iMore: “At this point, though, it’s time to forget working it out. Mistakes were clearly made on both sides, and there may be no way for the real truth to ever be known, or for everyone to win. But there’s a way to stop anyone else from losing further: Fix it, unilaterally, because you’re Apple, and you can.”
I was going to write about this, but Rene Ritchie capture my feelings perfectly. Mistakes were made on both side.
It would be nice for Apple to forgive and forget.
John Gruber: “What went wrong was very simple. We never made enough money. Why we didn’t make enough money, what we should have done differently to make more money — those are complex questions (which I’ll tackle below). But what actually sunk Vesper was not complicated. Even as a relatively popular app at a relatively high price (for iOS), revenue was never high enough. Brent took a job at the excellent Omni Group in September 2014, and from that point onward the writing was on the wall. We could have, and probably should have, shut Vesper down a year ago. But we loved it too much. Or at least I did.”
Brent Simmons: “This is the last app on the App Store where I wrote all (or almost all) of the code. Odds are excellent that there will never be another app written largely by me on any app store.”
It’s hard to make decisions like this. Vesper was the result of a lot of hard work by a small group of dedicated people. Vesper will be missed, by them the most.
The most fascinating part of this entire post mortem from John and Brent is the belief that creating a Mac App first may have lead to success. Obviously these guys know their Mac brethren better than I, but I always thought a subscription model was a better option for them, and I wrote about it in 2015.
I think the idea of a sustainable business is the right way to look at this, but pricing an app at $9.99 isn’t the proper solution. The proper solution is to charge for their “fast, reliable, unlimited sync.†That’s the value, the app is just a way to get to your data.
Obviously there are a few really great companies out there making a go of it but the market has changed so dramatically from the time Brent started Ranchero. At the time the Mac wasn’t nearly as popular as it is today and the App Store model didn’t exist. Sure, you still needed a great product and had to work hard to get the word out, but people still understood the value of software. Today iOS and Mac Apps have been reduced to commodities and commodity pricing. Most people expect free and get it from companies that make their money other ways, including services, which is why I think the service is the most valuable component. Does it mean you should only do services and not native clients, no. The client side provides the great experience and the service opens the door to the magic of data flowing from one point to another. Without both sides you can still have a great experience but it may not be as great as it could be.
Thanks John, Brent, and Dave for giving us Vesper.
Do you listen to Under the Radar with David Smith and Marco Arment? If you’re an iOS or Mac Developer you should consider it, it’s good.
The latest episode — Improving the App Store, Part 1 — is going to be quite controversial. I wouldn’t be surprised if Part 2 includes a bit of laughter and talk about how much mail they received.
I’ll admit, at first I was a bit miffed by how they couched their apps as Premium, maybe it was a bit of sour grapes on my part, but the more I listened the more I realized they were right, they do make premium apps. Once I got past that idea I was able to focus on what they were after; a Premium App Store.
The big question is this: What the heck is a Premium App Store? Well, I have some ideas, and they won’t align with what a lot of people believe is premium, but you have to find a way to separate Premium Apps from everything else.
Here are my thoughts on how to create a Premium App Category. This category would be front and center in the iOS App and Mac App Stores.
I belive a Premium App would be defined by the following traits:
Some of these ideas are very subjective, others are objective. The idea of a Marketing Style application may be difficult to define as well as the Fit and Finish requirement. That’s fine. The App Stores already have this level of subjectivity and maybe there’s room for a bit more for this level of application.
I believe this small set of requirement could separate a small swath of excellent Indie and BigCo Applications from the Application Salad that exists today. Developers like David and Marco walk a fine line. They make their living writing applications in an extremely overcrowded app market. Something like a Premium App Store could make a YUGE difference in their bottom lines. Then again, it may fall on its face.
I think we’re going to find out really soon what Apple thinks. A few months back app developers received a questionnaire. That questionnaire was, as I recall, very marketing centered. I would expect the App Store to change quite a bit under Phil Schiller and I think those changes will begin as a set of marketing programs aimed at helping developers improve their “image’ in the eyes of users. I’d expect Apple to reach out to developers they believe have a strong product and offer to help them market their applications. This could be the beginning of an effort to indirectly build a Premium App Store.
That’s just a few thoughts on the matter.
Jon Grall [via Medium]: “With well over 2 million apps by now (officially 1.5M as of July 2015), the iTunes App Store is an incredibly crowded place where it’s almost impossible to get noticed. Despite the persistent myth of the app developer millionaire, it’s extremely hard to make a profit — let alone a living — as an iOS app developer. The Google Play Store is a similar story, except with the added bonus of rampant piracy and a zillion devices to support. There really isn’t gold in them hills, at least not anymore, and independent app development will soon be in sharp decline, if it isn’t already.”
We will continue to see this downward trend until developers charge real money for their products and services and users understand they have to pay for those products and services.
This week Marco Arment released a new version of his podcast player, Overcast. I’ve heard a lot of great things about Overcast and Mr. Arment is know for releasing high quality, very useful, applications. So it’s no surprise it’s a popular pod catcher.
Overcast 2 brought streaming to the application as one of its major features but that was overshadowed by Mr. Arment’s new revenue model; Patronage.
