SheetPlanner wrote:

The planned release cadence is 1.0, 1.1, 1,2, Pro version followed by
iOS standard and Pro versions.
It will take about a year before we start work on iOS versions however
about 50% of the the code will be portable.....
Thanks,
Peter

Sounds like a realistic roadmap. Though I'd prefer a Windows version over the iOS app :-D
Are you prepared to reveal what vs. 1.1, 1.2 and the Pro edition will bring with regard to features?

I don't think we should underestimate the drag on developer resources that comes from Apple's annual OS update cycle. Every year, some part of the resource pool has to be devoted to analysing the changes and ensuring compatibility. It's probably more of an issue for older apps, that might still have old code doing useful things, but it's a cost to all devs really.

That said, Sheetplanner won't suffer from the effects of age, but I think Peter is right to focus first on a successful Mac implementation before considering other platforms. As a well-fed Mac user, I am, of course, being completely objective about this :-)

Paul Korm wrote:

That's a very good point. On the other hand, although I have no
special depth of understanding of iOS development, I've observed that
making an app work effectively on both macOS and iOS has completely
changed the dynamic for several developers. It appears from outside
that once DEVONthink to Go was released, it sucked the focus development
company away from the desktop product -- which pretty much ceased to
evolve other than minor updates. When Agenda came out of iOS, new
features stopped arriving for the desktop app. Even OmniGroup, which
supposedly has a deeper bench than most, is unable to co-deliver on two
platforms without a 6-12 month gap between. It took TheBrain almost 18
months after the desktop beta began to even offer an initially-week test
of their iOS app.

So, though I would like to see SheetPlanner introduced everywhere
quickly, I think Peter is making a reasonable decision in line with
(unfortunate but real) best practices.

Luhmann wrote:
I'm happy to hear it, but my experience with apps that didn't start with
>iOS from the beginning has been very disappointing. I don't understand
>the technical issues but most apps have delayed planned release for
>years, had to bring on additional developers, etc. So while I hope that
>things go smoothly for you, my experience has taught me not to use an
>app unless there is already a half-decent iOS app that syncs properly.

Several people suggested that the desktop-first development strategy is realistic. I suppose a lot depends on whether the developer is doing this to make a living or just as a labor of love. If the latter, I wish them the best of luck. If it is a business, however, I'm not sure I understand. There are a couple of problems. First is that it is a heavily saturated market in which competitors already support multiple platforms. Why would anyone who already has a decent product that supports all their devices switch to something that didn't? I suppose it is OK if you have enough users who spend all day and night in front of a desktop computer, but from the stats I see on websites I manage I know that most people are now visiting from mobile devices. What are these users supposed to do when they want to add some task away from their computer? Wait till they get home or to the office? Use another device? OK, so maybe it makes sense as a long-term plan. In two or three years there will be support for multiple devices and then the business will really take off because of all that time working on making sure that you have a really solid foundation on the desktop. Maybe, but (unless I'm wrong about this) you would have to manage with a really limited user base during that time, and by the time you are ready the competitors will already be releasing the next generation upgrades of their products. Even though I don't use Things 3, I admit that it was a pretty amazing update from Things 2. What will Things 4 look like? The developer of 2Do (who supports 3 platforms on his own) is in the process of buying BusyCal, what will it look like when he's finished integrating the two apps? So, to repeat what I said at the beginning. As a labor of love, and a playground to experiment with some really interesting ideas I think this is fantastic, but I really don't see anything taking off without mobile from the very beginning…

OT:

Luhmann wrote:

The
developer of 2Do (who supports 3 platforms on his own) is in the process
of buying BusyCal, what will it look like when he's finished integrating
the two apps?

I didn't know that. Having recently switched to BusyCal and finding it better for my purposes than its competitors, I hope that it doesn't get relegated to the back of the queue for development.

Some good points here, though I'd substitute "Windows" for each instance of "mobile" or "iOS". Last I looked, the iOS market was but a speck of the Windows market.

And I take exception to part of this:

First is that it [the merry world of Mac] is a heavily saturated market in which competitors already support multiple platforms.

