tapbots Archives - my glass eye • words

You may have heard that an App Store developer called TapBots recently did something inexcusably disgusting and utterly outrageous: after 30 months of free support and a free upgrade to Version 2, they dared to charge for Version 3.

Yes, I know. I know! What a cheek, eh? I mean seriously: developers shouldn’t be in the business of selling apps if they’re only in it to make money. They should be on the App Store purely for our benefit and for their own love of making apps and giving them away for free, not because they’re trying to run a business.

If selling the apps you poured the last few months of your life into is your plan, better find another way to make a living. Nobody pays for hard work these days AND NEITHER SHOULD THEY. Deal with it, idiots.

Just kidding!

If you found yourself nodding along in agreement with me there, here comes the twist: I disagree with all of that. I have no problem with a developer whose business model is to put a fair price on their work and ask me to pay for it if I like it. Obviously some users of the app disagree with that policy, even though it may be one of their most-used apps. That’s fine – Tapbots doesn’t need them because plenty of their customers are only too happy to put the same value on the work as Tapbots do. In fact, many of us would pay more.

Turns out that some dicks over at a developer called TapTapTap completely disagree. While disagreement is all good and well, in this case it’s surprising because they’re not in competition with Tapbots. Regardless, a simple disagreement is not enough for the dicks at TapTapTap. No, they decided it would be really cool to slag off Tapbots (well, okay, they don’t name them, but it doesn’t take Benedict Cumberbatch in a warm coat to work out who they’re referring to given previous jabs over Twitter) not only in a blog post, but in the update notes for their own app. Reeeaaal professional.

The dicks at TapTapTap

The dicks at TapTapTap make an app called Camera+. It’s not bad, a decent alternative to the stock camera app on the iPhone although most of what it does is baked into the iPhone anyway now, but for a long time their app had better features and it’s become a stalwart of the Photography section.

So their business model is this: they sell the app to a mass market for $2, update it forever for free, and offer IAPs in the form of filter packs. Yes, sodding filter packs. Well hey, a developer’s gotta eat, right? Well, no, not according to the dicks at TapTapTap, but I’ll get to that.

Tapbots on the other hand employ a marginally different business model: they sell their app to a niche market for $3 (currently on sale) and don’t sell IAPs. Bugfix-type updates are free, the huge update to Version 2.0 was free, but after 30 months of entirely free support (and no IAPs!) they charged $3 for Version 3.0.

Both these models are completely fair enough. I have no problem with either as both demonstrate a sustainable business model. And to be clear, ‘sustainability’ means making sure the revenue your business brings in will keep you in business. That’s pretty much the first rule of running a business, folks.

TapTapTap’s ‘arguments’

I’ve always suspected the guys at TapTapTap might not be the sort of people I’d go for a drink with, based on the update notes for their app. They’re definitely a bit more amusing than the average update notes, but they’re also a bit “hey we’re KRAZY”, with a K. A bit attention seeking. And I find attention seekers kinda dickish. So I’ve always had my suspicions.

This week John Casanta at TapTapTap was happy to confirm my suspicions by posting an app update followed by a blog post which pushed way past “Krazy with a K”, way past “I’m an attention whore!”. It basically says: “Developers that charge for updates are pathetic and hate their customers. Go us! And fuck Tapbots!”

I’m paraphrasing, of course. Here’s what it actually says, make your own mind up:

I’ve experienced both ends of the spectrum as a developer… I recall the early days where I’d earn less than $1,000 per month and essentially lived in a shack to make ends meet. And at the other end, I’ve made far more money than anybody needs to live. The bottom line is that absolutely none of this has any bearing on our customers.

If we, or any other developers aren’t able to make ends meet through selling our apps, the solution is neither to blame nor to screw over your customers. It’s more along the lines of: get better at what you do… or find some other work that better suits you.

Being able to get out of bed at noontime and work out of your home in your fluffy bunny slippers is a privilege, not a right. And you need to earn that privilege. A lot of developers seem to have lost that perspective these days and sound far more entitled than the people who support them by buying their apps that they accuse of being entitled.

If you’re a developer, it’d be nice if you actually thought all of this through in an objective way before just firing off the typical defensive, knee-jerk reaction.

Like I said: dicks.

