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Sparrow acquired by Google

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Re: Sparrow acquired by Google

#371

Post by encoderer »

koide wrote: post #334
encoderer wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sparrow isn't Instagram. Most acqui-hires lately have been, essentially, large signing bonuses. Six figures per founder. Not "FU" money.

Any high six figures (say, over .5 million) figure is actually FU money, as long as you can invest reasonably safely and well and have modest living standards. I'm amazed at how often I read here that even a million is pocket change that changes nothing on the receivers life.

Are you familiar with how expensive it is to live here? You cannot buy a decent house in a fair school district for less than $500k. Probably more like $750k. For two bedrooms.

Re: Sparrow acquired by Google

#372

Post by koide »

encoderer wrote: post #371
koide wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any high six figures (say, over .5 million) figure is actually FU money, as long as you can invest reasonably safely and well and have modest living standards. I'm amazed at how often I read here that even a million is pocket change that changes nothing on the receivers life.

Are you familiar with how expensive it is to live here? You cannot buy a decent house in a fair school district for less than $500k. Probably more like $750k. For two bedrooms.

I live where a house with two bedrooms costs more than a million. I'm certain half a million would significantly change my life.

I just don't need such a house.

Re: Sparrow acquired by Google

#373

Post by stevenleeg »

orenmazor wrote: post #253
stevenleeg wrote: post #117

Just 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

> You were more than 16 000 helping us on our Apple quest to get the VoIP privilege.  We can’t thank you enough for your support. Unfortunately, Apple has confirmed that they are not willing to do any exception to the rule and that Sparrow will NOT be granted with the privilege. This means we’ll have to do Push on our side and that it will be integrated as a yearly subscription into Sparrow’s future update.

From their blog: http://blog.sparrowmailapp.com/

Re: Sparrow acquired by Google

#374

Post by shinratdr »

dionidium wrote: post #309
shinratdr wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is arguing otherwise? We're not allowed to gripe without implying it was unfair? I think it sucks, and as a user that bought the app strictly to support future progress I feel abandoned. I don't really give a shit if I have a "say" or not in their decisions. I don't like how it went down. Assuming they leave Google and launch another startup (which we all know they will) I certainly won't be supporting them in th…

You think that another person should turn down (what was likely) enough money to support their families for the rest of their lives because you invested $10 in their email application? This is what you believe?

Not at all. Did you even read my comment? I said they burned their goodwill.

If it really was enough for them to live on and comfortably leave development, then kudos to them. They don't need that goodwill anymore from us. Assuming they come back with another startup a couple years down the line, which we all know they will, then we'll see if it was a smart decision.

Re: Sparrow acquired by Google

#375

Post by ceejayoz »

john2x wrote: post #367
3am_hackernews wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did too and got one within 4 hours.

Care to share how you did it? Never tried asking for a refund on the App Store before. I bought it last week during the sale and feel a bit cheated. Thanks.

http://www.apple.com/support/mac/app-store/contact/, submit a "Billing - Other" issue, and you'll hear back quite quickly. I've always had good experiences with them.

Re: Sparrow acquired by Google

#376

Post by shinratdr »

franzus wrote: post #355
shinratdr wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is ridiculous. Plenty of apps have existed for decades on those prices. Small, dedicated devs are the lifeblood of OS X and iOS contrary to what those who don't use the platforms believe. I have had no reason to expect this to be the norm in the past and I have no reason to expect it now. You don't just get to abandon your users without repercussions, as easy as that would make things for you. You can comfort yo…

Abandon? You bought the app in its current state for $10. Any further development + new features is nice but not something you are entitled to. As long as they don't delete your copy of the app everything is fine.

> You bought the app in its current state for $10.

I bought many apps on my system for around $10-$20. Some of them have been around for decades. The cost is near irrelevant. If you altered your workflow to incorporate the app, you invested in it.

They abandoned the product, and as such abandoned their users. Devs are welcome to write out long lists of excuses as to why this is incorrect. Doesn't change how their abandoned customers feel about what they did. If anything it just makes it worse.

> new features is nice but not something you are entitled to.

Who is talking about entitlement? I don't think I deserve it innately. I just want it because other companies can provide it. If this group considers an app lifespan of over a year and a half to be "entitlement" then I won't be supporting them anymore. I'll take that money to a dev that just considers supporting their customers part of the deal instead of a fringe benefit.

I'm also not looking for free new features, I just want the app to have a future. If that involves a price increase or paid upgrades I'm on board. The $10 is negligible. The time spent unlearning that app and relearning a new one isn't.

Re: Sparrow acquired by Google

#377

Post by mh- »

epo wrote: post #349
mindcrime wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And now you've gotten lesson #1 on why F/OSS solutions have one huge advantage over their proprietary counterparts: If the original developers of a F/OSS app decide to drop it, you have choices. In the best case, another group of devs may simply fork the project and keep it going, or you ('you' in the general sense here) may choose to bring development in-house, or contract with a 3rd party to maintain and upgrade th…

Yet more wild-eyed, open source zealotry. No GUI-based F/OSS product has ever achieved the level of polish and usability of things like Sparrow because the people working on open source projects only want to do coding, they don't care about design, bug detection, documentation or, God forbid, user interfaces. If the developers of Sparrow had not been paid for their work, which they ensured by keeping it under their c…

I agree with your post so I want to add something which I think was your intent:

* without a corporate "sponsor" entity behind it. (Chromium => Google, etc.)

Re: Sparrow acquired by Google

#378

Post by mh- »

jeffool wrote: post #317
david_shaw wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As for the Sparrow desktop app, well, obviously Google isn't going to be developing a native desktop app for Gmail... Why not? Why would they acqui-hire a team who have already built an amazing desktop mail app and not release one of their own? Is the idea that Google may simply rebrand Sparrow to "GMail Desktop" so completely out of the realm of possibility? Sure, maybe they want the developers to work on other pr…

I could very easily see "Gmail Offline" becoming a standalone program rather than a Chrome app. I don't get why that's so insane to people either.

Name a well-maintained desktop-based app from Google.

Google Talk, Google Desktop (incl. Google Gadgets)...

Re: Sparrow acquired by Google

#379

Post by mh- »

crag wrote: post #246
dave5104 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that just open sourcing the code could have even worse effects on the app/brand than a simple end of life. Clearly if the app in question had a good following, it was a decent product created by folks who knew what they were doing. By open sourcing it, anyone could jump in and that anyone may not be qualified to make the best product decisions. Maybe I'm just being too sentimental here, but I'd rather t…

I guess it would depend on who jumped in to maintain it. I mean, look around. There are many high quality open source apps. Just saying.

mobile ones? graphical, desktop ones? not _that_ many

Re: Sparrow acquired by Google

#380

Post by azza-bazoo »

BlackNapoleon wrote: post #174
azza-bazoo wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Gmail is pretty much perfect There isn't any room for improvement in Gmail? Really? It's still using the same basic design of every email client since forever (labels/mailboxes at the left, inbox shows a time-sorted list of messages, click through a message to read). Meanwhile Sparrow showed what was possible if you sit down and at least tried to rethink the email interface -- with things like gestures, or by shift…

Google invented the entire notion of email streams. Did you forget that? People weren't used to seeing emails that followed like IM conversations.

... which still doesn't excuse them not running with the idea and continuing to improve. Sparrow did; maybe I should have said "shifting further".

(And yes, Gmail popularized conversation view, but it was talked about at IBM Research and Microsoft Research years earlier. Of course, those guys are even worse at delivering innovative interfaces.)

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