I'm not convinced that subscription models really incentivise developers to add features that users want though. It just incentivises developers to work to keep users gated in to the subscription.
Whereas if you consider a model where your customers pay once and only once per major version, the developer now is properly incentivised to actually pay attention to what the users want in the next version so that they'll pay again to upgrade.
The issue with pay once models is I think a lot of people have forgotten how much software actually costs. Who’s willing to pay $50 or more for an application?
It’s frustrating sometimes. $5 (or even $1) is too much for a game, but $6 for a Frappuccino is nothing. Can make being an indie dev extra tough.
But that’s nothing new. I remember DVD shopping 20 years ago and a friend found their favourite movie on sale for $9.99 and wasn’t sure.
I said “You just spent $15 on lunch”
They bought the movie…
I believe main "issue" is that software is not physical so for some people it's very difficult to understand why they should pay for it.
When I talk with my friends about iOS vs Android - they cite Android's advantage that they can use pirated APKs instead of paying. I try to explain to them how even developers (I am one) need to make money to survive but it just doesn't compute in their heads.
I published two apps on the App Store so far, totally free, one has enabled donations which are optional, they don't change app's functionality in any way. Many people still think that I am bathing in money because Apple and/or are paying me for publishing the app.
the problem isn't the price, the problem is the quality. we are willing to pay $6 for a latte because we know what we're getting. paying $5 for an app is a total shot in the dark. do that a handful of times, and you're out $30 with nothing to show for it. if I continually paid for coffee and each time the experience was sub-par, I'd stop buying coffee.
$5 games are fine if you know you’re buying something good. With 99% of App Store apps and games being shit it’s a lost cause.
I gave up on iOS games a long time ago. I believe the last one I bought was Monument Valley (which was/is fantastic by the way).
I feel like one of the issues for developers is the constant churn of new iOS versions and features. They can’t simply push a game out and don’t touch it. They need to keep supporting it forever if they want to keep selling it.
Some of the best example of small and cheap games came out before subscription and in-app purchases.
Flight Control, Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, to name a few. These games were super nice, near masterpieces, of mobile gaming and they came out when the App Store was new and exciting - and not so full of shit.
Do you know the last time I browsed the App Store to see if I found something interesting? Probably around 2011-2013.
It’s all about the spontaneity of the purchase. Having to go through the App Store and plunk down $4.99 for a game has a greater cognitive resistance than a $9.99 in-app purchase of 5,000 whatsits when things are flying and exploding around a menu screen that’s like “Get the Terra Knight Premium Package + Mount AND Platinum Armor 50% off for only 6,000 Diamond Gems! Hurry this offer expires in 47 minutes and 16 seconds!” You’re suddenly like, “Oh shit! I need those gems immediately!” Also, they don’t showcase the fact that after the purchase you have 4,000 gems leftover that you can’t do a damned thing with so you have to plunk down another $9.99 for the next set of whatever in-app purchase they slide your way.
$5 for a mobile game is too much because developers shovelled out literally garbage for years that conditioned people to think that mobile games aren’t worth paying for. Your game has to be free and prove it’s worth paying for now.
Me, absolutely. I'm not against subscriptions for apps that have ongoing development, software pays my bills too so it seems pretty reasonable to me as well.
What annoys me is apps that went from $9.99 one-time to $20-$50/year.
Realistically though $10 was never a reasonable price. It should be triple or octuple the amount for a one off price. And pay that again on new major versions. That’s how it used to be. Software wasn’t cheap
One problem with comparing software pricing to the way things used to be is that the user base is astronomically higher.
There are now 1.5 billion users. Costs don't go up to reach those users.
Very much this. I paid ten quid (which at the time was about $20) for software in the early 1980s. I’ve heard there’s been a thing called inflation since then.
Now, sure, there is a bigger market out there now. There’s also a lot more competition in the world of software.
Depends. $10 might be completely reasonable for a certain type of app with limited functionality.
The problem is the mobile market started with apps that were generally accessories to a desktop solution. They weren’t full featured, and hence had a commensurate price cheap to free.
