[Macworld]

Post your comments for Tweetie pricing fuss highlights App Store flaw here

[RosscoR]

The article doesn't make the case declared by the headline. This developer priced his software too low to sustain free upgrades and his customers are cheap. How would the App Store allowing paid upgrades change this? He'd still want to charge, and people would still complain. The fundamental flaw here is the initial low price, and that's not the fault of the App Store.

[drimwit]

You're right, anyone who complains about the $3 is an oaf.

Why should the initial price sustain free upgrades? It makes more sense to price consistently low since it most closely aligns efforts with reward. Software has been historically overpriced, IMHO.

[kevinv]

RosscoR, on 30 September 2009 - 10:02 AM, said:

The article doesn't make the case declared by the headline. This developer priced his software too low to sustain free upgrades and his customers are cheap. How would the App Store allowing paid upgrades change this? He'd still want to charge, and people would still complain. The fundamental flaw here is the initial low price, and that's not the fault of the App Store.

becuase with upgrade pricing he could price the new purchases at $3 and upgrades at $1. Instead only flat pricing is allowed. It has to be free (new or upgrade) or one price for everyone.

This post has been edited by kevinv: 30 September 2009 - 10:10 AM

[kevinv]

RosscoR, on 30 September 2009 - 10:02 AM, said:

This developer priced his software too low to sustain free upgrades and his customers are cheap.

what price is sufficient for free upgrades forever?

[Angry_Drunk]

Dan, I agree with you that the lack of an ability to offer upgrade pricing on new version for software sold via the App Store is an omission, but I disagree that this particular case is in any significant way related to that omission. For one thing, so far no one claiming that this is an App Store problem has provided an example of Loren indicating that he has any interest in offering an upgrade discount.

[drimwit]

No-one's answered the question of why you should pay more up front and get more free upgrades. If you've had the software longer you've also had more use out of it. Free upgrades are a disincentive to the developer to do more work on the application.

[Angry_Drunk]

kevinv, on 30 September 2009 - 10:10 AM, said:

RosscoR, on 30 September 2009 - 10:02 AM, said:

The article doesn't make the case declared by the headline. This developer priced his software too low to sustain free upgrades and his customers are cheap. How would the App Store allowing paid upgrades change this? He'd still want to charge, and people would still complain. The fundamental flaw here is the initial low price, and that's not the fault of the App Store.

becuase with upgrade pricing he could price the new purchases at $3 and upgrades at $1. Instead only flat pricing is allowed. It has to be free (new or upgrade) or one price for everyone.

While that's true, where is the evidence that Loren has any desire to offer an almost 75% discount to existing users. Perhaps he actually believes that the large amount of work that he put into version 2 is worth $2.70?

[Tedd]

Well, I had no idea that tweetie had an "upgrade?" I have tweetie on my iPhone, but don't use it, I've been using tweetdeck. Do I need to pay for an upgrade of tweetie, maybe, maybe not.

This article is so condescending of the consumer of tweetie.

Consumers have a right complain about products and pricing, but as always everyone has to blame Apple for something.

How many downloads have their been thus far of this $3.00 app "upgrade?"

[EbE404]

Dan, great article. On behalf of anyone who creates "things" that are consumed/used by others for a living, we all appreciate you pointing out that we are just trying to make a living and not intentionally out to screw anybody (insert MS comment here).

People have a right to charge what they like and leave it to the market to decide upon its fairness based on how well it does it's job/solves a problem/entertains, etc.

To the others who have posted, I think what Dan's getting at is that this is a tempest in a teapot that illustrates a larger, underlying issue. As apps expand and get longer in the tooth than a simple novelty, the need will come to upgrade them, just as you would with any other application. Something like iFart aside, other, extremely useful apps like 1Password grow and evolve, and should be allowed to.

I have to believe that this situation is partly a result of Apple not fully seeing the potential of apps, as being evolving products with long lifespans that users OR developers would ever want to provide upgrades/updates, and how they would handle the situation.

Perhaps the model of in app purchases, for things like additional levels in a game, will provide a convenient path for some folks, but for others, this should be resolved systemically.

[AbbiV]

This whole brouhaha is simply a marketing problem- the simplest solution would have been for @Atebits to price the new app @ $4.99 (just like some other Twitter clients) and then offer an introductory price of $2.99 and no one would be complaining. Then after a few weeks he could have permanently dropped the price to $2.99 and nothing would have changed. Alternatively, he could just price the new app @ $1.99 for a limited time and everyone would have appreciated it. As it stands, this entire pricing fuss is fantastic publicity for Tweetie and I for one can't wait for the new version to come out & pay Loren his well deserved $2.99 :-)

[meemorize]

First of all, great article!
Perfect analogies and just so so true.

I'm constantly amazed by people's craze of getting things for free—or alternatively getting agitated by ever so small upgrade fees.
So Loren has spent god knows how many hours redeveloping his original app for all of us to have a better twitter experience, and you say that isn't worth your $3?

And after all we are talking about a measly $3.. that's probably much much less than the average hourly wage of most users of the app thus saying 'your app is worth less than 20min of my working time even though I get countless hours of twittering on my iphone out of it'.

To me this seems just silly.
In light of this uproar over $3, where were these people when Apple charged $29 for Snow Leopard?

I didn't complain, in fact I embraced the price, however I am also very aware that Snow Leopard is just an upgrade to Leopard, in the same manner Tweetie 2 is an upgrade to Tweetie 1.

They will offer new features alongside the existing one and a one-time fee is charged.
Sounds like the same deal, no?

Either way, I will gladly pay my $3!

[alansky]

I agree that computer software in general has been over-priced for a long time. If you upgrade their most-used software every 6-12 months (whenever an upgrade is offered), you soon have an excessive amount of money invested in each of those apps.

The iPhone has changed all that to an extreme. In the iPhone economy, even a few bucks is considered "too expensive", which is ridiculous. There is no question that this attitude will inhibit iPhone developers from doing the work necessary to take full advantage of the iPhone platform. Something's gotta give.

What's really interesting is that a few iPhone developers are now porting their successful iPhone apps back to the Mac and finding that this cheapskate mentality is following them back to the world of computer software, where most apps traditionally cost much, much more. Mac users are complaining about paying $20 for an app that may have cost $2 on the iPhone.

This situation is going to shake up the entire software industry, which may be a very good thing. But lets hope that the cheapskates of the world don't control the debate. Over-charging is bad, but so is expecting software developers to work for nothing. Nobody wins when you starve the goose that lays the golden eggs.

[rab777hp]

People shouldn't complain- for desktop apps you can charge for updates.