Most of the really good Mac outliner software does *not* support Windows. Why indeed develop yet more software (which does basically the same thing) for a "heavily saturated market" when the bone-dry, by comparison, Windows market looks pleadingly up from its supine position, arid tongue desperate for the merest drop of Ulysses or DevonThink or ...


Luhmann wrote:

Several people suggested that the desktop-first development strategy is
realistic. I suppose a lot depends on whether the developer is doing
this to make a living or just as a labor of love. If the latter, I wish
them the best of luck. If it is a business, however, I'm not sure I
understand. There are a couple of problems. First is that it is a
heavily saturated market in which competitors already support multiple
platforms. Why would anyone who already has a decent product that
supports all their devices switch to something that didn't? I suppose it
is OK if you have enough users who spend all day and night in front of a
desktop computer, but from the stats I see on websites I manage I know
that most people are now visiting from mobile devices. What are these
users supposed to do when they want to add some task away from their
computer? Wait till they get home or to the office? Use another device?
OK, so maybe it makes sense as a long-term plan. In two or three years
there will be support for multiple devices and then the business will
really take off because of all that time working on making sure that you
have a really solid foundation on the desktop. Maybe, but (unless I'm
wrong about this) you would have to manage with a really limited user
base during that time, and by the time you are ready the competitors
will already be releasing the next generation upgrades of their
products. Even though I don't use Things 3, I admit that it was a pretty
amazing update from Things 2. What will Things 4 look like? The
developer of 2Do (who supports 3 platforms on his own) is in the process
of buying BusyCal, what will it look like when he's finished integrating
the two apps? So, to repeat what I said at the beginning. As a labor of
love, and a playground to experiment with some really interesting ideas
I think this is fantastic, but I really don't see anything taking off
without mobile from the very beginning…

Learned about it by accident searching for something on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/Lito_D/status/1009152295597006848

Luhmann wrote:

Several people suggested that the desktop-first development strategy is
realistic. I suppose a lot depends on whether the developer is doing
this to make a living or just as a labor of love. If the latter, I wish
them the best of luck. If it is a business, however, I'm not sure I
understand. There are a couple of problems.

Steve Jobs correctly diagnosed years ago what was happening in the market, though he met a lot of resistance. In 2010 he gave his then-provocative 'trucks vs cars' speech at the D8 conference, saying, "When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks, because that’s what you needed on the farm. But as vehicles started to be used in the urban centers, cars got more popular. Innovations like automatic transmission and power steering and things that you didn’t care about in a truck as much started to become paramount in cars. … PCs are going to be like trucks. They’re still going to be around, they’re still going to have a lot of value, but they’re going to be used by one out of X people.”

And then around three years later tablets outsold notebooks in the US. (Albeit most of them used for consumption.)

And even then, in 2013 more of the (poorer) world found itself doing more of its computing (and banking, and buying/selling crops, etc) with a phone than a proper computer. Cheaper yet moderately capable mobile devices simply leapfrogged sales and use of desktop machines and took hold.

Since 2007 sales of PCs had been flat at an average of around 350m/year, though it's been shrinking: global 2016 and 2017 shipments each totaled around 260 million shipments, while more than that many smartphones were sold in the Xmas quarters *alone*. According to IDC around 1.5 billion smartphones were shipped in 2017, which doesn't of course even count the number of phones still in use but purchased prior to 2017. (Doesn't count global tablet of 175m-200m/year either, for that matter).

Software sales are interesting. There's rampant pirating in Windows and Android sideloading (and to a lesser extent, Mac). And while Google’s Play Store has now reached 36 billion downloads in the first half of 2018 in comparison to the 15 billion downloads for Apple’s App Store, Apple owners spent $22.6bn on applications in the first half of 2018, almost double that of Android users ($11.8bn collectively across the Play Store, Amazon’s App Store and alternatives offered on the platform). Regardless of who's buying or stealing, $34 billion in app mobile sales in this year's first six months alone tells an important story to developers about where their customers are, or could be, or are going.