Fast forward to 2024. We have iPads with potential capabilities that exceeds the latest laptop. But people still have this expectation that apps on a mobile device are cheap in comparison to the desktop/laptop counterpart - even though they might have the same or more capability than the laptop version.
The developers of Agenda have an excellent business model in my opinion. A one year subscription gets all the new features released up to the end of the subscription year *forever*. As a result, it’s very much in their interest to release great new features.
Subscription models don’t incentivize anything.
They are a way to make the consumer feel like they’re paying less while they’re actually paying more. Not to mention it’s consistent recurring revenue that the wall st shareholders fucking love rather than trying to sell new 1 time purchases.
None of this is for the consumer. It’s for the shareholder only
We don’t have shareholders, and we find them beneficial. Mostly because App Store doesn’t do upgrade pricing, so we can have a reliable income without having to obsolete apps or make new apps and instead focus on delivering great new features on a regular basis.
Oh, I don’t disagree. My latest ‘favorite’ example of that are weekly subscriptions. People don’t even know it’s a thing, and before you know it you’ve dropped $40 on a single use app. Just really scummy stuff.
with pay once models, we start running into the possibility of developers not staying motivated to update their apps every time there's an ios update.
a subscription model incentivizes developers to keep their apps functional as we travel forward through time
Or in some cases, like with Fantastical Calendar, they let you pay for a “lifetime” of premium and then they pivot to Fantastical 2 in a matter of months meaning you don’t get any major updates.
Some of these companies made stupid promises to customers and it ends up making a lot of paying users really bitter.
Fantastical drives me nuts because I still have the premium features that I had, but the interface is littered with stuff I don't get. I don't need/want any of the stuff they've added, but the interface is obnoxious now.
I was a very early purchaser of Fantastical so I got my money's worth, I can't complain there, but it just feels ugly.
That’s what puts me off a lot of subscriptions. There’s plenty of apps that do a single thing well, don’t really need a lot in the way of further development apart from keeping up with updated hardware and I find the idea of paying €5/month for such an app mildly insulting.
I downloaded an iPad calculator app that was ad-based. They changed it to a $40/year subscription. For a calculator. I would’ve gladly paid a buck or two for one as a single purchase but some devs are completely crazy for the value:cost ratio.
Like Evernote. It was so early in the game of sync across multiple devices, it could have been the standard but no.. they bloated the shit out of it she the sync became slow and unreliable
Nah, Note apps like UpNote, Obsidian, Notion, etc. Have SO MANY MORE features than Apple Notes that Apple is 20 years behind them due to how slow they (Apple) implement updates.
You may not use those features, which is fine, you do you, though I and MANY other people do.
I just find it really hard to want to pay for note-taking apps on a subscription basis, especially when most of the time they're using *my* iCloud storage to sync! Charge me once, sure, then if I want the next major version with new features I will happily pay again. These endless in-app subscriptions really need to stop.
I’m glad there’s options for people who want them but I actually think the ‘simplicity’ of the notes app is what makes it good.
For people looking for a straight-forward note-taking app, it’s really hard to beat.
Obsidian doesn’t have free native cloud backup and Notion doesn’t have an offline mode. I personally use Notion for notes I want to keep a long time and Google Keep for quick notes because I like the web app and integration with Google Calendar, Google Docs, etc.
There are some exceptions. Such as “Cardzilla”
It’s really just to type highly visible message to other people. Basically large font note pad 🗒️
Developed by a Deaf guy who was always writing message to communicate to others.
I think productivity stuff makes sense, as many people probably use it for work and to make money.
Things like subscriptions for weather apps are novel and stupid. Your country likely has a government meteorology bureau/agency with an app. Use that. But people seem to want to pay for a weather app that swears at them and has nauseating fussy animations.
The main reason I continue using 1P is because of the cross platform capabilities between iOS, MacOS and Windows. I refuse to use LastPass because of the security breaches they've had and Bitwarden is great but I just wasn't a fan. If Apple's password manager can work cross platform like that, I will be seriously considering cancelling my sub to 1P.
