Yes, it's a cogent reminder of just how important it is to handle any kind of systemic change with grace, diplomacy and extreme sensitivity to your users' anxieties. DayOne has not, alas, delivered a shining example of any of those qualities.

Shame. Ah well, a CRIMPer's life is never dull...

So Pierre, when are you going to produce a version of InfoQube for Mac? Just asking!

Cheers,
Bill

I forgot to mention a good thing about Alfons Schmid's Notebooks is that all documents are store in plain site in the filesystem, inside an unencoded folder hierarchy in whatever format the document was when it imported or created -- .docx, .pdf, .rtf, .html, .md and so on. There is absolutely NO data lock-in. I think this is a major pro in Notebooks favor. DEVONthink also stores docs in their native format.

After migrating all my Day One journals to Bear I realized it is no simple matter to get documents out of Bear that contain text and images. Bear knows nothing about .rtfd. The best bet is to export from Bear to .textbundle or .pdf.

I'm now very wary about apps that stick my data into SQLite databases -- such as Day One. Fool me once ... etc.

MadaboutDana wrote:

(...) >So Pierre, when are you going to produce a version of InfoQube for Mac? Just asking!

Sorry Bill, but I have plans for a macOS version of InfoQube but ...

- Did you know that it runs just fine on Parallels and VMware ?
- Also, some users got it going on Crossover with some issues which we could certainly iron-out if someone is keen on working with me on this
https://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/crossover/infoqube


HTH !

Pierre Paul Landry
IQ Designer
http://www.infoqube.biz

I can vouch for that. InfoQube on a Windows 10 VM under Parallels is top notch.


Pierre Paul Landry wrote

Sorry Bill, but I have plans for a macOS version of InfoQube but ...

- Did you know that it runs just fine on Parallels and VMware ?

David Sparks has a post on his Mac blog that is reasonably sympathetic to the principle behind Day One's move, although it does not discuss the way it was done: https://www.macsparky.com/blog/2017/7/productivity-apps-and-subscription-pricing

I read that. He likes developers therefore the developer's pricing is reasonable.

Hugh wrote:

David Sparks has a post on his Mac blog that is reasonably sympathetic
to the principle behind Day One's move, although it does not discuss the
way it was done:
https://www.macsparky.com/blog/2017/7/productivity-apps-and-subscription-pricing

As I read it: He likes productivity software, therefore he likes developers of productivity software, therefore support them so they keep making productivity software.

Paul Korm wrote:

I read that. He likes developers therefore the developer's pricing is
reasonable.

Hugh wrote:
David Sparks has a post on his Mac blog that is reasonably sympathetic
>to the principle behind Day One's move, although it does not discuss
the
>way it was done:
>https://www.macsparky.com/blog/2017/7/productivity-apps-and-subscription-pricing

I too am "sympathetic" to the developer of DayOne. I want them to succeed. But I reread their so called explanation of what their Premium service means and find it super complicated and tenuous. I think -- as a current DayOne Plus licensee -- I am entitled to get the Premium service "locked in" for $25 a year. Here's how they put it:

"...current users get to lock in a Premium subscription for $24.99 (USD)/year. (We don't have any planned expiration date for this offer at this time. If it is going to expire, we'll notify users via social media and in-app messaging.)"

Doesn't sound locked in to me.

For new users to have to pay $50 a year seems prohibitive. I can't imagine they'll get many buyers. (Even the introductory price of $35 seems high, especially if you've never used DayOne before. There are other options that are cheaper. Penzu is $10 a year... As a cloud-based app it isn't exactly comparing apples to apples, but most people won't really care that much and Penzu is a nice app with an excellent iPad version.)

Whelp, that's another 2 cents worth from me.

Steve Z.

I think that's what's baffled me most about the DayOne change - it's so unclear! I mean, WTF?

The storing of docs in their original format thing mentioned by Paul earlier is a very good point. Interestingly, a lot of top Mac information managers do exactly that (EagleFiler, Together, DEVONthink, Curiota, and of course Notebooks). This makes for considerable flexibility - you can have multiple apps pointing at the same collection (with some exceptions - some of the above-named apps insist on creating their own "libraries"), and of course you can use Spotlight on any/all of them.

The issue of encryption does rear its charming/ugly head again, however...

Michael Tsai (SpamSieve) has an short thread regarding subscriptions on his blog.

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2017/07/20/productivity-apps-and-subscription-pricing/

His conclusion (thus far)

@Michael Tsai wrote:

My hunch is that, for an app under ongoing development, many people would be fine paying a subscription that averages out to about the same amount they had previously been paying per year (initial purchase plus occasional upgrades). When I hear that an app is switching to a “sustainable model,” this is what I assume people mean is happening. The benefits to the developer are obvious, and provided that development continues at the same pace it seems fair to the customer as well. (Let’s put aside for now the concern that subscriptions change incentives, so that you’d be paying the same price but not getting the type of development that you want.) It may even be beneficial because the costs are more predictable, and you can avoid large up-front payments for big apps.
But that doesn’t seem to be what’s been happening. Instead, we’ve seen subscriptions combined with price increases, customers balking, and insinuations that people just don’t want to pay for anything anymore. With more than one variable changing at once, I don’t think we can conclude that people hate subscriptions. Am I missing any examples of apps that switched to subscriptions without really changing the price?

@MadaboutDana wrote:

I think that's what's baffled me most about the DayOne change - it's so
unclear! I mean, WTF?