If you’d like to help Mr. Arment make a living and keep bringing us great software you can pay him in three, six, or 12-month increments which come to $12US annually. Not a bad deal for the application and, more importantly, the service that backs it.
“If only 5% of customers become monthly patrons, Overcast will match its previous revenue.”
A new revenue model is born. I think its a great idea.
Fast Company: “In the interest of simplicity, the team finally settled on two key gestures: Swipe left to turn a line of text into a bold subheading. Right to turn it into a bulleted list item. Reasoning that the most popular use case for text entry would be the creation of shopping lists and other to-do lists, they chose these two gestures to start with. Users can also hold their finger down on an item to “grab” it and change the order of the list, eliminating the need for traditional (and far more tedious on a touchscreen) copy-and-paste functionality. Other gestural formatting, they figured, could come in time, once people were used to the new gestural formatting paradigm. It is, after all, an admittedly ballsy move to tinker with how people have worked with text since the dawn of personal computing.”
This is one of the most useful and most beautifully designed iOS Apps you will ever use. Folks probably think of Paper as an application for illustrators and designers, but it’s so much more than that. If you’ve ever used Visio or Omni Graffle you can use Paper to create similar drawings. With Paper for iPhone they’ve added text to the mix to make it a world class citizen for taking notes of all kinds, think Evernote, Notes, or Vesper.
It’s definitely worth a download.
Six Colors: “Anyway, the goal of the design—other than, perhaps, to better reflect the site’s name—was to differentiate between the different kinds of posts we have on this site. There are regular posts, sure, but we found ourselves also posting off-site links, links to work we’ve written on other sites, links to podcasts, and posts from sponsors. Now those are all more clearly defined, and I think the site’s better for it.”
Absolutely beautiful. I love the treatment given to different post types.
Brent Simmons: “This is the age of writing iOS apps for love.”
This is what I’ve decided to do; write iOS or Mac apps for the love of it. If the app succeeds, great! If it fails, that’s ok too.
Jared Sinclair: “You cannot become an indie developer. Ask for your day job back. Do not proceed to Step 5 or 6.”
I’ve been there. You can feel the frustration in every word. He wants so badly to be a full time Indie, but can’t quite stack the deck in his favor.
Last November I decided I had to bail on my dream of running an Indie shop in favor of a full time job. I had taken an approach I thought would work, I failed to execute it properly. My post mortem of my failure is bitter and filled with anger. I made every mistake a person could make. It’s a tough business, and many great developers (like Jared) will struggle to make it work. You have to be part marketing, part sales, and part developer to give it a chance of succeeding. Oh, and most importantly you need a big break.
Jared has what I would consider a very successful run as an Indie with his beautifully designed and developed Unread RSS reader (now at Supertop), but it wasn’t enough to sustain a living. There’s the rub. If you’re not connected in this market it’s really tough to make it work. The Indies that have succeeded have either been around a very long time, hit the app store early with something unique, or have influential friends that give them an instant leg up.
When I decided I had to get a full time job it became obvious I was going to have to do the development I really want to do on the side, as a hobby. That means I’ll get to dabble a little bit, but never really get the chance to build the piece of software I want to build. That’s ok. I’ll tinker, RxCalc looks long in the tooth and Arrgly could use some love. I have ideas for both, and a bunch of code I’ve been sitting on for quite a while that needs to see the light of day. It feels like the right way to be an Indie today.
Given that I’d tweak Jared’s list a little.
I know a lot of folks don’t have much time on nights and weekends. My first iOS App was built an hour here an hour there until it was good enough to put in the store. It’s worth the effort and feels great when you can finally push out your code, even if it is a silly little application.
Hang in there Jared. I understand your desire, I really do. It’s what I want too.
I’ve given the Freelance thing a hearty try on a couple occasions. The first time was successful. I had a couple good clients that provided steady work, and eventually went to work for one of them full time. But, the itch to develop iOS Apps was so strong I made another attempt at Freelancing. That second round was an unmitigated disaster. I took on too much work for too little reward, there were other factors in the mix as well.
Doing Freelance work, or studio work, is like being a hamster in cage on one of those wheels. You work your tail off and go nowhere. I know some folks are really good at it, but I failed at it because you need to hustle work all the time as well as work on your current obligations. It’s a tough balancing game.
All that to say I’m doing it wrong. That became apparent when I read Brent Simmons weblog post about resigning from Q-Branch. In his post Brent says that he resigned because he is not working on the software he is passionate about.
I decided to leave because I wasn’t working on the software that I’ve been obsessed with for more than a decade.
That makes you think, doesn’t it? Why do something your heart isn’t really into? Paycheck aside. If you need to work on something at night and on the side it should be something you are deeply passionate about.
John Gruber followed up with these words, this really drives the point home.
Nights-and-weekends time is for your passions, not for obligations.
They’re right. I’m 47 years old, and closer to 48 as of this writing. Why should anyone spend time working on something they’re not absolutely passionate about?
I’ve been going about this all wrong. I’ve wanted to do a large project for years. My dear wife has been encouraging me to pursue it, for years. It’s time to reflect and make a choice; pursue that dream, or let it die, stop killing myself for others and just enjoy what I have.
Oh, and I need to read a book for fun once in a while. I started Stephen King’s 11/22/63 two and a half years ago and haven’t finished it. I have a stack of books beside my bed, just dying to be read. I should read them.