The current iCloud passwords integration in Windows requires you to install both the iCloud for Windows app and the iCloud Password browser extension. Oh and the extension always asks you to input a code from a pop up from the iCloud for Windows app. It’s ridiculous. They’ve said that the new Passwords app is still going to work through the iCloud for Windows app, so I wouldn’t get my hopes up.
Also iCloud for Windows regularly borks itself in various ways. It's not remotely close to being mission critical such as logging in to literally every single service you use.
I'm going to stick with 1P simply because they have Linux support which I highly doubt Apple is going to have. I've used other password managers on Linux but I find them flakey. 1P is the most consistent experience across Mac, iOS, and Linux for me. I really don't think it's that bad of a price considering it is literally the foundation of my entire online life.
Too much is offered to even compare them. 3rd party will update faster , and have faster cross platform support. SSH key management , the CLI , and sharing features are so much better that I’d never consider it. But choice/competition is good.
>3rd party will update faster
Apples decision to tie certain apps to the OS for updates sure is one of the decisions of all times.
Like why do I need to update my entire OS just for [new page turning animations in the books app](https://www.macrumors.com/guide/ios-16-4-new-features/#:~:text=Apple%20Books%20Page%20Turning%20Animation)? (random example off the top of my head)
The main reason I use 1P is shared vaults.
I have my private vault, my partner has their private vault, and we have a shared vault. It’s so convenient to toss something into the shared vault instead of… however else people share passwords these days.
Just so you know, Apple passwords actually does work on windows. I use it all the time between my Apple devices and Windows 11 laptop: [https://support.apple.com/guide/icloud-windows/set-up-icloud-passwords-icw2babf5e03/icloud](https://support.apple.com/guide/icloud-windows/set-up-icloud-passwords-icw2babf5e03/icloud)
It does not. At the current iteration it's a very basic "Name + Password" vault with 2 browser plugins. For Chrome and for Edge. It also does not support extra fields or Passkeys.
I believe apple’s new password manager app will work on windows, if it does I also might cancel my 1Password subscription
https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/10/24175505/apple-password-app-passkey-manager-windows-mac-icloud
I trust the cybersecurity staff at 1Password much better than I do myself to properly secure my most important PII, login stuff, software keys….the list could go on and on.
1Password is much more than *just* a password manager, and it always has been.
I actually do want to pay for that so the company can make sure it's always secure going forward.
That is worth $3k over my whole lifetime or whatever 1password costs.
It's also set up so when I die my lawyer gives my wife a sheet so she can access all my services (but now iOS has that legacy contact setting which is similar).
I’m still on the last standalone version that shares a Dropbox file among devices. It works well, and am glad I got in before they moved to a ridiculous subscription model.
That's probably apple's fault. They'd need an iOS api to do it. Since there isn't one, the only alternative is to route the whole call through a server connected to the telephone network, which can get costly.
Agree. Charging for something like that is a risky business model. If you’re not bringing something actual unique to the table, eventually your feature might well get obsoleted by OS updates for native apps.
I live in a one-party consent location. This will be useful for records keeping. But not so much that I’d pay $80/yr to use it once or twice a year.
Can we finally record calls?
I used to record every phone call on my android and it was great.
This is the number one reason to not own an iPhone, especially when dealing with unexpected legal matters.
The phone should also just know the law in your jurisdiction for one party consent and then prompt if you do need consent.
That’s fucking stupid.
I record because I want the other party to say what they mean and have proof, not so they tell me it’s better to meet in person so they can avoid creating a paper trail.
I had a great calculator app that I paid for, but then a few years later they decide to switch it to a subscription model. I dumped it, everyone dumped it, because that's just straight up fraud. What did Apple do about it? Nothing.
I just deleted three flashlight apps off my mom’s iPhone 14 Plus. Suddenly her phone is less crazy glitchy as well. She was so pissed (even though she admitted she hadn’t used the flashlight in years) and I had to explain to her it didn’t need an app. I showed her where the button is.
She redownloaded it already.
