I read the news in my Sparrow client, then immediately closed it, and uninstalled it.
Why uninstall it? They already got your money.
No point investing any more time and familiarity with a product that will no longer see updates or bug fixes.
Sparrow acquired by Google
251–260 of 393 posts
Re: Sparrow acquired by Google
#252Sparrow is the shit
Re: Sparrow acquired by Google
#253Just sent the following e-mail to them: I just recently purchased Sparrow for iPhone a few days ago, regardless of the lack of push, since I knew I'd be supporting a small team with developing an awesome app. I was particularly excited for the promise of push notifications coming in the future (I was going to be more than happy to pay for a subscription service). So now that this Google acquisition has occurred, you'…
I don't think Sparrow ever really promised push… http://www.sprw.me/push.php
Re: Sparrow acquired by Google
#254This is getting extremely frustrating. Sparrow is a fabulous email client both for iOS and Mac. I love and use both daily and this is fairly devastating. I was really looking forward to the products development, growth, and future releases. To read this announcement and hear that they won't be working on their apps but on Google projects is sad. To bigger companies: chill out with the "acquihires." If anything, do wh…
Yeah we got screwed. They just dropped the app. They are promising "big fixes" but that's about it. Lovely. This is the bad side of "trusting" startups and their apps. Pisses me off. I mean (to all you startup guys out there), if you have no intention of continuing your work, AT LEAST OPEN SOURCE THE CODE so some of us can jump in and maintain it!
> Yeah we got screwed.
If the current version basically does the job that it's supposed to, then how did you get screwed? It's not like you spent hundreds of dollars on the app. The Mac version is only $10 for crying out loud.
Re: Sparrow acquired by Google
#255The email Sparrow is sending out, looks like there won't be any future feature additions: Hello, We're excited to let you know that Sparrow has been acquired by Google! You can view our public announcement here, but I wanted to reach out directly to make sure you were aware of the news. We will continue to make available our existing products, and we will provide support and critical updates to our users. However, as…
As someone who bought Sparrow on the day it was released - and is in love with it - this feels like a big middle finger to the customers who have been supporting them. The core of my disappointment is the expectation of future development that comes with buying into a relatively new piece of software. I didn't buy Sparrow thinking I was paying for a piece of software that was feature-complete. I bought Sparrow mail a…
>> this feels like a big middle finger to the customers who have been supporting them.
During the first bubble, Oracle told one of my customers that they should buy their license for $300K before prices went up. A week after they bought, the price dropped $100K. Now that's getting a big middle finger.
To make this claim about software that costs less than $10 and pays itself off in less than a week? Well that's just being dramatic.
Re: Sparrow acquired by Google
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're being a little melodramatic here. When you buy an app, you're buying it at that point. You're not buying the developer's soul. If they continue to work on it and improve it, it's pure gravy for the users. If they don't then you've already gotten what you've paid for. It doesn't border on fraud at all.
Bull crap. Having a half-off sale a week before dropping the app isn't honest in any way. What... Google approached them yesterday and they agreed this morning? I doubt that. More likely they've been in negotiations with Google for weeks. But it's in their best interests to move (in other words squeeze) as much product as possible before dropping the ball. Sleazy.
It's $4.99. I'm struggling to think what kind of software you used to be able to buy for that kind of money.
Re: Sparrow acquired by Google
#257I love how everyone here is complaining but if 90% of you were in that position you probably would have taken the offer.
I'd quite possibly have taken the offer, but I like to think I wouldn't have tried to gobble up as much final revenue as possible by offering it for half-off while I negotiated to turn it into abandonware.
Re: Sparrow acquired by Google
#258When I pay premium prices for apps it is under the assumption that I am helping the developers maintain and improve the application. If you are hoping to sell, you should price your app at $.99 and hope to get as many users as possible. That also helps me know what your plan is.
While it is a shame to the app effectively killed, calling it premium priced is just a reflection of how the app store has forced developers to push prices to the absolute bottom. Ad-in the fact that they had no recurring revenue model, getting a ton of new users could actually have been a false economy for them. They did not owe users an explanation of their future business plans, that's not how it works.
> While it is a shame to the app effectively killed, calling it premium priced is just a reflection of how the app store has forced developers to push prices to the absolute bottom.
It's an e-mail client. The major competitors are pretty much webmail (free), Outlook Express (free), Outlook (which you'd only use if you already paid for it as part of Office), Thunderbird (free), and Apple Mail (free). So, yes, it's a premium price for an e-mail client.
Re: Sparrow acquired by Google
#259Sparrow had a $4.99 (half-off) sale last weekend ( https://twitter.com/lifehacker/statuses/223750237490126849 ). Borders on fraud, if you ask me - scamming people into buying what they had to have known by then they were planning on turning into abandonware a week later.
Unless Sparrow had a guarantee that future updates were coming, what you paid for was the software as it existed at purchase time. That's what you got.
Re: Sparrow acquired by Google
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're being a little melodramatic here. When you buy an app, you're buying it at that point. You're not buying the developer's soul. If they continue to work on it and improve it, it's pure gravy for the users. If they don't then you've already gotten what you've paid for. It doesn't border on fraud at all.
Bull crap. Having a half-off sale a week before dropping the app isn't honest in any way. What... Google approached them yesterday and they agreed this morning? I doubt that. More likely they've been in negotiations with Google for weeks. But it's in their best interests to move (in other words squeeze) as much product as possible before dropping the ball. Sleazy.
Dude, you're paying for existing features and functionality.
For all you know the next release was a paid upgrade. Would that be fraudulent too?