Gang-Jumped By Paid App Upgrades

Gedeon Maheux:

Perhaps a better way to answer the question might be, how willing would you be to re-purchase your favorite apps if they are optimized for iOS 7? Look at your device’s home screen and go down the list of apps you use most and ask yourself if you could live without it once you upgrade. I think that most users (at least those that matter to developers) would answer that they would gladly pay again if it means having the latest and greatest version of their favorite apps, at least I would hope so.

If I take a quick look at my home screen I’ll find:

• Byword (with IAP) - $10
• Craigslist - $2
• Downcast - $2
• Felix - $3
• Reeder - $5
• SkyMotion - $3
• Tweetbot - $9
• 1Password Pro - $14
• Assorted games ~$30

Each of those apps was well worth the money and I use most of them daily (Reeder is more of an addiction than an app). But if all of those developers just on the iOS 7-is-the-time-to-release-a-paid-upgrade train then I’m out almost $80. That inches closer to $100 if you count my second page apps. Each on their own in worth the money, but all of them together would break the bank.

I believe in paying for good software, really I do, but I’d appreciate if all the devs of apps I use didn’t take advantage of the new iOS launch to make my entire phone out of date.

The App Store's Upgrade Model

Federico Viticci today pointed to Apple’s brand-spanking-new[1] Logic Pro X’s price and took it as “another data point” when trying to figure out what Apple intends — and intends others — to do about the App Stores’ upgrade model. I agree entirely, but what was more interesting to me was the article he linked to from last year by Gabe Glick:

Developers and longtime computer users may be used to the shareware, time trial, pay-full-price-once-upgrade-cheaply-forever model of buying and selling software, but regular people, the mass market that Apple continues to court first and foremost, aren’t. Adding demos (“I thought this app was free, but now it’s telling me I have to pay to keep using it? What a ripoff!”) and paid upgrades (“Wait, I bought this app last year and now I have to pay again to keep using it? Screw that!”) would introduce a layer of confusion and make buying an app a more arduous process, which would result in people buying fewer apps.

Gabe goes on to contend that the above are, he speculates, Apple’s motives. I disagree. The objections put forward seem unlikely to me.

“I thought this app was free, but now it’s telling me I have to pay to keep using it? What a ripoff!”

This first theorized objection is the stronger of the two in my mind. But, the iBookstore allows Samples. That model seems to be working for iBooks, I’m sure if Apple allowed App Store demos that would encourage people to try out more apps — possibly even more expensive apps — which might lead to more sales, and maybe even stem the race to the bottom.

“Wait, I bought this app last year and now I have to pay again to keep using it? Screw that!”

Anyone who has ever bought computer software knows that when you get new software (upgrade or otherwise) you need to pay for it. And besides, you don’t have to upgrade — you can keep using what you’ve been using, no extra charge. I think the real issue is support and bug-fixes for older software. That — it seems — would become a thing of the past.

Let me be clear — I don’t mean to say anything negative against Gabe or his piece for Macstories. He’s trying to come up with a theory as to why Apple is not giving developers the opportunity to offer an easy paid upgrade or trial mechanism in the App Store. The reasons, to me, are as opaque as the approval process of the App Store itself. It seems, at least to this observer, that Apple just doesn’t care — they don’t make their real money off software anyway.

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1. And totally GAS-inducing.  ↩

Apple's Manifesto

Apple’s new ‘Designed By Apple’[1] and ‘Our Signature’ ads are garnering a lot of attention — in both positive and negative[2] lights. But what I think people have largely overlooked since John Moltz pointed out that Samsung is/was a client of Ace Metrix (The source often cited when deriding Apple’s latest ads), is that these new spots harken back to Apple’s ‘Here’s To The Crazy Ones’ ad from the late 90s.

Lee Clow, the big dog at Apple’s advertising agency, recently said — rather off-handedly — that “Crazy Ones” was made to ‘buy time’ between Jobs’ re-arrival and the iMac[3], but I sincerely doubt that’s the whole story.