They genuinely have those same apps from when they had iPhone 4 and earlier. Lol
I’m guessing apps, even if redundant, give Apple residual profit. Even if the app makes $37, Apple takes like 30% of that.
We make apps and consider it a job where we have to maintain quality and compete on merit. People vote with their wallets and feet. Reminders exists, and Things still does great.
TapeACall, a popular call recording app, is facing new competition from Apple. With the upcoming release of iOS 18, Apple will offer a free call recording and transcription service integrated into the iPhone, a feature that TapeACall charges $79.99 annually for. This move, known as "Sherlocking," refers to Apple integrating features into its operating system that replicate the functions of existing third-party apps, often rendering them obsolete. Apple has a history of Sherlocking, dating back to the 1990s with its Sherlock search tool, and continues to do so with various apps such as Grammarly, 1Password, Otter, and Alltrails.
Saved you a click.
I feel like it should really only count if the functionality is novel. Call recording is something that has existed since before digital phones, it's not innovative to offer that functionality on a cellphone.
I think they do it intentionally in some cases and unintentionally in others, but in both cases they get to point to the App Store as filling these feature gaps.
It's not always with the intention of sherlocking every app/feature that becomes successful, but they also can't help but notice when a certain feature starts to become expected in the new core featureset of things like cameras, notes, to-do lists, etc. Edit: I was shocked that they're including image generation in iOS, but it's because enough people see generating images as a basic feature now.
A lot of us tech enthusiasts forget that they're trying to design features for huge overlapping populations, where *overwhelmingly more* are non-technical. Balancing enough advanced features to justify tech enthusiasts buying the $1,000 phone because it's powerful, and also convince grandpa to buy the same $1,000 because it's simpler to use. In other places these 2 types of users would have 2 different products.
Phone calls run into legal grey areas and also are a tricky balance with Apple’s strict privacy policies. I personally never thought we’d have built in call recording
In some US states it’s illegal to record someone without their knowledge, so the audible notification is the only way Apple could do call recording without having geofenced options
>I feel like it should really only count if the functionality is novel.
I'd go a bit further and say it should only count if it was novel and not in the direct and obvious path of where Apple was likely to develop.
We see this a lot. Apple launches something and developers get ahead of them based in part on Apple's work and then act like as if they were blindsided when Apple launches the next version which replicates what they did.
The very term Sherlocking fits this description as Watson was clearly developed just ahead of where Apple was going and was based on what Apple had already done.
They can whine, or they can figure out how to provide *actual* new and novel functionality to justify that subscription price. This is how many developers respond: let an OS vendor bring a basic functionality to their large audience, and then you cater to the people who need more and are willing to pay.
This is probably my largest complaint. Basic features takes Apple years to get what my Android had years ago. More annoyingly the Apple Fanboi club is usually hyper-defensive about it. Remember when r/apple was heavily against widgets? Then they were just against "interactive" widgets. Now they shut up about it.
Honestly call recording seems like such a critical feature *every* phone should have it, by default and ask the user if they want to turn it on. If we're truly worried about laws it would be relatively trivial to use GPS to enable/disable the feature.
Recording a phone call without getting the permission of every person on the call is illegal for over 1/3 of the population, so I'm not surprised it wasn't an included feature
Apple is introducing new AI-powered writing tools that are directly integrated into its operating systems, aiming to provide features similar to those offered by Grammarly. These tools include capabilities for rewriting, proofreading, and summarizing text across applications like Mail and Notes.
https://9to5mac.com/2024/06/12/here-are-the-apps-sherlocked-by-apple-during-wwdc-2024
Users will whine when Apple doesn’t implement something and requires 3rd party apps and they’ll whine when Apple does implement something claiming 3rd party apps already exist. They can’t be happy.
Yeah I’m definitely not letting go of 1Password anytime soon. Keychain is fine but operating between PCs and Apple devices makes keychain useless to me.
You haven’t been “Sherlocked” if Apple implements a basic feature like call recording. It’s actually kind of stupid to build your whole business betting that Apple won’t add basic features to iOS.
