Forum Posts Feed
Forced Upgrades
< Next Topic | Back to topic list | Previous Topic >
Posted by Andy Brice
Jun 11, 2019 at 09:32 PM
Hugh wrote:
>The current macOS market environment, dominated by Apple’s app stores,
>(I’m less familiar with the Windows situation) is about as close as one
>can get in the real world to what my old economics lecturer called
>“perfect competition”, where prices are forced down competitively to the
>lowest just-sustainable level. Great for consumers in the short-term.
>Not so great for producers - and not so great for consumers in the
>long-term if good producers are not able to afford to invest for the
>future.
IIRC perfect competition is where the cost of a product is equal to its marginal cost of production. And the marginal cost of software (the cost to ship 1 extra copy) is zero (if you give no support).
Things do seem to be headed in that direction for commodity software. Many games and utilities are now free, just about supported by ever more intrusive ads.
I tried downloading a couple of games on my iPhone recently. The were completely unplayable due to the intrusive ads.
It is a race to the bottom. As a vendor and a consumer of software, I don’t really like where it is heading.
—
Andy Brice
https://www.hyperplan.com
Posted by Listerene
Jun 11, 2019 at 09:46 PM
In my experience, this is mostly an issue with MacOS rather than Windows. When I added a MacBook last year, I was struck by how few freeware alternatives there were and how many mom & pop developers there were (essentially) duplicating existing programs and charging an arm and a leg for their offerings; each either issuing paid-for updates right & left or disappearing.
It’s what happens when 90.5% of computer users choose something other than MacOS; there just are waaay too many developers chasing waaay too few users and so you get ridiculously priced software (to begin with) accompanied by (ultimately) ridiculously priced updates. Developers must either squeeze users further or walk away.
I don’t see this occurring with Windows software, at all.
It’s only gonna get worse as Apple continues to chase users away with MacBook keyboards that crap out regularly and machines which can’t be upgraded. It’s just a question of time before Mac users decline even more.
Posted by Andy Brice
Jun 11, 2019 at 11:02 PM
Listerene wrote:
>It’s only gonna get worse as Apple continues to chase users away with
>MacBook keyboards that crap out regularly and machines which can’t be
>upgraded. It’s just a question of time before Mac users decline even
>more.
The Mac certainly seems to be in decline. Apple is pretty much ignoring it as they focus on the iPhone and other products.
Developers are squeezed by the ever declining prices in the Mac app store and Apple’s outrageous 30% cut.
I know a lot of developers who are switching back to Windows for their personal laptops. I will may go back to Windows when my current Macbook gives up the ghost, rather than pay a small fortune for something that has few ports and may not have a functioning keyboard.
It seems very myopic of Apple. It is not as if they are short of resources or money.
—
Andy Brice
http://www.hyperplan.com
Posted by NickG
Jun 12, 2019 at 06:41 AM
I’d make a couple of points here:
1. From where I sit, apps now are *cheaper* than ever before. When I first went independent, I’d be paying over £200 for office apps like Word & Excel, on top of the £150 I’d paid for Windows. When I switched to the Mac (2003), OSX was about £150 and office apps were still expensive. I think the problem for many devs is that (as others in their thread have said), their prices are being forced down and it’s harder to make.a sustainable business. When people scream at Omni Group because of their “high prices” and then scream at (for example) the Airmail gets because their support is poor to non-existent, we’re seeing that in action. The advent of the IOS App Store has given us a generation of customers who think that £9.99 is extortionate. The Android store has given us a generation of customers who think that £0.01 is extortionate.
2. I think subscriptions are a rational response, from a. developer’s standpoint - a continuing income stream to fund the product (and the food, rent, clothes and other such luxuries :-) ), but as a customer I avoid them. I’d rather pay more up front.
3. I also think subscriptions represent a risk to developers. I think that, over time, many customers will look at their total subscription outgoings and realise that many a mickle makes a muckle and consolidate - which will leave the developer out in the cold (if I cancel my sub and I can no longer use the app, the dev has little to no chance of my coming back). The Agenda solution (keep using the product with whatever features you’ve paid for, but no updates) might work (effectively, you’ve bought your features on an instalment plan).
Simon wrote:
>
>
>
>Not sure I would entirely agree. Apps are more expensive now than ever
>before. I remember buying Navigon on iphone for £45 in 2009 and it
>was way above the price of normal apps. You can now happily pay over
>£100 on the app store. Everyone keeps touting that upgrades on the
>app stores are not possible, and yet many developers are doing it
>through in-app purchases or bundle purchases. Where there is a will
>there is a way.
>
>I’ve come to the conclusion that users are becoming more savvy to
>how much they’re spending each month. People say that a monthly
>cost of £2 is not much, but when 10 apps ask that it does make a
>difference. I hear more and more people talking about consolidation. As
>much a CRIMPing can be a joy, I’m slowly tiring of having my data
>strewn across apps. Dare I say it on this forum that maybe I’m
>beginning to suffer from “CRIMPing fatigue” as there are too
>many apps, too many updates, too many subscriptions and it’s
>becoming wearying.
>
>Still, better check out the Aoya update…!
Posted by satis
Jun 12, 2019 at 10:32 AM
Andy Brice wrote:
>The Mac certainly seems to be in decline. Apple is pretty much ignoring
>it as they focus on the iPhone and other products.
PCs have declined in sales, while Apple’s Macs have increased in sales as well as market share.
In the first quarter of 2019 Mac revenue increased 9%.
Last year Apple grew from #5 to #4 in worldwide laptop shipments.
I don’t see Apple “ignoring” the Mac at all. PC sales overall are stagnating, and iOS devices have easily outsold the Mac (which is less than 10% of Apple’s business) but Apple sells 3 laptop lines, two desktop lines, and two all-in-one lines, and five of those models have been refreshed within the last year.
For someone who is a Mac developer (I own your app, by the way, though I don’t use it) you seem to be dismissing out of hand the considerable attention and focus Apple has consistently provided to Mac devs. This year’s Catalyst framework intro alone will allow huge numbers of iOS devs to create Mac apps with the same code with relative ease. (Twitter migrated and tweaked its iOS app to Mac using that framework, using a small team, in 3 days.). Apple ported 40 frameworks from iOS to Mac, and almost the entire iOS API set with only a few exceptions, by adapting UIKit as a native framework and integrating it directly into macOS.