I believe the entire ‘Think Different’ campaign was a manifesto; an anthem; a rallying cry. Apple had rediscovered itself. It had dusted off its original identity and it wanted to let everyone know. It wasn’t just for Apple as so many have claimed — it was also for it’s customers. Apple wanted to let people know that they shouldn’t listen to all the negativity, that good things were coming, and that those things would be decidedly different[4].

I believe these new ads serve the same function. With every two-bit “analyst” crawling out of the woodwork to talk about how Apple is losing it’s cool, or waining in public support, or that innovation at Apple is dead since the death of founder and resurrector, Steve Jobs, it has become time once again to rally the troops.

This is Tim Cook’s Apple. And while it may not have some of Jobs’ alleged design tendencies, it still believes those things it clung to in the late 90s when death was knocking at the door. Apple doesn’t ship a product just for the sake of shipping it[5] — each product has a purpose, it fills a need. And Apple will not be rushed to market before it’s ready. And Apple’s string of successes seem to indicate that they know what they’re doing.

I, for one, love the ads and am excited for the fall.

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1. Apple seems to be drawing a lot of heat about their claim that these products are “Designed by Apple in California” — as though they are trying to draw attention away from their place of manufacture. And while I’ve no doubt that Apple would be pleased if these ads reminded people that much of what they do does not take advantage of China’s manufacturing prowess, I think the emphasis is all wrong. Jason Zimdars put it very well in a piece he wrote back in 2010 (emphasis his):

   [I]t wasn’t “Made by Apple in California,” it was Designed. I can’t think of another company that holds design in higher esteem or even one that touts every product as designed, not made. This might be the best expression of the company’s mission available. ↩

2. A lot of people are basing their conclusion that these ads are a ‘flop’ on a report by Ace Metrix, a company that numbers Samsung among their clients. ↩
3. And OS X. ↩
4. And not just different for different’s sake. Apple took a radical approach to make computers into functionally integrated, simple, and beautiful appliances — in terms of hardware and software. ↩
5. iPod Socks not withstanding. ↩

Making Life Better

Sarah Hampson recently castigated Apple for subtly insinuating that “iPhones [are] the meaning of life” in it’s latest TV spots, Our Signature and Designed By Apple. Before making her ‘meaning of life’ and hubris claims Hampson quotes this portion of the Designed By Apple ad:

Who will it help?

Will it make life better?

Does it deserve to exist?

We spend a lot of time on a few great things until every idea we touch enhances each life it touches.

Now The Macalope already had his mythical way with this piece, but I just wanted to add an additional comment about this article and these commercials.

Apple does strive to make my life better through technology. Not to infiltrate, but to enhance. If I let technology get in the way of my life that’s no more Apple’s fault than it’s beer’s fault someone becomes an alcoholic. I need to own that part.

But my Apple computers let me connect with family and friends via the internet on a platform that never crashes and doesn’t pester me to update constantly. My Airport wireless router allows me to do so wirelessly, without worrying about where the nearest ethernet jack is. My Apple TV lets me wind down with my favourite TV programs on demand, and after that program is over my Photo Stream screensaver kicks in and shows me photo after photo of my infant son. Dozens of times my wife and I will just sit and reminisce over our family photos until the Apple TV turns itself off. My iPad enables me to play games with my wife and quickly plan and print set lists for when I’m invited to lead worship for a church or youth group. And my iPhone — probably my favourite of the bunch. Not just for quick information or interactive maps-in-my-pocket as the Macalope suggests, but because I know I have a decent camera (photo and 1080p HD video) in my pocket at all times, which lets me capture moments like this video of my son giggling with his mom on film and keep them forever.

Apple is constantly trying to make technology more transparent. To get it out of the way and allow what it can do, not what it is to shine through. If that’s not making one’s life better, I honestly don’t know what is.

Premium Experiences

It is very clear to anyone with even a cursory knowledge of Apple’s workings that they believe iCloud is the lynchpin of their future success (and that ‘cloud computing’ is the future of computing in general). I would be hard-pressed to disagree. This seems to have been obvious to Steve Jobs since around the early 90s.

You can tell because Apple created an internet-first operating system with Mac OS X[1] in tandem with its first cloud effort — iTools.