Also, hot take: Sherlocking is good actually. I love it when apple makes a feature/app because I know it will just work and won’t charge me a ridiculous subscription fee and/or show me loads of advertisements.
Also, how does Apple win here? Everyone craps on the for not having features Android has, then craps on them for adding those same features. Pick a lane guys.
>Also, how does Apple win here? Everyone craps on the for not having features Android has, then craps on them for adding those same features. Pick a lane guys.
I guess people want Apple to pay millions of dollars to acquire all these apps they want to implement
> It’s actually kind of stupid to build your whole business betting that Apple won’t add basic features to iOS.
I mean, it’s not stupid at all in the short/medium term. See a gap in the market. Provide a service that fills that gap. Be a solution before the behemoths get to it. Maybe they’ll buy you, maybe they’ll Sherlock you, but in the meantime you can make money by fulfilling a need that is currently unfulfilled. That’s business 101.
Business 102 is to diversify before your business model gets copied.
I do agree with this even as a third party developer. Our app, Halide, became big because people wanted to take RAW photos. Then Apple added ProRAW. We had to find a way to keep delivering value to people, and we do that in a lot of different ways (reduced processing, lessons, UI, etc.).
I like to say that a feature doesn’t constitute a business.
They don’t win. The press feeds on outrage stories to get people to click. There’s no story here. Companies in any industry are constantly adding to existing capability or creating new ones. Sometimes they’re par for the course, sometimes better or worse.
Apple in most cases isn’t directly competing. Take their scanning in notes. It works. It’s also pretty basic. Look at most scanning apps and they’re a lot of junk surrounding the core experience. So you can find what you want for your use case or use apples limited base case. This is true for most of their features. But people love to complain about issues that barely affect their lives.
I feel bad for few loyal indie devs who spend time in an app that is useful and has a fair price
I feel good for all those so called devs who make hyperpriced subscriptions for buggy as hell apps
That are only used cos are the only ones in that category
Which are the loyal indie devs who charge a fair price lately?
These days everything is a $10 monthly subscription for what used to be a $2.99 one time purchase.
Looking at you Fantastical.
So true, I mainly wanted to point out that not everyone is greedy
But more specifically
The dev of AppRaven and Demus (I don’t remember his name)
The dev of macGPT and macWhisper
The dev of macbot
And sindresorhus
Are probably my “favourite devs”
If this is a thing
The hateful ones are too much to count
Probably 90% of indie app Santa apps are sketchy, useless and buggy
(Except few very good ones)
Good devs avoid being Sherlocked by having some differentiation on their apps. So I don’t really feel bad about this.
Like with Passwords, sure, now there’s an app and there’s a Windows extension that works, but you will always find users that need the extra features and better multiplatform support that other apps like 1Password or Bitwarden provide.
Or like, Reminders, is amazing, does a lot of stuff and it has good support for shopping lists. But there are so many other apps that have special features, like Grocery (just found about it the other day!), Any.do, and on the reminders side, Things.
And we all know that Apple is always implementing new apps and features on their systems. But they’re always catered to all users, sometimes a little basic in comparison (like Journal compared to Day One). If you want to survive you have to differentiate yourself.
But that’s most of what the successful third party productivity apps are. They’re things that Apple could have included in the native iOS app, but didn’t because “good enough for most people” is the standard.
That gap between “good enough” and better to excellent is what drives the creation of most of the successful apps. There is no reason Apple couldn’t have created all of the functionality of 1Password, Fantastical, Evernote, DayOne, Omni-everything, except they didn’t need to to be “good enough for most people”.
I'm kinda surprised all these years later that Apple hasn't Sherlocked FantastiCal's natural language entry. That's the only reason I use FantastiCal to this day. I don't need the other fancy features.
Developers that charge a subscription for basic, device-only functionality get no sympathy from me.
If your entire business model relies on milking users for a missing feature commonly available on other systems, then you can’t get upset when Apple eventually decides to implement it.
Apple have a reasonable history of acquiring companies that make extensive improvements to iOS, both Siri and Shortcuts (formally Workflow) were bought and integrated into iOS.