This isn’t about developers with a lousy business plan not being able to make ends meet and screwing over their customers. This is about developers using a considerably underpriced version of the business plan serious developers making serious software tools have used since, like, forever: bugfixes are free; significant new releases have a fee. And if Apple actually offered upgrade discount pricing on the App Store perhaps we wouldn’t have the problem that’s emerged: that App Store customers unrealistically expect all app updates for free.

I’ve got to address some of the points in the blog post:

“If…developers aren’t able to make ends meet through selling [their] apps, the solution is neither to blame nor to screw over your customers.” – where to start? Firstly, where’s this “blame” coming from? Methinks this is just a little strawman that TapTapTap pulled out of their arselocker to make their flimsy point sound waaay better, as I don’t see any developers ‘blaming’ anyone except Apple for unhelpful pricing tiers.
Secondly, call me crazy, but I don’t think releasing an optional new version of your app at a reasonable price that reflects the work that went into it and the work that will continue to be put into it is screwing over your customers. I’m pretty sure Tweetbot 2 still works, because I’m still using it (I actually don’t like the design of Tweetbot 3, ironically).
Thirdly, because there’s just so much wrong in that one sentence, it’s pretty obvious that Tapbots are perfectly capable of making ends meet through selling their apps, because that’s what they continue to do: sell their app.
“Get better at what you do” – what does the quality of their coding have to do with anything? They’re already remarkable at what they do, which is why thousands of iPhone users bought their app in the first place.
“Find some other work that suits you” – presumably work that doesn’t involve being paid a fair and sustainable wage, because as we all know: charging fairly for your work = failing.
“Being able to get out of bed at noontime and work out of your home in your fluffy bunny slippers is a privilege, not a right.” – Jeez, what is it with TapTapTap and strawman arguments? Remember, we’re talking about the right to charge a fee for your work. Where you do that work is completely irrelevant. If anything, working from home in awesome fluffy bunny slippers is a more responsible and cost-effective move than working from an office, isn’t it? Try telling that to the dicks at TapTapTap, who perhaps wouldn’t need IAPs or to even charge for their app at all if they worked from home.
“A lot of developers seem to have lost that perspective these days and sound far more entitled than the people who support them by buying their apps that they accuse of being entitled.” – there’s nothing ‘entitled’ about saying “We’ve spent months working on a major update, we’re really proud of it, and it’s just $3.” Entitlement is this: “Waaaah! $3 for something I’ll use every single day for months if not years?! SO UNFAIR! I’m going to buy a different app instead.”. That’s entitlement.

The last word

What TapTapTap achieved with this post and app update was to reinforce the entirely misguided and unrealistic expectations of App Store users that developers should sell their work at rock bottom prices and then spend the rest of their lives working on the app for free, and hope for a sales spike.

Worse, they combined their airing of this rather silly position with a pretty nasty dig at non-competing fellow developers, using it as an opportunity to curry favour amongst the greedier and more selfish of their users who might find that sort of shit-stirring funny.

On TapTapTap’s About page is a list of their ‘important principles’. It includes the line:

High quality software doesn’t have to cost you a lot.

Come on, folks. $3 is not a lot of money. No, don’t give me “it’s a lot of money on the App Store” because for an app you’ll use hourly, daily, for months if not years, $3 is not a lot of money.

Similarly, a total of $6 over thirty months to support ongoing work on said app is also not a lot of money, and anyone who argues that it is while waving their $600+ iPhone around is as much of a dick as the guy that writes TapTapTap’s blog.

Perhaps TapTapTap should teach us by example and make a Twitter app without IAPs that’s anywhere near as good as Tweetbot, then demonstrate how the resulting revenue from that one app alone is enough to keep their company afloat forever. While they’re at it, I’d love to see them make their Camera+ IAPs free because as we all know, selling your work is such an insulting rip-off of your customers. Then they might have an angle on App Store business models that’s worth posting.

However, it probably won’t be worth actually reading if the maturity and professionalism in evidence on their blog is anything to go by. I’m happy to join the throng of folk on Twitter deleting Camera+ in disgust.

P.S.

