This is a notice for Day One fans. According to the developer's blog, version 2 will be out on Thursday. Here's what they say about it:

[begin quote]
Day One 2 will be a new app on Mac and iOS with two headlining features: multiple journals and multiple photos per entry. It will remain a paid app and be priced at $9.99 for iOS and $39.99 for Mac. We will provide a 50% discount to both apps during the first week of its debut. Day One Classic (v1) will continue to be maintained as needed and is compatible with Day One 2 when using Day One Sync. [end quote]

Here's a link to the post for full details: http://dayoneapp.com/2016/01/introducing-day-one-2/

So the two significant things for me are the ability to have multiple journals (good) and the fact that you must use their sync service (maybe good, maybe bad). If the latter works fine, that's not a big deal, except that there seems to be an ever splintering of my personal information in various cloud locations: Evernote, WebBrain, iCloud, Dropbox, Asana, and soon Day One.

Anyway, since the 50% sale is for a limited time, I wanted to alert any other Day One users to be on the lookout for the new version.

Steve Z.

So...if I'm happy with using Dropbox and, in fact, need it to sync with Journaley on Windows, I should *not* give the developer more money. Got it.

40$ for a minor patch, I'm not convinced.

faustisch wrote:

40$ for a minor patch, I'm not convinced.

In fairness, Apple, for some reason, doesn't allow upgrade pricing in the app store, so I assume that's why it'll be $5 and $20 for the first week. Not sure even those prices are really worth it for what's being offered, though.

Thanks for the update Steve.

I was wondering why the App Store was calling the existing app "Day One Classic". The blog entry also has "Classic ... will continue to be maintained as needed", which probably means "good luck".

I like Day One, don't use it all that much, glad to have the little journal I made, would never use the social features. So Day One 2 (an ironic name) is probably an inevitable purchase.

Once more onto the upgrade treadmill. As each upgrade season comes and goes the ratio of marginal utility to marginal cost for the aggregate of all the newish things that I purchase has never been greater than 1.0 and is drifting downward well below 0.5. The marginal cost developers are looking for with their upgrade fees is usually not providing an offsetting amount of marginal joy.

As someone who finds utility with Day One, $25 in total to update on both OSx and iOS seems fair and reasonable to me. I don't want the developer to go belly up like so many others, so I'm happy to support them. Also, having multiple journals is a big deal to me, and will make Day One more useful.

Day One was the first app I used that I felt totally confident that it would sync properly. So they've earned my trust.

It remains to be seen how Day One "Classic" will be updated. That they released a new version just two days before the new edition comes out makes me optimistic they mean it when they imply it will be kept usable -- though I'm sure there will come a point when changes to the operating systems makes that unfeasible.

Per the name, yes, kind of silly sounding.

Steve Z.

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

As someone who finds utility with Day One, $25 in total to update on
both OSx and iOS seems fair and reasonable to me. I don't want the
developer to go belly up like so many others, so I'm happy to support
them. Also, having multiple journals is a big deal to me, and will make
Day One more useful.

Day One was the first app I used that I felt totally confident that it
would sync properly. So they've earned my trust.

It remains to be seen how Day One "Classic" will be updated. That they
released a new version just two days before the new edition comes out
makes me optimistic they mean it when they imply it will be kept usable
-- though I'm sure there will come a point when changes to the operating
systems makes that unfeasible.

Per the name, yes, kind of silly sounding.

Steve Z.

I'm all for supporting developers, but this is hardly a 2.0 version. They just want to cash in while their app is hot (with a little help from their friends at Apple, Lifehacker etc. who will promote their software). That doesn't seem like a sustainable business model to me.

faustisch wrote:

I'm all for supporting developers, but this is hardly a 2.0 version.
They just want to cash in while their app is hot (with a little help
from their friends at Apple, Lifehacker etc. who will promote their
software). That doesn't seem like a sustainable business model to me.