(The one caveat for business and productivity software developers is that for 2017 and 2018 around 80% of that revenue is from games.)

All computer and phone makers have understood these trends. I think one way Apple is acknowledging reality (and helping support its macOS 'trucks') has been by working on easily porting iOS apps to Mac hardware by melding iOS app frameworks to next year's macOS foundation (as opposed to using an emulator). This is going to open a floodgate of opportunity to the vastly larger iOS dev crowd to sell Mac apps, as well as help rejuvenate the Mac App Store.

I think what this will also mean is that - *assuming* the framework offers sufficient Mac hooks, looks and power - many existing cross-platform Mac/iOS apps will find it more cost-effective and less programming-intensive to rationalise their code base with an iOS base and eliminate the Mac-only versions.

Seeing as @busymac replied to the question of "what change" -- "Totally separate for now as both apps co-exist well and cater specific audiences. The overall usability / workflows are unique and would be kept that way. The idea is to drive the two forward in their own ways."

Sounds like a financial marriage vs. product strategy.

Good. Neither app needs breaking.


Luhmann wrote:

Learned about it by accident searching for something on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/Lito_D/status/1009152295597006848

satis wrote:

Since 2007 sales of PCs had been flat at an average of around 350m/year,
though it's been shrinking: global 2016 and 2017 shipments each totaled
around 260 million shipments, while more than that many smartphones were
sold in the Xmas quarters *alone*. According to IDC around 1.5 billion
smartphones were shipped in 2017, which doesn't of course even count the
number of phones still in use but purchased prior to 2017. (Doesn't
count global tablet of 175m-200m/year either, for that matter).

Software sales are interesting. There's rampant pirating in Windows and
Android sideloading (and to a lesser extent, Mac). And while
Google’s Play Store has now reached 36 billion downloads in the
first half of 2018 in comparison to the 15 billion downloads for
Apple’s App Store, Apple owners spent $22.6bn on applications in
the first half of 2018, almost double that of Android users ($11.8bn
collectively across the Play Store, Amazon’s App Store and
alternatives offered on the platform). Regardless of who's buying or
stealing, $34 billion in app mobile sales in this year's first six
months alone tells an important story to developers about where their
customers are, or could be, or are going.

I don't think pirating is the reason for the high sale of Mac over Android.

The reason, in my view, is different purposes of the systems for the end user.

That is why I am skeptical of development by merely counting the number of devices sold.

I have 3 android phones; 1 ipad and 1 mac.

All the serious investments I made on software are for the mac. The reason is clear: the mac is where the serious job is done.

So, merely counting the number of devices misguides the developers.
if your software targets individuals who want to use the software for serious tasks, you better target the PC (mac) sphere before the mobile.

is it a number including Mac App store or just ios appstore?

If you are comparing just ios, I might get you wrong. Sorry

People are going to do their *serious* work, which often involves multiple programs, multiple screens, and even multiple monitors, with lots of screen space, on mobile phones? I don't see that happening (though I'm not Steve Jobs, and so my visionary chops are limited to how *I* work). Anyone who ditches development of major software for Mac and Windows platforms is investing too much time looking at statistics and too little in common sense.

-- Bob

Dellu wrote:

I don't think pirating is the reason for the high sale of Mac over
Android.

You mean iOS over Android, yes?

No, there's no *single* reason. One of the most important points is this: because Android is licensed for 'free' and most phones sold around the world are cheap, the average Android customer on the planet is NOT going to pay large amounts for apps. Indeed, a large proportion of Android users won't even consider paying 99¢ for an app. Statistically iOS has wealthier customers, and those customers tend not to pirate, and tend to pay for apps. iOS users, compared to Android, tend to spend more money on their devices for shopping and apps, period.