Just before anyone points this out themselves with passive-aggressive glee: I’m fully aware that TapTapTap couldn’t give a toss who uninstalls Camera+. After all, they’ve already got our money, and their business model evidently works for them, just as Tapbots’ model is working for them. I also don’t expect them to give a toss about my opinion on their policies and business model. This post isn’t about making a stand against them or trying to bring them down a peg. It’s just about airing my opinion on my blog, for others to either agree or disagree.

Also, I’m sorry to anyone at TapTapTap whose opinions are not represented by the blog post in question. I’m sure you’re not all dicks, and I support your right to be paid for your work.

Tweetbot 3 is out, the latest version of what is definitely my favourite Twitter client, and certainly one of the very best available for iOS and OSX, but rather than it being a free update in the App Store for existing customers it’s been released as an entirely new app that you have to purchase. Yes, even if you already bought Tweetbot 1, or Tweetbot 2. And yes, even if you bought it the day before Tweetbot 3 came out.

(Okay that last one is a bit unfortunate if that happened to you, but sometimes shit happens. Like the time I bought Borderlands 2 on Steam the week before it was 70% off in a sale. Dammit.)

OMG WTF? i hav 2 like PAY AGAIN?

Yes, you do. And before we go any further let me just say, if you came here with your Whiners Are Winners hat on looking for some moral support you won’t find it here. That post title above lured you here so I can say:

If you like Tweetbot and want Tapbots to be able to keep developing it, support them by paying the tiny price they’re asking for this major new update.

(N.B.: in the originally-published version of this post the above sentence read: BUY IT, YOU CHEAP F*&£$ but I thought that might be a bit argumentative…)

I have no problem with this business model. It’s fair for Tapbots to ask a very small fee to cover months if not years of work not just ‘reskinning for iOS 7’ as many on Twitter inaccurately describe the update, but rebuilding the app from the ground up to take advantage of the oodles of new code going on under the hood of iOS 7. Not to mention that Tweetbot 1 to Tweetbot 2 was a free update as I recall, so the longer you’ve been enjoying Tweetbot the better the deal gets.

If you still don’t think it’s reasonable please make sure you stick around to the end of this post where there’s a short exercise in calculating exactly how much Tweetbot has cost you thus far. It’s an eye-opener.

Here’s what Tapbots had to say on their blog:

Seven months ago, we started working on a big update for Calcbot. We were hoping to release it sometime in the summer. Two months in, Apple announced iOS7 at WWDC. We knew this was a huge change. It would make every single one of our apps look dated so we had to make sure our flagship app was ready for it. All of the design work that went into the Calcbot update was rendered obsolete in one keynote and so we focused our energy on updating Tweetbot for iPhone. Playing with the beta of iOS7 over the next few weeks brought us to the realization that this would not just be a “re-skin”. We really had to just start over with the new foundation and concepts of iOS7.

Major updates like this one take time and effort. Months of hard work rebuilding it with new iOS 7 frameworks, redesigning the interface (there is no convenient ‘Reskin Now!’ button in X-Code that redesigns interfaces by magic, you know), and all the testing and refining that goes with that. Months of work. If they were to give that away for free they’d need to find a way of making the money you spent on the first version cover not just all the work that went into that version you originally bought, but this version too.

But those are the unrealistic customer expectations set up by the App Store practices that have emerged, and it’s not sustainable for many – this is how IAPs gained dominance, screwing up the balance and gameplay of so many otherwise fantastic games.

Meanwhile, on Twitter some Tweetbot fans feel ripped off:

“It’s just a reskin” or “It’s not a major new version” (it’s a complete rebuild and redesign within the new iOS 7 frameworks and design guidelines)
“All other apps are updating to iOS 7 for free” (actually, not all)
“I’m an acid (sic) supporter since day one but I’m not buying it again” (speaks for itself really)
“They should adapt to the App Store business model of making updates free” (Apple’s suggestion to those wishing to charge for major updates is to release it as a new app – but they don’t allow them to offer upgrade discounting)
“This is a SCAM and Apple should stop it” (urgh, always with the SCAM)
“Apple don’t charge for updates to iOS 7, why should I pay to update Tweetbot?” (Apple sells iPhones for hundreds of dollars and can afford to keep you sweet with free iOS updates. Tapbots’s business is selling Tweetbot)

And so on. I replied to a few of these sorts of tweets this morning and asked: do you work for free? At what point do developers start working for free? How much value have you had from the app?