At WWDC 2002 Apple officially end-of-life’d Mac OS 9 by holding a mock funeral[2] and one month later at Macworld New York they transformed iTools into .Mac, which would become MobileMe and eventually iCloud.

I believe that the dream was always to have the setup Jobs described during his 1997 WWDC Q&A session. That’s what iCloud aspires to be. All your stuff, everywhere, all the time. Whether on a PC or a post-PC.

But then I got this email from Apple:

Your iCloud storage is full. As a reminder, when you exceed your storage plan your devices can no longer back up or save documents to iCloud.

You will continue to receive email for a limited time, but if you do not free up space or upgrade your storage plan soon, you will no longer be able to send or receive new messages with your iCloud email address.

Okay, I’ll have to figure out how to go about addressing this issue (they do link to a kb article). But then, just 60 seconds later I received this message from Apple:

You have now exceeded your iCloud storage, including an additional amount provided to allow you to continue receiving email. As a result, you will not be able to send or receive new email messages with your iCloud email address until you free up storage space or buy more storage.

Now for something that’s supposed to “just work” this is quite a message to receive. I have an iPhone, an iPad, and some Documents in the Cloud — just what Apple expects the average user will have — users like our parents and/or technologically disadvantaged friends.[3]

For something that requires immediate and decisive intervention it should be brain-dead simple to do, but based on the number of how-to articles out there it clearly is not.

Apple needs to take the necessary steps to correct this or it will lead to unhappy and confused customers — who cannot send email — trying to make heads or tails of what is in their iCloud storage and what they can do to correct the situation. I’m not offering any answers or solutions, but for a premium brand — which I believe Apple is — this is decidedly not a premium experience.

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1. Based on Steve’s work on NeXTSTEP in the 80s and early 90s. It was incredible to see how OS X-like it was.  ↩

2. Maybe that’s what Microsoft was hoping for when they tried the same thing with the iPhone.  ↩

3. You have no idea how many times I’ve explained to someone how to get mail messages older than 3 days back in their iOS inbox, or events older than 3 months in the iOS Calendar. 3 months isn’t so bad, but 3 days, really? What possible reason would anyone have for making that the default?  ↩

iBooks & Price-Fixing

Justice Denise L. Cote, in her recent ruling on Apple's eBook price-fixing trial:

The agency model presented one significant problem. Apple wanted its iBookstore to be a rousing success. For that to happen, Apple needed not only content but also customers. Apple realized that if it moved to an agency model with the Publishers, Apple would be at a competitive disadvantage so long as Amazon remained on the wholesale model and could price New Releases and NYT Bestsellers at $9.99, or even lower to compete with Apple. Since it was inevitable that the Publishers wouldraise e-book prices when given the opportunity –- indeed, Apple expected the Publishers to raise the prices to the tier caps -- e-books priced at $9.99 by Amazon would doom the iBookstore. Why would a consumer buy an e-book in the iBookstore for $14.99 when it could download it from Amazon for $9.99? To ensure that the iBookstore would be competitive at higher prices, Apple concluded that it needed to eliminate all retail price competition. Thus, the final component of its agency model required the Publishers to move all of their e-tailers to agency. Apple expected that this proposal would appeal to the Publishers. After all, it would allow them to “fix” their “problem” with Amazon’s pricing. (p39,40)

Can I just come out an say what a load this whole thing is? Amazon was promoting and executing an unsustainable business model, not unlike what Google did with Reader.

Chris Meadows:

Amazon sells it at below wholesale, as a “loss leader”—breaking even or losing money on the deal to promote sales of the Kindle and grow its share of the market. (Giving away the blades to sell the razor, as it were.)

Thus, if a hardcover book has a suggested retail price of $24.95, Amazon pays the publisher about $12.50 for the e-book version—and loses about $2.50 when it turns around and sells it for $9.99.