Piracy: it is a huge reason, depending on app and on region. The developer of the hit game Monument Valley said that only 5% of Android installs were paid for. And according to AndroidAuthority.com, going back to 2012 only 10% of the apps that were downloaded were actually purchased, indicating that the rate of piracy was indeed somewhere around 90% — even back then. The mobile game Dead Trigger, which debuted with a mere $0.99 price tag on both Android and iOS, was hit with such a high Android piracy rate the devs had no choice but to make the Android version free. In 2012, Gamasutra reported that piracy for a game called Shadowgun reached 90% on Android.

https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/176214/The_Android_piracy_problem.php

In 2013, a report by SlashGear for one developer showed a 95% piracy rate for Android games while the iOS counterparts of those same games showed a 5% piracy rate.

https://www.slashgear.com/95-android-game-piracy-experience-highlights-app-theft-challenge-15282064/

As former developer Matt Gemmell pointed out in 2012, Android was essentially built for piracy.

https://mattgemmell.com/closed-for-business/

It's very easy to sideload and to download cracked apps from pirate sites with Android. Much less so with iOS unless you jailbreak (an increasingly difficult thing to do, and something fewer and fewer people are involved in doing).

Finally, China is a massive piracy stronghold, in part because piracy has little stigma there (ask Microsoft about the piracy rate of Windows since 1985), and part because the Google Play store does not exist in China, so users easily buy pirated apps from a number of different Chinese-language online stores. According to Tapcore estimates app downloads from third-party stores totaled about 70 billion in 2017, and of those 15-20%, or as many as 14 billion app installs, were pirated. For premium apps -- that users pay for before downloading -- Tapcore estimates that a massive 95% of installs are pirated. For freemium apps, which monetize via in-app purchases or advertising, only 11% of global installs are pirated.

tightbeam wrote:

People are going to do their *serious* work, which often involves
multiple programs, multiple screens, and even multiple monitors, with
lots of screen space, on mobile phones?

No one said that would be going away, just seriously fading in popularity. We see it already. You need a 'truck'? Sure, go ahead and use one. But "serious" work is done all over - on desks, planes, coffeehouses, beds - with devices 13" or much smaller. Jobs used that truck analogy in discussing the then-new iPad, by the way. Between iOS devices, Chromebooks, laptops and subnotebooks a lot of serious work is getting done.

All,
SheetPlanner 1.0 beta 2 went out last night.
Please let me know if you would like to be added to the beta.
Thanks,
Peter

Yes please.

SheetPlanner wrote:

All,
SheetPlanner 1.0 beta 2 went out last night.
Please let me know if you would like to be added to the beta.
Thanks,
Peter

Still no issues for me. Beginning today, I give it a much more rigorous testing as the fall semester begins tomorrow, and I'm revamping one of my courses completely. I'm really liking the outline/project manager/spreadsheet paradigm.

Jeffery

I'd like to be added as a tester.
Steve

Steve,
I will be sending out beta 3 tonight or tomorrow and will add you to the list.
Thanks,
Peter

steve-rogers wrote:

I'd like to be added as a tester.
Steve

Jake,
Can you provide me an email address to be added as a beta tester.
Thanks,
Peter

JakeBernsteinWA wrote:

Yes please.

SheetPlanner wrote:
All,
>SheetPlanner 1.0 beta 2 went out last night.
>Please let me know if you would like to be added to the beta.
>Thanks,
>Peter

Please use jake.bernstein at gmail.com. Thanks!

SheetPlanner wrote:

Jake,
Can you provide me an email address to be added as a beta tester.
Thanks,
Peter

JakeBernsteinWA wrote:
Yes please.
>
>SheetPlanner wrote:
>All,
>>SheetPlanner 1.0 beta 2 went out last night.
>>Please let me know if you would like to be added to the beta.
>>Thanks,
>>Peter

Sorry, just a security tic of mine: It's not a good idea to post your email address here -- better to write Peter offline. This site is index (pretty rapidly) in Google and harvesting even supposedly obscured addresses can lead to trouble. Especially since we cannot edit or delete posts.

I thought about it and decided that my Gmail address is so widely distributed (and hooked up to Sanebox) that I would risk it. But yes, I totally agree. It would be best if we had the ability to PM or have profiles.

Grab a disposable email address for free at https://www.33mail.com/