The Mac App Store Needs Paid Upgrades • Hacker News Board

Re: The Mac App Store Needs Paid Upgrades

#61

Post by tptacek » Tue, Mar 27, 2012, 9:11 PM UTC

kennywinker wrote: post #28

benihana wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> without forcing everyone to become serfs. Calling people who willingly cede less than a third of their profits for access to the giant infrastructure and advertising Apple has at their disposal is a bit of hyperbole. It's a mutually beneficial arrangement for both parties, which both parties are free to sever at any time. Doesn't seem like serfdom to me.

Obvious hyperbole is obvious. IMO, the analogy stands. I'm not the only one who thinks so http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/10/serving-at-the-plea...

Wil Shipley makes a living selling a popular Mac application both on and off the Mac App Store.

Jeff Atwood has from what I can tell never shipped shrink-wrap software as an ISV on any platform (I don't mean that derisively).

Re: The Mac App Store Needs Paid Upgrades

#62

Post by seanalltogether » Tue, Mar 27, 2012, 9:14 PM UTC

r00fus wrote: post #40

seanalltogether wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which honestly underscores one of my biggest complaints when working inside Apples ecosystem. I always get the feeling that they're building solutions for themselves first, and developers second, they don't take an agnostic approach to creating a platform. A good example of this is when you look at their UIKit and Appkit frameworks, all of the components were designed to the specific behavior that Apples engineers wa…

There is one very important stakeholder you are ignoring in your analysis - the end user. Apple creates stuff not for devs or themselves, but for the real customers - who are the users of their devices and comptuers. In the case of paid upgrades, if it pains customers and leads to lower device sales, then Apple will come up with a solution to it. Developers (and Apple's internal team as well) come in at a distant sec…

The product teams absolutely should be focusing on the end user. However, the platform and framework teams should be supporting the features/tools for all devs. My criticism of the platforms that Apple pushes is that they seem to focus more on the specific needs of their internal teams than the broader needs of all the other devs that will be helping to grow the platform.

The line I occasionally hear in the apple dev community is "you can't change x/y/z on that component, you need to rebuild it from scratch", which time and again shows a very narrow focus in their tooling.

Re: The Mac App Store Needs Paid Upgrades

#63

Post by frio » Tue, Mar 27, 2012, 9:15 PM UTC

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #48

hammersend wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The alternative is Google, who doesn't release any top-tier paid apps on Android or Chrome Web Store." Google's business model isn't to release paid apps on their stores. They have many free apps that are downloaded by the 50's of millions and have 4.5-5 stars almost across the board so, yes, they do release top tier apps.

> Google's business model isn't to release paid apps This differs from every OS vendor I'm aware of in the past. Just noting. > they do release top tier apps. Could you point out to me some of these apps where the alternatives are sold for top-tier prices?

Compare Google Navigation on Android, to TomTom on iOS. Navigation is free, works perfectly, and even goes so far as to include a "Car Mode" for docking your phone in your car.

TomTom costs, at last check, $95NZD. I've not bothered trying it.

Re: The Mac App Store Needs Paid Upgrades

#64

Post by kennywinker » Tue, Mar 27, 2012, 9:29 PM UTC

msbarnett wrote: post #35

kennywinker wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you miss the headline? _Mac_ App Store. Full price upgrades works for Angry Birds, but anything less episodic or standalone and you have problems. See Tweetie 2, for an example. This issue is going to be rampant in the Mac App Store very very soon. It's been out for what, a year now? Time for a round of big updates... now you have two copies of all your apps.

> See Tweetie 2, for an example What's the example, exactly? Genuinely curious. I upgraded to Tweetie 2 as soon as it came out. My impression was that it was very successful right up until Twitter bought Atebits.

It's hard to say how much of that was noise, and what effect it had on sales / success, but there was a lot of hype about the paid upgrade leaving people unhappy.

Example headlines (Google "tweetie 2 paid update" for more):

"Tweetie 2 Pricing Controversy: An Interview with Tweetie's Creator ..."

"Tweetie 2: 'New App' – Will Spit On Existing 'Old App' Users | iSource"

"Still won't pay for Tweetie 2 upgrade? Try these Twitter apps ..."

"Tweetie pricing fuss highlights App Store flaw | Macworld"

Re: The Mac App Store Needs Paid Upgrades

#65

Post by stretchwithme » Tue, Mar 27, 2012, 9:33 PM UTC

I was just thinking about this last week.

