[RiK]

Originally Posted by endoftheQ

I completely accept that anyone making a purchase outside their price comfort zone should do their research, although I have to admit I don't, even when I've bought an App costing in excess of $100, I just check the App Store reviews! Naive, I know! :)

Ha ha, tell me about it. I did that with Adobe Creative Suite :D

[Deedubau]

This was definitely a pricey app compared to the other iPad todo apps but it was also completely worth the money for me. Before I had a Mac I purchased a few iPad todo apps from 5-10 dollars to me and I was always annoyed at how lackluster those apps were with the GTD implementation or the buggy software.

With Omnifocus everything just feels perfect with their GTD implementation and the iPad app offers the best UI out of all the Omnifocus products. As long as the company doesn't release Omnifocus 2.0 as a new app for the iPad to make more money then I'm 100 percent happy with my purchase.

[gcgiv]

Originally Posted by Deedubau

As long as the company doesn't release Omnifocus 2.0 as a new app for the iPad to make more money then I'm 100 percent happy with my purchase.

This is a huge point that people need to consider and has kept me from 'buying' into Omni for my GTD needs. If you look at the history of upgrades on their other mature products (OmniOutliner & OmniGraffle), it was a fairly expensive journey. My hunch is that come v2,v3,etc. You'll be repurchasing the OmniFocus apps at a pretty steep upgrade price. And if the app store doesn't have a 'discount' feature by then, you'll probably be paying the same price that a new adopter would pay for the iPad & iPhone versions.

[Ken Case]

If you compare our upgrade pricing with most of the software industry (e.g. Apple, Adobe, Microsoft, Parallels), I think you'll find that we try very hard to give our customers a lot of value for each release (with free major updates for several years) and to then give our customers a great discount on the next release (offering a discount of up to two-thirds of your previous purchase price).

Unfortunately, as you point out, we don't have any way to offer upgrade discounts on the App Store at this time. So, instead, we've been just releasing all of our updates for free. (We probably can't continue to do that forever, but we started lobbying Apple to add upgrade pricing to the App Store before the App Store even opened.)

[Deedubau]

I guess it's understandable to make Omnifocus a sustainable long term business model even though most people who purchase from the app store won't buy into this model (especially given the price). But I really do like the Omnifocus apps and would probably buy new versions for a heavily discounted launch price. Unless it's really cheap I probably won't pay for the syncing though (assuming it costs money) since it looks like all major updates will cost extra.

[endoftheQ]

Originally Posted by Ken Case

If you compare our upgrade pricing with most of the software industry (e.g. Apple, Adobe, Microsoft, Parallels), I think you'll find that we try very hard to give our customers a lot of value for each release (with free major updates for several years) and to then give our customers a great discount on the next release (offering a discount of up to two-thirds of your previous purchase price).

Unfortunately, as you point out, we don't have any way to offer upgrade discounts on the App Store at this time. So, instead, we've been just releasing all of our updates for free. (We probably can't continue to do that forever, but we started lobbying Apple to add upgrade pricing to the App Store before the App Store even opened.)

Ken,

I really appreciate you posting this. I was going to raise it on this Board but didn't as I felt that it wasn't really an 'Omni' topic, even for the Lounge!

Its hard to believe that any end-user would expect software developers to update their Apps year-after-year without being able to generate some form of an upgrade revenue stream. The ability is definitely there in the App Store and it is worrying that after several years Apple has shown no sign of being willing to bring it online.

From my recollection, Apple has provided upgrades on it's devolved software (Claris, FileMaker, etc.) but its own brands (correct me if I'm wrong!) are always a re-purchase, ie. OSX, iLife, iWorks, etc.

I truly hope they aren't so far off-planet that they believe that the re-purchase model can be applied to the App Store ad-infinitum. :eek:

[gopi]

Originally Posted by endoftheQ

From my recollection, Apple has provided upgrades on it's devolved software (Claris, FileMaker, etc.) but its own brands (correct me if I'm wrong!) are always a re-purchase, ie. OSX, iLife, iWorks, etc.