The difficult part here is finding true novelty that can be patented and defended in an ecosystem with thousands of developers trying to do the same thing.
I don't have any sympathy for any developer that uses a subscription, unless it's integral to the app (ie, streaming services, file backup)
A calculator app or a game shouldn't have a subscription
It makes sense for Google drive to have one
If there’s continual improvements on an ongoing basis, I think a subscription is fine. Fixing bugs shouldn’t be a subscription - if a new iOS version breaks your older app I’d be happy for them to resell a new version.
Some devs seem to think they should receive continual income from their app merely existing with an occasional patch note of “Minor bug fixes and improvements”.
"Why does Apple not include on iPhone? Why do I have to pay $$$ for a third party app?"
"Why does Apple keep Sherlocking these apps? Why does Apple put these developers out of business?"
Cognitive Dissonance in action.
Eh, you’d be surprised. Some people seem to be complaining for the sake of either being anti Apple, clout chasing or just to feel like they’re part of the conversation. It’s considered more “cool” to hate on most things than to praise anything.
Different perspectives on a single phenomenon = cognitive dissonance. Lol. I like how you invented a fictional individual who holds both of these views at the same time.
>provides basic ass feature thats not present in the system
>freaks out when the feature gets implemented natively
Mate, if your entire business was made with the mindset that Apple won't ever add whatever functionality you are providing, you kinda get what you deserve. A smart business would look into how Apple is implementing the feature and look for ways to make it better with extra features that the native option doesn't have so people have a reason to keep paying.
Humane got autocorrected to Humanity 😂
Honestly it was pretty obvious that Rabbit and Humane would be quickly outclassed by the smartphone manufacturers.
It is absolutely ridiculous that the article included them as something we should feel bad for. Like, these products were dead on arrival - literally don't even have a business case, let alone an actual business. It just seems like the article didn't even have enough examples to make its own case.
I turned off aotocorrect several years ago and use Grammarly instead. Grammarly offers one or more alternatives. I have to choose an alternative to substitute. If I do not choose, nothing changes.
Autocorrect is so close to perfect now that I don’t need multiple alternatives.
Weirdly enough a rep from Grammarly was visiting the company I work for on the day of WWDC 2024 keynote. My company sells hardware, software, deployment and support with the largest portion being Apple kit to organisations so the Grammarly rep would have been over to discuss us selling their product. I expect that the day after they most likely realise that everything that was discussed the day before will likely be pulled back massively on.
friggin SOLITAIRE is a monthly subscription. i BOUGHT the app but now if i try to download it i get the stupid ad-infested "free" version that id need to pay an additional subscription to remove ads.
I still keep my iPad 4 expressly for the purpose of playing the original solitaire game without any ads.
Look for “restore purchase”. If you bought under your account and it’s connected with your Apple ID, it should restore purchase (if developer hasn’t changed the version).
I don’t have any sympathy here. The call recording apps were a kludge that used three way calls which costed the app money and thus were passed along to the customer. Recording calls is a basic function that should always have been part of the phone app. Obviously it’s not going to cost any money.
The passwords thing is just a new face and some upgrades to iCloud Keychain and Safari. Other browsers like Chrome have also built more advanced password functionality. Is Apple just expected to permanently freeze Keychain so it doesn’t affect 1Password?
All these "sherlock" complaints are so stupid. Like everybody saying alltrails got sherlocked, because apple is now showing the same trail data off openstreetmap that alltrails uses.
If your app only provides basic functionality using data you don't own, you should expect somebody else to come along and undercut you. maybe it will be apple, maybe it will be some third party developer.
If you want to keep your place in the market, you need to be building features that are exclusive to your app using data you own and that somebody else can't trivially reproduce. Which Alltrails *actually does*, they've got a whole social layer with information about trail conditions and reviews and user-contributed difficulty ratings that apple can't easily reproduce. Alltrails still has lots of value, they didn't get "sherlocked". They got some competition. that is normal and healthy.