Eventually, nearly all your users have already paid, leaving you unable to charge them for enhancing the app. You may have a huge installed base and eventually have no incentive to improve the product.

Re: The Mac App Store Needs Paid Upgrades

#66

Post by davepeck » Tue, Mar 27, 2012, 9:35 PM UTC

deedubaya wrote: post #6

As a developer with Apps in the MAS, I can see where this makes sense from the developer's perspective. But I think it is a mater of laziness on the dev's part. Let me explain: From a users perspective, this would suck. It is an antiquated system. "I have to pay for an upgrade just so it works on the new OS?" Think of how many times you've had to do this in the past, and how you felt. Apple will act in the best inter…

To address your point: this might seem like a good idea until you follow it to its logical conclusions. The support burden, especially on smaller developers, would be massive after even a small number of upgrades. Moreover, it's unclear how this would work in practice given that new purchasers of the app should have access to the upgraded features that old users need to acquire through IAP.

To address your side comment about laziness: the author of the original post is Wil Shipley, the guy who started both Omni Group and Delicious Monster. In other words, he's one of the longest-running and most financially successful "indie" devs in the Apple community. When he says stuff, people (including people at AAPL) pay attention, because what he says is a product of both a lot of experience and a lot more customers than most indies will ever see.

Re: The Mac App Store Needs Paid Upgrades

#67

Post by ghaff » Tue, Mar 27, 2012, 9:44 PM UTC

RandallBrown wrote: post #50

mikebracco wrote: post #8

I feel like the solution isn't paid upgrades but instead monthly/yearly subscription for access in the Mac App Store. The 'appification' of the web is eliminating the idea of major release "versions" of software...it's just an app in consumers' minds and it will always be the same product (with gradual improvement of course). As a result, just charge users for ongoing access to your app and keep them paying by provid…

I had an idea for a subscription service that would give developers a share of the subscription based on how much their app was used compared to other apps. That may work perfectly for the Mac App Store. So I pay 10 dollars a month to have access to the MAS and I download 3 apps. I use App A 50% of the time, App B 20% of the time and App C 30% of the time. (To keep the math simple lets pretend Apple doesn't take thei…

Interesting idea and somewhat akin to how music streaming pays the artists (well, the labels mostly). The challenge, as you allude to, is that software is a lot less homogenous. You only do one thing with a song--listen to it. You use software in a lot of different contexts and it's not obvious that time running is going to give equitable results. And Pro-ishness is also very context-dependent. For me, Final Cut might be a hobby thing. For you, it might be something you depend on for your livelihood.

That said, I do think we're going to see more experimentation with subscription models. Adobe's Creative Cloud is one example. I could imagine some sort of aggregator of games as well.

Re: The Mac App Store Needs Paid Upgrades

#68

Post by J3L2404 » Tue, Mar 27, 2012, 9:44 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #37

mikebracco wrote: post #8

I feel like the solution isn't paid upgrades but instead monthly/yearly subscription for access in the Mac App Store. The 'appification' of the web is eliminating the idea of major release "versions" of software...it's just an app in consumers' minds and it will always be the same product (with gradual improvement of course). As a result, just charge users for ongoing access to your app and keep them paying by provid…

As with other ideas mentioned, depends on the app. In general, I think people have a limited appetite for subscriptions because every subscription is a "money leak" to be monitored and managed. There is something of a trend in that direction but I'm skeptical that it becomes the standard way to pay for software.

Saas sucks for the user but is great for the developer because people forget to stop the service. Also that protects them from copyright violation, which most users of this site believe is their natural born right.

Re: The Mac App Store Needs Paid Upgrades

#69

Post by Terretta » Tue, Mar 27, 2012, 9:47 PM UTC

Apple’s not keeping iWork up-to-date despite sitting on one hundred billion dollars.

And here I was blissfully unaware that Pages and Keynote had rotted into uselessness simply because of the calendar year.

Re: The Mac App Store Needs Paid Upgrades

#70

Post by grecy » Tue, Mar 27, 2012, 9:58 PM UTC

Terretta wrote: post #69

Apple’s not keeping iWork up-to-date despite sitting on one hundred billion dollars. And here I was blissfully unaware that Pages and Keynote had rotted into uselessness simply because of the calendar year.

> And here I was blissfully unaware that Pages and Keynote had rotted into uselessness simply because of the calendar year.

This is a very good point. In this consumerist society, if a "new" version is not produced at least once a year, obviously the old one is not worth having.