Out of a couple of dozen who replied, some did laugh it off and agree that yes, put like that it was fair enough. The rest argued with me. Whether they worked for free was irrelevant, and Tapbots needed to find a better way to make money. One said that even though he “loves” Tweetbot he’s stopped using Tweetbot 2 simply because Tapbots dared to charge for Tweetbot 3, and is considering buying Twitteriffic or Echofon instead.

Mind = blown.

Apple is the problem; could IAPs be the solution?

The frustrating reality is that App Store customers are now used to ‘pay once, get free updates forever’ but this model came about not because it’s good business sense (because on the face of it it’s not) but because Apple decided not to allow traditional upgrade pricing in the App Stores, presumably in keeping with it’s policy of making things as simple as possible for the average user. In Apple’s opinion too many price-points = confusion. Just look at Microsoft’s Windows pricing levels.

I am not the average user. I’m used to a world where ‘point release’ software updates (mostly bug fixes) tend to be free but major release updates are paid. That is: version 2.3.2 to version 2.4 I would expect for free. But version 2.4 to version 3.0 I would expect to pay for. So while I certainly don’t complain about this ‘free updates’ thing that’s happened to the App Store, I’ve always wondered how sustainable that is.

Just guessing, but I reckon most serious App Store developers, especially those with a ‘utility’ app as opposed to a game, would prefer to adopt upgrade discounting, would Apple let them. I base that guess on articles around the web about how developers have struggled with Apple’s update pricing policy. Recently a major developer called Omnigroup tried to overcome Apple’s limitations with inventive and seemingly fair workarounds, only to have Apple shut their attempt down.

For an app that offers all updates for free, major or minor, IAPs offer the only real alternative revenue stream to fund ongoing development in the absence of a sales spike: either with expendable ‘currency’, most often used in casual games to speed up hatefully slow timers that restrict progress; or with extra content packs such as the extra filters in Hipstamatic, or extra gameplay chapters in The Walking Dead. Unfortunately the former is far more frequently used (and abused) than the latter, and the satisfaction of paying a fair price (i.e. over £4.99 at least) for a good game and not being nickel-and-dimed to play without interruptions is rare these days – although XCOM may have turned that tide.

Somewhere in the IAP system there lies the germ of a solution to upgrade pricing, whereby an app costs full price the first time you buy it but major upgrades are made available as IAPs at a cheaper rate, thereby offering existing users an upgrade discount. It seems like that could work but presumably there is some kind of issue with completely overwriting an app with an entirely recoded version as an IAP or it would already be happening.

How to rationalise it

If you still have a problem with developers maintaining a sustainable business by charging for the considerable efforts involved in major updates to their apps, and still believe that all updates should be free and that developers should find some magical beans or something to finance their work, here is an exercise that may help you at least rationalise the expense:

Q: When did you first buy Tweetbot?
A: (I bought Tweetbot 1 the week it launched in April 2011 – Tweetbot 2 was a free update, ironically)

Q: How many weeks is that?
A: (I’ve owned it 130 weeks)

Q: What price did you pay?
A: (I paid £2 I believe)

Q: Therefore, how much have you paid per week to own and use Tweetbot?
A: (£2 divided by 130 = £0.0153 = 1.5 UK pennies per week)

One and a half UK pennies per week. That’s what I paid to have both version 1 and version 2 of Tweetbot on my phone. And in fact after Apple’s cut I’ve only paid Tapbots £0.0107, barely a hair over one penny per week, to sustain their efforts not just maintaining the app with bug fixes but also rolling out an entirely new version 2.0 of the app.

So a whole new third version, entirely rewritten and redesigned for the new iOS 7 UI and frameworks, for just £2*?! I feel bad for them that it’s so cheap, frankly, and as I fully intend to continue using their app, I have no issue paying them for the hard work they put into it.

The last word

I was told on Twitter that Tapbots are lucky to have customers like me. What, I replied, you mean customers that understand why they’re asked to pay for their products? Fortunately, I think there’s more than enough people perfectly happy to pay way below the deserving rate for an awesome app for Tapbots to do just fine, but the miserliness of strangers continues to drive me up the wall.

* The price I’m quoting for Tapbots 3 is their discounted Launch Pricing.