As Cote herself notes, Apple's iBookstore was doomed to be a failure if Amazon was going to continue undercutting any other competitor who planned to make a profit. That means only others who were willing to be so-called "loss-leaders" would have any hope of competing, which is why Amazon had ~90% of the ebook market in 2009. And this unsustainable model had a very real dark side lurking for either consumers or publishers, as Laura Miller writes:

Obviously, however deep its pockets, Amazon would not be able to go on selling e-books at a loss indefinitely. But once Amazon was cemented in place as the uncontested sovereign of e-book retail, it could do whatever it wanted: force publishers to reduce their own prices, and/or raise prices on consumers.

Apple wasn't willing to be a loss-leader, and they knew what the future was for publishers if Amazon went uncontested for long enough. So they told the publishers that they intended to take 30% and still sell their books equal to the lowest price available - that of Amazon. They pushed the publishers in that direction and made them aware of Amazon's most likely end-game (being forced to sell books for less, often much less, and take a severe cut in profits). Here Alex Hern is in agreement with Laura Miller:

[I]nvestors expect Amazon's profit to increase at some point in the future. But there's only two ways that could happen: either Amazon vastly increases its revenue, or it vastly increases its profit margin.

It sounds almost conspiratorial, but the only way the company can really do this – and its actions indicate that it knows it – is by becoming the only player in town. Amazon's success to date has been built around winning every price war going, but once it gains control of a field, then it wins that price war by default.

There's nothing inherent in the Agency model that prevents any of the publishers from going cheaper and trying to undercut their competition. Apple essentially ensured that retailers could sell books at a profit and made sure that the publishers didn't shoot the price (at least on the iBookstore) through the roof.

When it comes to companies like Amazon, there's just no accounting for Jeff Bezos' gleeful willingness to sell at a loss — a long-term strategy that they would have gotten away with if it weren't for those meddling kids!

Generic... Eventually

Jonathan Stempel:

"We no longer see a need to pursue our case," Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet said. "With more than 900,000 apps and 50 billion downloads, customers know where they can purchase their favorite apps."

The way Apple abandoned this case is basically a slap across the face of Amazon. Their 'appstore' is so inconsequential that Apple need not waste it's resources any further trying to stop them from piggybacking on Apple's branding success.

Nonetheless, the original defence for the usage of 'appstore' was that the term had become so generic that customers would not be mislead. I find this line of thinking to be laughable! One company can steal another's ideas and implementations (Samsung, I'm looking at you) and then simply wait until trial, at which point the IP in question has become so diluted that it is, in fact, generic. Does no one else see how crazy this is?

I know I find that infuriating as an on-looker. I cannot imagine how it would feel as the inventor of the idea.

EDIT: Repaired the article.

iTunes Holdouts and the Love of Money

Some artists have given in to the iTunes Store juggernaut (Metallica, The Beatles, AC/DC), others still hold out (Garth Brooks, Def Leppard, Bob Seger), and some can't decide (Kid Rock). But what they all agreed on, at least at some point, was that they did not want their albums sold off piecemeal. Why? Because, as Garth Brooks put it:

I don't want singles 'cause you make an album for a reason, an album is a reflection of who the artist is at that time.

Sorry Garth, as much as I love your music (and I do, Much Too Young, for example, has a permanent spot on my playlist) this excuse is bunk. And I'll give two good reasons to back up my assertion that the whole "album as a reflection of an artist" thing is bunk.

1. Hits
2. Ultimate Hits

These compilations do not represent who you were at the time you recorded the albums because the tracks span many years, and I suppose some argument could be made for hand-selecting a cohesive career retrospective, but these albums are simply collections of your most popular songs. And this isn't to pick on Garth Brooks exclusively, Bob Seger and Def Leppard are just as guilty.

Don't make some artistic stand, just call it what it is, Apple uses iTunes content to make iPods more attractive because they want the money that selling those iPods brings in. But artists also want the money whole albums bring in. It's all a money game. And right now everyone's losing.

Update: As Paul Rumens notes in the comments, Def Leppard are arguing with the label, not Apple.

On Setting Up Windows Machines

At work I'm required to use a Windows laptop. As, perhaps, many of you are. And yes, a little piece of me does die every day. I've decided to get a Mac anyway to do actual work, and I can use this PC to interface with the small handful of Windows-only applications I am required to use. Incidentally my iPad has become a huge part of my workflow since being given this HP Pavillion g Series with a sweet AMD Quad-Core processor. Let me just say that not all Quad-Cores are created equal.