How long do you think a developer should provide free updates for his software? 2 years as with Day One, 5 years, 10 years?
And which developer do you know that can make a living from not charging for updates for more than 2 years? The only one I know is Keith Blount from Scrivener - he is able to earn enough money from new customers. But I think that is a rare exception in this business.

Franz

I have to agree with Franz. Mac and iOS developers have an increasingly hard time making money out of the Apple Store (especially for Mac), with no support for upgrades and irritating foibles like "family licensing" (meaning you more or less have to agree to license your software to multiple members of the same "family"; when prices are low in the first place, this must really grate!).

Day One is an extremely competent app I've been using for journaling for many years. I'm delighted by the new feature of multiple journals, because it means Day One can now function as e.g. a trip recorder, meetings recorder and various other things, as well as being a capable journal. And I don't mind trying out the developer's syncing service - I shall of course make a bit of a fuss if it doesn't work well!

Finally, USD 25 seems like a very reasonable price to me. Franz mentions Keith at Literature&Latte; I also think of OmniGroup and their various relatively high-priced products: also enormously popular, no matter what you may think of the individual apps. User efforts to beat prices lower and lower simply mean that developers start to restrict their efforts, which is why there are so few Windows touch apps, and why many of the best iOS apps have died a death. Also, why many of the top Mac apps have stopped using the Apple Store and are now distributed directly to users (thereby enabling upgrade prices and avoiding the sandboxing that can - in certain cases - be so irritating). Cunning developers offer apps on both Apple Store AND direct via the web, enticing users to the latter by offering upgrade pricing and extra features (e.g. PDF Expert for Mac by Readdle, one of the best iOS developers around).

Cheers,
Bill

MadaboutDana wrote:

I have to agree with Franz. Mac and iOS developers have an increasingly
hard time making money out of the Apple Store (especially for Mac), with
no support for upgrades and irritating foibles like "family licensing"
(meaning you more or less have to agree to license your software to
multiple members of the same "family"; when prices are low in the first
place, this must really grate!).

My understanding is that "Family Sharing" is optional and the developer can opt out. It was when it was introduced, at least.

My personal opinion

- Any dev can add new features via in-app purchases if sufficiently motivated. The idea that devs must eventually release an all-new version to keep continue their revenue stream - it just isn't true. Unfortunately, adding a feature as an optional purchase is 1) easier if they design their software for that from the beginning and 2) is more difficult than releasing an "all new" version.

- This loss of sync options kills it for me, and I've been a Day One admirer since day 1 (ha-ha!). I am a former info-sec professional for a Fortune 500 company. If there are rules of thumb in that field, then one of them is definitely that _everyone_ overestimates their ability to secure something. I am appropriately concerned about my data's security with the likes of Dropbox, Evernote, and sure, iCloud. Even companies selling "security products" like LastPass and 1Password find themselves in big trouble. My point: the makers of Day One should stick to their day jobs making day things - outsource this particular feature to the vendor(s) of our choosing.

shatteredmindofbob wrote:

In fairness, Apple, for some reason, doesn't allow upgrade pricing in
the app store,

True, but perhaps more developers could take advantage of in-app purchases as a way around this problem. For example:

1. Offer DayOne Version 2 as free, feature-limited app on the Mac App Store. This also serves as a free demo for new users.
2. Offer an in-app purchase to unlock all features for $40
3. Let those who had previously purchased DayOne Version 1 get the same in-app purchase for $20. In this way long-time users are rewarded.

OmniGroup does something like this:

https://support.omnigroup.com/upgrades-for-omni-apps-purchased-via-the-mac-app-store/

In 2012 Day One sold for $9.99. (Today, Day One Classic sells for $9.99.) I'll pay for the $20 "upgrade" to avoid the $39.99 and avoid a probable end-of-life on Day One Classic. I don't mind paying developers again from time to time. Is a 4 times increase reasonable? Paying for reputation points -- or paying for features?

Well, first impressions are very positive - and Day One Two (unconscious irony there, perhaps?) is an attractive piece of software with enough enhanced features to be worth the 2.0 upgrade.

