Horror as iOS 7 developer charges for update
The sheer outrage was palpable across the internet today as iOS developer Tapbots announced a refreshed version of its Twitter client Tweetbot, and charged users for it. As The Verge pointed out:
Tweetbot 3 for iPhone gets a fresh new design, but at a price
That price was a shocking $2.99, enough, according to ‘back of an envelope’ calculations to feed a family of four for a month. It’s no wonder The Verge then continued:
Tweetbot 3’s new design will be controversial, but so will its price.
Everyone has reason to be disgusted. It’s a well known fact that iOS developers don’t have expenses and in fact survive solely on a diet of unicorns and Jony Ive’s tears, living in houses powered by rainbows. And if you’ve owned the old version of Tweetbot since its original release in August 2011, it will have so far cost you a penny a week, which is enough to stretch the budget of any typical consumer.
That Tapbots is now charging for an update shows how little the company thinks of its audience, and is entirely unacceptable. The only logical response is for everyone to smash their iPhones to pieces in a rage or, alternatively, whine on Twitter about how unfair it is to pay $2.99 for an app they’ll use daily for many months on a $500+ iPhone.
You are right, it is absurd that people are complaining about 2 or 3 $ for an app. Developers got to live, they have to earn money.
But i think that we are now in a slightly pervert situation when it comes to iOS Apps and pricing.
Those apps where much to cheap in the first place.
Take myself as an example… on my iPad there are 300+ apps.
Some where free, most of them paid.
If iOS had the ability to host more feature rich and complex apps, and if those apps existed (at an higher price point) i would probably only have 20 or 30 apps on my iPad.
But updating 300+ apps and paying 2 or 3 $ for each… that makes me scratch my head.
Plus say you have monthly expanses for software like Evernote or Office 365 or…
I can understand that the average consumer (not the nerd, not the geek, not the designer, not the developer) starts scratching his head and wonders how much money he is actually willing to pay for software and services.
But i was the low price point and the limitations of iOS and its apps that led us in this situation in the first place.
I don’t know how this will end, i guess many developers will drop out over time, new ones will come in. But it will be a market of constant change. Unless the whole situation changes and we get higher priced and more feature rich and complex apps. So that we have less apps and still are satisfied.
Sadly everything is working against this at the moment, just thing of Apples constant dumping down of software – like in the latest iWork update. Take the features away, so that people always need one more app…
I whole heartedly agree that it’s fine for mobile app developers to charge for updates. As a developer of a SaaS app I’m always quite surprised how mobile app developers don’t do that and how they can justify keeping investing into an app that only makes them a few bucks once.
On the other hand I read the Verge’s article and don’t see any complaining in it at all. They inform you about the new price, but then also include a video and a quote of others saying how the upgrade is totally worth it. Could it be that some longer brewing frustration is projected on top of that article?
The Verge doesn’t get away with this in my eyes. The headline says “for a price”, and the price-tag’s considered “controversial”, despite being three bucks. Whatever else The Verge does in the article, it’s already derailed paid-for software on iOS.
utterly boils my piss seeing how much people de-value the developers of software and apps they have paid almost nothing for.
What’s particularly sad about this is that all Twitter apps have a limited window of time to make money before they run out of tokens (unless the situation has changed), so $3 is a particularly low price for this major revamp.
That whole Twitter token thing is such a mess. I see that Twitter is using it to make sure no third-party tool can become *the* way the majority of Twitter users access the service. But I see that as ugly protectionism. It’s also exactly the sort of thing that makes app.net more attractive.
And yep, even hinting at complaining about prices at this level is just nuts.