All that to say that this is not the point of my post. The point is that when I first got this computer I had to, obviously, set it up for actual use. This took me the better part of the day. Seriously it took almost 5 hours.

First things first. The computer booted into Windows 7 which, as far as Windows goes, is fairly nice, but it has subtly changed enough from XP that I get confused about things like "Personalizing" my desktop. But when it boots you need to go get some basic tools like an anti-virus package. I went with Windows Security Essentials - why is this not bundled? Security software is essential for Windows - it should be included standard. Once that's downloaded I double-click to open and then start doing something else... downloading Chrome, I think. After several minutes I notice that WSE still has not installed. So I click on the yellow install shield in the task bar and the screen goes black... after a few seconds a warning dialogue pops up that asks if it's okay that the program I just launched makes changes I click 'yes' and only then will the program actually install. Then Windows needs to restart. Fine. Restart. When Windows loads up again it it begins installing update 1 of 75. That took about 10-15 minutes. Then it restarted again. Then it installed a few more updates, probably around 10-15. Then it restarted again and booted into the actual OS after a while. Then I installed Office (I use iWork on my Macs) and it reminded me about how much I love authentication... 'cause one cannot copy-paste off the back of the Office packaging. Fine.

Then, because the built-in trackpad on this HP box is so horrendous I bought a wireless mouse (with USB dongle, of course) and as soon as it was plugging in, it just worked... no, no it didn't. Windows needed to reboot again. Reboot.

Install Dropbox, C-Cleaner, and Defraggler. No restart. Nice.

Then came the death blow. Installing programs I use every single day...

• Reeder? No. Windows alternative... none.
• Fantastical? No. Windows alternative... none.
• Cobook? No. Windows alternative... none.
• Coda? No. Windows alternative... Dreamweaver: $399
• Pixelmator? No. Windows alternative... Photoshop: $699 or GIMP: Shoot Me
• Motion? No. Windows alternative... After Effects: $999
• Aperture? No. Windows alternative... Lightroom: $149
• Mail.app? No. Windows alternative... Postbox: $39 or Outlook: Shoot Me

That's $290 in Mac software that would cost $2290 to replace most of in a Windows world.

After about two month of this I broke down and bought a Mac. I still have that HP in the corner. And I use it occasionally for a small handful of Windows-only tasks. But it sure looks awful lonely.

Windows users... I don't know how you put up with these machines. The constant rebooting. Updates a-plenty, all requiring a reboot. Software makers that assume you're trying to steal everything (but with those prices I can understand why). Even the OS assumes it's been stolen until proved otherwise.

You know the best part? No one in my office thought it was at all weird that I spent my whole first day setting up my machine. No one.

When I bought my new Mac I had it set up in an hour.

Google Maps for iOS

Jake Smith:

The question is: will Apple accept [Google's maps app]?

I disagree. The question is: what are we giving up? Maps needs access to some rather important information. Like your address book (Contacts) and location data. This means that Maps can report back to Google routes you use on a regular basis as well as stores and other shopping opportunities nearby. People you know, and things they're into will help Google provide you with eerily specific ad targeting. I just don't know that I want Google to have access to where I am at any given time (when I'm getting directions). I also doubt that I want Google to know who I am friends with, but I require Facebook for my job, so I just assume I've already lost that battle.

Short of the long is this: we are for sale. And the more info Google has about us, the more valuable we are to Google's customers.

Office for iOS & Android

Free, but it requires a Microsoft account, and only allows viewing (which iOS already does, without a Microsoft account). And if you want "basic editing" it'll cost $4/month. Or, if you want more advanced editing you can just buy the whole iWork suite for $30 in the App Store. This sounds like the stupidest thing ever. How did it possibly take Microsoft 4 years to come out with this?