However, I still haven't received my e-mail explaining how to join their Day One sync service, although I registered for it several hours ago. That will amuse many of you, no doubt!

I'm loving the new version of Day One. Having multiple journals (basically folders) makes it much more useful for me, since I like to keep different kinds of journal entries separate, and using tags didn't really do that for me. I can now keep my research notes separate from my private journal. In fact, one could conceivably use Day One as a replacement for Evernote or other markdown editors. The new sorting/filter options are very nicely done as well. The main issue for me is that password protection is not journal specific, but for the whole app. I'd use Day One much more if I could quickly open up a non-private journal without entering a password. As it is I use Letterspace together with the Day One sharing extension.

I got mine right away this morning. Perhaps there's a surge of orders coming through.

MadaboutDana wrote:

However, I still haven't received my e-mail explaining how to join their
Day One sync service, although I registered for it several hours ago.
That will amuse many of you, no doubt!

Yup, tried again yesterday afternoon, all went very smoothly. Just one of those little glitches.

A helpful review on Steve Z.'s site: https://welcometosherwood.wordpress.com Thanks, Steve.

I kvetched a little when this was announced.

I love day one. It's a great little cubby hole to log what I'm doing. But what I was underwhelmed with was where the updates had happened. Devs Gotta eat, and $25 every few years to keep the app active and managed is a pretty low ticket price.

Most of my use of day one is as s database - I barely pull the application up. I send data in using Launchbar to keep a log of activities when I'm working at my Mac, which is stupidly convenient and frictionless. I have slogger feeding in my task, bookmarking, foursquare, Twitter and online activities. I use Elizabeth to feed in my movements and maps from the Moves application. Every now and again, I need to launch Day One to look something up, so mostly I'm using search and filters in it.

Aesthetically, it's much nicer. But there seems to be an emphasis on images and photographs now - maybe this is what looks good in the App Store, but now I'm several thousand entries in, my nimble text diary is now touching hundreds of megs, and I fear the weight of it will push me back into pure text and org mode, and needing to re-establish all the lovely functionality I'd slowly accrued.

My biggest problems were two-fold. The first was more of a hiccup than a deal-breaker - having to update all the 3rd party systems I used to feed day one. Brett Terpstra posted a fix for slogger to make it work with D12, which was a trivial configuration change. However - Launchbar has integrated day one usage, which fails, so it's now a matter of when Objective Development issue an update. Elizabeth, the Moves importer, hasn't been updated for a year, so it's some node.js engineering work or dirty patching and symbolic linking. Overall, though - hiccups, nothing that fundamentally breaks things, just a bit of unexpected work. (For less technically minded users, this may be a pain, but they're also unlikely to be running node.js and Ruby scripts).

My real concern - and others have hinted at this - is having *another* sync service. I already have iCloud and Dropbox. Now there's *another* service in forced to use, and only for Day One. And on one level - so what? It's free, and it's just another username and password to remember.

But at another level, there are legal and jurisdictional issues. Suddenly, if I want to synchronise my diary, I have no idea what legal jurisdictions it's exposed to. Is it going through servers in the US, and exposing my data to US law? This isn't mentioned anywhere. Will the pricing change in future? We've just seen the Numerous app shit down from lack of revenue - is this the fate of Day One if there isn't sufficient enough a user base? Why can't I use *my own* servers and infrastructure to manage this sync?

I guess these are weird edge-case questions you start asking as you become older and curmudgeonly. I just find it very odd that the thing that's come about from upgrading my diary software is why, suddenly, my diary is subject to US law - in all likelihood. But I don't know, for sure - such is the nature of the cloud - but at least under iCloud and Dropbox sync, these were issues that had much more primacy and visibility.

And like the response to my tweet at the announcement - "you don't have to upgrade". And if Apple never update their software or OS again, they're absolutely right.

I feel like this has taken a slightly ranty turn. I love day one, but it's operating in an increasingly complex landscape, partly driven by user expectation - something I am guilty of, and I don't have answers for.