuring the app continues to work.

Why would it break next time Apple updates iOS? Will the developer not want new sales on that updated iOS ?

Re: Show HN: I built a local-first daily planner for iOS

#53

Post by chakintosh »

paxys wrote: post #8

> Morocco runs on UTC+1 most of the year but switches to UTC during Ramadan to shorten the fasting day Unrelated, but I love coming across religious "hacks" like these that communities have developed over the years. A similar one is the fishing line that jews tied around New York to get around the rules of Sabbath https://www.npr.org/2019/05/13/721551785/a-fishing-line-enci... .

Moroccan here. We used to switch timezones 4 times a year, and I guarantee you it was exhausting!

Re: Show HN: I built a local-first daily planner for iOS

#54

Post by zesfy »

qwertytyyuu wrote: post #2

hmmm... a planner is one of the few things that i'd like to have access to regardless of what i'm using... One of the few things i don't mind and even slightly prefer to be online first for seemless sync (with the ability to edit and add to offline ofcourse)

Totally get that. I'm planning to support more platforms, and I'm glad to say that iCloud sync is already in the plans for future development.

Re: Show HN: I built a local-first daily planner for iOS

#55

Post by earthnail »

r0fl wrote: post #52
blktiger wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A one time cost is fine if you don’t mind the app breaking next time Apple updates iOS. There is an ongoing cost to ensuring the app continues to work.

Why would it break next time Apple updates iOS? Will the developer not want new sales on that updated iOS ?

The maintenance effort required on iOS is substantial. About a quarter of your full-time year needs to be dedicated to it.

On desktop, you can just publish your software and slowly see it age as you work on your next big release. On iOS, it ages every year at brutal pace, and your new sales will plummet while you work on your next big release, meaning your revenue crashes much faster.

Even worse, the iOS App Store has no notion of paid upgrades, and publishing a new app is basically like starting from scratch as far as discoverability goes. So when you finally have your next big release ready, it's like launching a completely new company.

Apple really wants developers to make subscription apps that ship frequent iterative changes, and other business models just simply don't work well on their mobile platform (on Android it's even worse btw).

Re: Show HN: I built a local-first daily planner for iOS

#56

Post by earthnail »

devmor wrote: post #33
dragonwriter wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There used to be a lot less expectation of post-sale maintenance of consumer software in the era where sales rather than subscriptions were the norm. There was also tolerance for higher up-front prices, and for much of that period sales depended on marketing through and validation by a narrow set of relatively trusted discovery channels, which customer the perceived risk to buyers. Now everything is untrusted, no one…

fwiw the expectation of post-sale maintenance would not be nearly as egregious if companies were not regularly pushing new updates that cause new issues it is a problem of ones own making

Well, on mobile the underlying operating system is moving so fast that companies must continue to update their apps or else they stop working. It's the absolute inverse situation to the backwards compatibility story of Windows. That kind of backwards compatibility is a wet dream for every mobile developer.

Re: Show HN: I built a local-first daily planner for iOS

#57

Post by righthand »

lnxg33k1 wrote: post #27
ichicoro wrote: post #26

I'm sorry, I like the look and the idea but... why is a subscription necessary for a local-first app?

I suspect the guy enjoys some food every now and then

I think someone that can afford to publish on the most expensive app publishing platform can afford food all the time. There are no poor iOS developers.

Re: Show HN: I built a local-first daily planner for iOS

#58

Post by DANmode »

mikeocool wrote: post #46
artdigital wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m with the parent on this. I don’t mind subscriptions if a service is provided that justifies the recurring cost. If it’s a local offline app then I don’t see it justified. Price it accordingly or at least give an option for one-time. But yes, sub vs non-sub model is a very divisive topic. Personally would never subscribe to something like a offline local todo list

One way of looking at is that subscription software helps align developer interests with dedicated users. It's easier to retain users than it is to get new users, so developers are incentivized to build features/make improvements for existing users to keep them as happy users. In a pay once upfront model developers are essentially only incentivized to build features that attract new users.

“Still not selling the imprint of my anus? Here’s another five bucks!”

i.e.

It’s sad I can’t use Google’s task manager (both because it sucks, and I can’t trust it),

but that’s life.

Re: Show HN: I built a local-first daily planner for iOS

#59

Post by jadtz »

paxys wrote: post #8

> Morocco runs on UTC+1 most of the year but switches to UTC during Ramadan to shorten the fasting day Unrelated, but I love coming across religious "hacks" like these that communities have developed over the years. A similar one is the fishing line that jews tied around New York to get around the rules of Sabbath https://www.npr.org/2019/05/13/721551785/a-fishing-line-enci... .

Irrelevant to this post, but Morocco switching to UTC does not change the number of hours fasted as that is based on sunset and sunrise so not really a religious "hack" but more similar to daylight saving (work hours remain same).

Re: Show HN: I built a local-first daily planner for iOS

#60

Post by [deleted] »

jadtz wrote: post #59
paxys wrote: post #8

> Morocco runs on UTC+1 most of the year but switches to UTC during Ramadan to shorten the fasting day Unrelated, but I love coming across religious "hacks" like these that communities have developed over the years. A similar one is the fishing line that jews tied around New York to get around the rules of Sabbath https://www.npr.org/2019/05/13/721551785/a-fishing-line-enci... .

Irrelevant to this post, but Morocco switching to UTC does not change the number of hours fasted as that is based on sunset and sunrise so not really a religious "hack" but more similar to daylight saving (work hours remain same).

[deleted]
Post reply on HN