

About CoverSutra, the Mac App Store and Sanity - strandev
http://www.sophiestication.com/blog/about-coversutra-the-mac-app-store-and-sanity/

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glhaynes
Yuck. For me her explanation just makes the situation worse: 'I forgot what
I'd promised, but now that I've been reminded of it, buck up and just spend
the $5 to get what I'd told you would be included in your original purchase.
I'm not trying to screw anybody over and I'm offended you said I am.' Really?!
Shockingly not customer-centric.

Not that this excuses the rude anonymous idiocy against her on Twitter and her
blog comments - I never understand why people yell and say ugly things even
before asking nicely. Really unpleasant and wrong. But her behavior certainly
doesn't make me want to purchase anything she makes in the future, either.

~~~
nopal
Her response was written entirely from her perspective. Shockingly bad
customer service, indeed.

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xpaulbettsx
I have no idea why the dev is choosing to take a major hit in her reputation
that she clearly worked pretty hard to build through great design and code,
for no reason other than "I don't want to spin up a separate build".

And for what? If you're gonna burn through your company's rep, at least get
something out of it. Contrast this to what another Indie Mac dev did when
confronted with the same situation:

"Free updates to the 1.x product will continue for paid customers of TapeDeck.
It means a bit of extra maintenance on my part, but I will do my best to keep
my existing customers happy."

~~~
meese_
Why doesn't she simply offer App Store coupon codes to existing users? Seems
like that would solve her "PR" problems, and they expire after their first use
so there shouldn't be any worry of piracy or anything like that, as with
serial numbers.

~~~
netnichols
As far as I know, you only get 50 of those per release.

~~~
kmfrk
Per version, I believe. You have to game the system a little bit for that, but
that's what Marco does according to the Build & Analyze podcast, from what I
recall.

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colinplamondon
Crazy- she could have scored points out of this! Price at $0.99 out of the
gate, email the ENTIRE userbase explaining the situation. Say that there is no
way to migrate existing users to the App Store, but in appreciation of their
support she's pricing at 99 cents for the first week so they can upgrade.

Explicitly state that 'Even though I'll lose a bunch of money by pricing so
low during the launch of the App Store, it's worth it to me to maintain the
trust of my users'.

Boom. Crisis averted, you lose $5-10k or so on launch sales, but make very,
very loyal users out of your existing customers. Cross-sell that email list
more aggressively in the future. Money in the bank.

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mishmash
> If I thought of that license text I would have simply declared this new
> version 3.0.

Ouch. Despite what I think she's trying to claim, this statement shows that
she clearly had no intention of keeping the "free upgrades til 3.0" promise.

Kind of a bum deal for her customers.

~~~
senorprogrammer
The tragedy is that it could all have been averted by numbering the 2.5
release as 3.0. From the comments on her original blog post my impression is
that most complainers don't seem to understand that version numbers are
arbitrarily defined by the developer.

It's not hard to imagine she might have gotten good PR by announcing that v3
is out and, per the promise, a simple paid purchase through the app store.

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rsanders
She has certainly lost my trust. She made a promise to help her business --
possibly impacting competing products like BowTie who did not make the same
promise negatively -- and then fails to uphold it. Not only is this a breach
of contract with her customers, it undermines our ability to find viable
alternative products.

A promise doesn't mean "I'll do it if it's convenient." That people are
rewarding her broken promise is just bizarre.

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rje
I understand the difficulties of running a small shop, but the right PR move
here is to suck it up, apologize to customers, and do what you can to make it
right. If that means having to take some time out to spin new builds until you
hit version 3.0 then so be it.

~~~
kmfrk
Sounds like the only reason to stick to her position is principle; it's not
like she isn't going to take a financial hit from this.

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AndyParkinson
The way this was handled certainly has an "ick" factor, but I wonder if it
will matter from a pure business perspective in the end. Hell. It may even
help. It's got a lot of people talking about her...

Here are some other thoughts/questions:

1) Users have been receiving free upgrades for years, meaning she received no
additional revenues from them. I wonder many of the vocal unhappy users would
upgrade to the app store version anyway if she just called this 3.0. How
"valuable" is the livid segment of her existing customerbase?

2) The app store will allow her to reach new users that don't know or care
about the developers. The Mac App Store is a black box where the developer
reputation doesn't seem to matter much, unless its reflected in the reviews.
Think about buying an iPhone app... Have you ever researched the reputation of
a dev before buying a $4.99 iPhone app? My brother would just buy the app and
be happy as a clam.

3) She has 70 reviews in the store so far. Only 1 mentions this and gives her
1-star. Many give 5 stars and some talk about how they are happy to pay for
this upgrade.

Again, not condoning the behavior... Just thinking out loud.

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rlan
I think it's pathetic to whinge about having to drop just $5 on an app store
version when a lot of users originally got it through a discount bundle such
as Macheist. Especially as it will update to any future version (3.0+) for
free and the existing app isn't going to expire, as stated in the blog post.

Look at any other company, Apple isn't going to give you a free code to say,
Aperture 3 just because you own the pre-MAS serialized version.

~~~
netnichols
People aren't mad because it costs $5, they're mad because she broke a
promise.

And if Apple had reneged on a promise that all Aperture 2 users would get
Aperture 3 for free, you better believe it would get huge (negative) media
coverage.

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cubicle67
maybe it's because I'm getting old and crotchety, or perhaps it's because I
didn't get a good night sleep last night (it's stinking hot here and we've no
air-con), but my internet today is full of self-entitled whiners.

ffs people, cut the lady some slack. all this fuss over a $5 cover art app!?

Sure, she broke a promise, there doesn't seem much doubt about that, but don't
we all? Who here has never broken a $5 promise? Who's never said they'd be
home at 6, but didn't get in 'til 6:30? Who's never said they'd meet for
coffee, but then couldn't make it?

And no, I don't accept the argument that this is the same as if Apple reneged
on an Aperture promise or similar. It's not binary, it's a scale, but $5 is at
one end and $100 is a lot further up.

I realise this is an unpopular position, but I just can't stand all this
negative attitude all heaped on one person. would you behave like this if she
was in the same room as you?