(via The Verge)

Tim Cook on Compromise

Microsoft was chanting the mantra of "No Compromises" at it's Surface Launch Event. But that's just delusory nonsense. Even Tim Cook, whose company has been leading the charge in almost every profitable & popular emerging area of personal computing said (via Joanna Stern):

One of the toughest things you do is make hard tradeoffs and decide what a product should be, and we’ve done that with the iPad.

It's not about 'no compromise' it's about the right compromise.

Samsung/Apple UK judgment

This whole thing is so stupid I can't even handle it. The UK court wants Apple to apologize to Samsung on the Apple UK homepage for giving Samsung months and months of free adverts and fodder for ads with additional space on Apple's site. I understand why Apple was upset with what Samsung had done (and continues to do), but they gave the South Korean electronics manufacturer a metric tonne of publicity (I was going to say "free publicity", but it wasn't). None-the-less Samsung's Galaxy Tab line went from 'just another tablet' to front-and-centre. They should be thanking Apple, especially since Californian tech giant lost it's case in Europe, leaving that territory rife for the selling.

Maybe they'll make back what they lost in the US...

"Copying Doesn't Stop Innovation"

James Allworth:

Apple didn't stop innovating at all. Instead: they came out with the iMac. Then OS X ("Redmond, start your photocopiers"). Then the iPod. Then the iPhone. And now, most recently, the iPad. Given the underlying reason that Apple has been bringing these cases to court was to enable them to continue to innovate, it's hard not to ask: if copying stops innovation, why didn't Apple stop innovating last time they were copied?

Is this guy for real!?

Apple didn't stop innovating; Microsoft did! Microsoft rode a poorly worded gravy train to over-priced glory then tossed the tech landscape into a monopolistic dark age. Samsung was on track to accomplish the same thing. This doesn't stop the innovators from doing their thing. That's in their DNA. It stops their competitors from innovating, and that destroys the work of the people who are "pushing the human race forward".

The New New Apple TV

Jordan Golson on the new-new Apple TV:

Apple aims to make it so viewers can watch any show at any time via a cloud-based DVR that would store TV shows online. The service would be designed so viewers could begin streaming a show minutes after it began airing live.

Take my money. Take it now.

Samsung Better At Hardware Than Apple?

Nigam Arora on the forthcoming Samsung "P10" tablet that was disclosed during the Apple v. Samsung trial:

There is no doubt that Samsung will do a better job than Apple at the electronics hardware.

Uh-huh.

Stupid Things Market Watch Says

Quentin Fottrell saying things:

All that initial excitement over the first iPhone or iPad has quickly given way to what analysts are dubbing “upgrade fatigue”—with even Apple’s most loyal customers upset about the steady stream of newer models.

That was the first sentence. Samsung has released 32 Android phones since 2009... and there are dozens of other Android manufacturers. Apple has released 5 iPhones since 2007. So... yeah.

Genius Ads And Over Reaction

Ben Brooks on the 'Mayday' Genius ad from Apple:

So Apple just subtly told all would-be Mac users that...

A good article, and worth a read, but I think Ben, like everyone else, is severely over-thinking this. I asked my wife what she (as a typical computer user) thought of "Labor Day", if it made her feel like Apple was telling users they were 'dumb' and in need of help. She looked surprised and said, "No, what I thought was 'this is funny'." Same thing I thought. I actually liked the ads. I wanted to see this genius character get a bit more development.

Samsung Product Evolution

John Paczkowski:

In a trio of product timelines submitted into evidence and released to the public on Friday as part of the company’s case against Samsung, Apple tracks the evolution of Samsung’s smartphone and tablet designs against those of the iPhone and iPad...

It's fun to watch the "evolution" of Samsung's products. It took them almost 3 years to fully copy Apple's iPhone... and then Samsung's sales took off. Well done, Apple!

RIM Might License Blackberry OS

RIM CEO Thornton Heins via the Telegraph:

We don't have the economy of scale to compete against the guys who crank out 60 handsets a year. We have to differentiate and have a focused platform. To deliver BB10 we may need to look at licensing it to someone who can do this at a way better cost proposition than I can do it. There's different options we could do that we're currently investigating.

I call BS. Apple is leading the charge in Mobile and they only release one handset a year.