Quote:
Originally Posted by whpalmer4
Look, if you bought your favorite movie as a VHS tape eons ago, then as a DVD, and now you just bought a Blu-Ray player, does the studio owe you a discount on a Blu-Ray disc of that title? If you bought a succession of cars from the same manufacturer, do they give you a half off deal if you buy in the first few days of the new model year? Omni does give a big trade-in allowance when you move to the next major version, and none of this business of penalizing people who don't buy every version, either.
Turn the situation around — you're a developer, and you put a whole lot of work and money into building a new version of your app for a new platform. Your customers demand that you give them that new software for little or nothing despite your large investment (an investment, I might add, that could be arbitrarily wiped out by Apple deciding not to approve the final product). Aren't they milking your loyalty to them?
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Guess what?
I
am a developer (actually in the business and design side these days rather than writing code) and understand the Apple iOS ecosystem better than most. My suspicion is that OmniFocus would likely dramatically increase their revenues by lowering the per-purchase cost of the app. Impulse buying is a big part of the App Store, and $40 is way above the typical willing impulse buy.
I completely agree that they can charge whatever they want. I also think that they may like to know that at least some of their loyal customers find the pricing out of line. I do. As I said in my post, I may very well spring for the app, but the mixed reviews are not leading me to jump on it today. Had OG offered a "fans" discount for the first few days, I'd already have it on my iPad. Reading the forums, I'm not alone.
Since I already use OF on my other devices, I have to decide if the new iPad app is really a leap for me. Does it buy me enough that I don't already have available with the combination of iPhone and Mac apps? That's unclear. Certainly, the beta users really liked it, but they are more "bought in" than those who didn't have that benefit.
As I said, $40 won't break the bank, but it does give me pause. I am sure I'm not alone. As a result, given that the incremental cost to OG of selling another copy of OF is effectively $0, I am arguing that their revenue and gross profit would benefit from a lower price.
Given their pricing on other products, however, I suspect they don't see it that way. I still don't have Graffle on my iPad for that reason. As with everything, YMMV. But don't jump to conclusions about my "financial state" just because I actually work through this process!