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news:yc (iPhone HN client) finally accepted into the App Store

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Re: news:yc (iPhone HN client) finally accepted into the App Store

#111

Post by bigiain »

palish wrote: post #73
adamt wrote: post #47

I've just happily paid for this app (congrats, nice app and makes my daily life easier/better) I am always amused when people complain about paying $5 for an app like this. Let's assume for a second that you are an IT/Internet professional, and you are read HN enough that you'd consider downloading an app. Maybe I am the exception, but I perhaps spend 30 mins per day on HN on my iphone. HN for me is great over breakf…

$100k/yr in the USA? I guess if you're in Silicon Valley...

Does that really affect the argument though? Does paying $5 for an app suddenly become the _wrong_ thing to do if you "only" earn $50k/yr so that $5 represents 10 whole minutes of work instead of 5?

I quite like the "here's the source, compile it yourself for "free" if you want" line... You can have my app for free, so long as you're already paying Apple $100/year... :-)

Re: news:yc (iPhone HN client) finally accepted into the App Store

#112

Post by mindhunter »

marcc wrote: post #76

Live it. Posting from the app now in fact. Only suggestion so far is to include rotation support. Sort of a pain being portrait only, many people like landscape mode.

But please only with an option to fix it to portrait mode - iPods don't allow to lock the mode.

Re: news:yc (iPhone HN client) finally accepted into the App Store

#113

Post by MarkMc »

Well done, there's a lot other hackers can learn from this:

1. Release it - too many programmers have a half-baked idea, or end up with a half-baked implementation. They start out all fired up, but don't have the stamina to see the product released to market.

2. Building stuff is great for job hunting. I can almost guarantee that this guy will get an internship out of this. He clearly has two features in great demand: programming ability, and gets stuff done. This product is far more attractive than a resume full of IT buzzwords. As long as he's not a prick in the interview, he'll get hired.

3. Focus your product on a niche. This minimises the work needed to get to market, and makes it easy to position your product as number one in the eyes of your potential customer. I haven't installed this app, but I bet it is better - and seen to be better - than any other app for browsing Hacker News (Safari included).

4. Charge a price for your product. This is where the rubber meets the road, where you discover that software development is much more than programming. Ignore the people wanting it for free and cater to those willing to pay. Play around and see how price changes affect revenue. Even if you later decide to make it free, a product that goes from $5 to zero 'feels' like a better product than something that started out free - classic 'anchoring' psychology.

Re: news:yc (iPhone HN client) finally accepted into the App Store

#114

Post by tomjen3 »

olivercameron wrote: post #102
statictype wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised that people are making this argument here on HN. Pricing has nothing to do with how many months a developer spent on an app. The consumer doesn't and shouldn't care about it anymore than a developer should care about how much effort someone took to earn and spend those five bucks. FWIW, I think five dollars is ok for a niche app like this but "he spent a lot of time on it" doesn't sound like a legitimat…

Why is that not a legitimate justification? The vast majority of the world's population charge a monetary fee for their time, so why is this any different? The guy put a lot of effort into making an app, as such, if you like the app, you now reward him for that time by paying him.

Suppose that it turns out that he had outsourced the development of the app - as long as you get the same app, should he charge less?

What if has still written it but was using a special compiler which compiled Lisp to Objective-C and had only spent two hours doing it, would you still feel that it was fair you paid the same?

Re: news:yc (iPhone HN client) finally accepted into the App Store

#116

Post by omaranto »

steevdave wrote: post #96
omaranto wrote: post #90

Has anyone used this app as well as Michael Grinich's app (I'm posting from that) and iHackerNews.com in Mobile Safari? Which do you prefer?

I just bought the app. The one I was previously using cost 2.99 and has many many issues, like not showing usernames of comments as well as once I've logged in to the app I can no longer see comment counts on the stories. I'm still getting used to the differences between the way stories and commenting works but my initial impression is that I like it a lot more.

It does seem a lot faster more functional than Michael Grinich's app. I'm not sure I really like the 3 line comment previews and having no indication of how many replies a comment has. EDIT: it does show the number of replies, I don't know how I hadn't noticed.

Re: news:yc (iPhone HN client) finally accepted into the App Store

#117

Post by PascalW »

news-yc wrote: post #55
swombat wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I think there'd be less bitching about the price if he removed the paragraph. Many things that are sold can be had for free if you're willing to put in the effort, but it's a poor salesman who starts his pitch by saying "You really don't need to pay me".

I actually added that after most of the price discussion (which now seems to have been voted to the bottom of the thread). I would really like to be able to say "pay as much as you want", but unfortunately the App Store doesn't support that. Overall, my goal is not to make a ton of money here. I just want to make as much as people want to give me, with other ways to get it if I don't. (Again, though, I'm new to this:…

Maybe you could do this with in-app purchases. Make the app free and include different items that people can buy for different prices. I'm not sure what that items should be, but I'm sure you can figure out something.

Re: news:yc (iPhone HN client) finally accepted into the App Store

#118

Post by sovande »

news-yc wrote: post #55
swombat wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I think there'd be less bitching about the price if he removed the paragraph. Many things that are sold can be had for free if you're willing to put in the effort, but it's a poor salesman who starts his pitch by saying "You really don't need to pay me".

I actually added that after most of the price discussion (which now seems to have been voted to the bottom of the thread). I would really like to be able to say "pay as much as you want", but unfortunately the App Store doesn't support that. Overall, my goal is not to make a ton of money here. I just want to make as much as people want to give me, with other ways to get it if I don't. (Again, though, I'm new to this:…

> I just want to make as much as people want to give me

The usual way to do this is to release the app for free and put a (PayPal) donate button on your page...

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