OS X is arguably always an upgrade - you can not buy an OS X initial license except with the purchase of a new Mac.

Final Cut Pro and Aperture have upgrade pricing. I think only their inexpensive software doesn't have upgrade pricing.

I absolutely despise the lack of upgrade pricing on the App Store. I've seen too many nifty apps just drop away. I feel like the authors would keep updating if there was a clearly defined incentive.

For that matter, how do you do a new version launch? Traditionally, there is a "anybody who bought it in the last ~month gets the new one", or similar deal. So, OmniFocus v5 is ready...do they just ship it one day, and everybody who bought it yesterday is hosed? Do they stop selling it altogether for a month? If they stop selling the old version a month before the new one, there will be an immense amount of publicity right away, which isn't really what you want.

The App Store is very successful. Convincing Apple that this policy is a problem will be tough.

I don't know what the hosting cost for WebDAV works out to, but I suspect a high percentage of OF users would pay for hosting, which would give Omni some ongoing revenue. Conversely, though, I suspect that a high percentage of OF users do have MobileMe, which is the only trivial to configure sync system, so that would argue against a high percentage paying Omni.

I wish you guys the best of luck; Apple's iOS App Store is really not structured in a way that makes your life easy.

[intranation]

I just got an iPad at the weekend, and the first app I bought was OmniFocus. I figure at $500 a pop for the iPad, $40 for the best task management software on said device isn't really much of a stretch. It's all about perspective really (and FWIW, I'm very happy with both purchases). That said I have already bought OF desktop and OF iPhone, so I was going to get it regardless.

[endoftheQ]

Originally Posted by whpalmer4

If I can butt in here, I would say it is a fine shopping list App if you already own it. I wouldn't recommend its purchase solely as a shopping list app, as it is clearly overkill for that purpose (and dedicated shopping apps may well have some handy features for that purpose that it does not).

It was the first iPhone app I purchased, and with it in hand, I have never felt the need to investigate what other options might be available if I would plunk down more money for a dedicated shopping list app. Also, I don't see the benefit in having interdependent tasks in multiple apps when the one I've got will do it all in a satisfactory manner. As always, YMMV.

I too felt the same way, whpalmer4, it was only when I was forced into splitting business and personal GTD into separate Apps that I also considered other options for some of my project categories.

Whilst I still keep a lot of 'shopping' or 'errand' actions within OmniFocus, especially if they are associated with projects, ie. 'rebuild house' (last time I let the kin have an unsupervised party!) the single ones such as 'buy milk' or 'clean car' I've found work better for me in a multi-user App, in my case HoneyDo (or BeeShi* as my kids call it).

The ability to share tasks with individuals or multiple groups (currently, in my case: family, friends, neighbours, rugby, horticultural) works brilliantly for me, often saving large quantities of dosh (getting loans or freebies of CDs, DVDs, books, powertools, cuttings, etc.) and getting more actions done as other people pick them up.

Likewise, my 'Someday/Maybe' category gets far more attention in iMandalArt than it would if I left it to languish in OF.

I admit that doing this is not without its downside. I've moved travel over to TravelChecker but still have to put placeholders within OmniFocus, FileMaker Go and iCal. The benefits for me (e-tickets, live departure boards, gate numbers, expenses, etc.) outweigh these negatives, but as you rightly said, YMMV.

If you have friends and family with iPhones/iPads, then I think HoneyDo is a worth a look for single 'shopping' and 'errand' actions. I wouldn't want Omni to include these features in OF, I consider it a horse of a different colour. HoneyDo is currently on sale for 59p (99¢) so checking it out, even just for fun, won't exactly break the bank!

[Brian]

Originally Posted by Deedubau

Unless it's really cheap I probably won't pay for the syncing though (assuming it costs money)

We're not going to charge for the features that are currently there. We may add more stuff in the future and charge for that at some point, but one of the things we've learned is that the cost to run the server is low enough that we can give access away.