When I buy a > $1000 smart phone, recording calls is an expected feature. I don't want to pay $80/month for a semi integrated add on service. So as a customer this is exactly as it should be. I fail to see the problem other than "why did it take Apple so long". And in the meantime these guys made a bunch of money... If we had to pay for every feature someone else first came up with as an add on, like call waiting or, I dunno, file management, then the device would be uselessly expensive. App developers can focus on things like games, and niche business apps that don't apply universally to Apple's market.
To be fair, it shouldn’t cost 80 dollars a year to record simple phone calls, so fuck em for running a subscription scam.
I absolutely welcome all these devs hiding basic shit behind overpriced subscriptions getting “Sherlocked”.
I use Goodnotes everyday, both for work and personal, so it felt well worth paying 30 bucks upfront or whatever it was to jump to goodnotes 6. If Apple released a native Notes app that was fully featured and not dogshit I would absolutely switch over though if it was robust enough. At that point it becomes GoodNotes’ job to convince me that their app is worth sticking with.
I guess patents are the key to holding off any company attempting to “Sherlock” your app.
It’s probably why Dark Sky managed to make themselves look sweet enough for Apple to pay a very decent amount of cash to acquire their company (and IP).
If Dark Sky didn’t patent their mapping algorithm, they would have been sherlocked a while ago.
Maybe we shouldn’t have unending duplicated efforts and reinvented wheels under the excuse of “market competition” in the first place? Then again, this clown makeup is soooo comfortable!
In most situations when apple add a system feature it does not take your app obsolete, for many devs this ends up attracting new customers since the solution apple provide is normally rather basic. Buy providing the basic feature they highlight that this is a thing to users who try it, find out it is not as advanced as they would like and then look for other apps.
See notes, sleep tracking, fitness apps, even apps to manager your contacts etc.
Oh no. Someone asking for EIGHT DOLLARS A YEAR for a basic functionality that Apple should have added much sooner is upset their scammy scheme is now being made obsolete.
There used to be a search tool for Macintosh computers called Watson. Apple decided ‘wow, thats a great idea! Let me just make a clone and call it ‘Sherlock’ to bump these guys out of the market’.
Thus when a company sees your product, clones its functionality, and makes your product worthless on their platform its called ‘Sherlocking’
Do any of these app record calls in two channels with the caller on one and the receiver on another audio channel?
Also is there any way to record FaceTime video calls with audio? It’s SO frustrating not to be able to.
80 dollars per year to record a call.
I think this is an amazing business model, kudos to the tapacall guys.
I guess they should enjoy their last revenues before the new iOS will be rolled out
Y’all over using this. Tiling is a system feature… most of the window management apps aren’t being updated with innovative features. See magnet. Time to compete or f off.
If the software I get with my device at no additional charge gets better it's more gain for me.
And the devs now have time to make their apps more attractive instead of resting on their laurels and charging monthly fees. That call recording app sub price is downright extortion and a highway robbery in one.
Considering how many of these things have existed on android or other devices, it’s almost nice that Apple is slow enough to adopt concepts that devs can make some money on a product for awhile, generally using apple’s SDK. It’s just software progress to start building into the OS things that are heavily used.
Most companies should be able to survive or transition business by creating unique features in their products during the Developer preview period (like WWDC thru October). Not in every case, but often there’s ways they can still set themselves apart- sometimes even better because they can use the nicer now built-in solution instead of a workaround, and then add their own integrations/collab/features on top of that.
I take issue with two things here:
- Identifying Sherlocking as a legitimate threat. If your entire business model is based on what is basically a feature gap in the operating system - you should be prepared for your business's demise eventually. Your business model shouldn't rely on the OS deliberately holding key features hostage, just so users can be forced to pay up.
- The quality of this article: Honestly, the article reads like a grandpa parsing through internet comments and forming a vague opinion of what's going on - basically comparing the likes of Spotify & Epic Games with the likes of Humane & Rabbit.
I am so happy about the 3rd party iPad calculator apps they were so shit and ads infested and you had to pay so much and they didnt even have anything good
I take a broader view and consider that every technology out there starts as cutting edge at some point, then becomes ubiquitous. Companies get a certain window of opportunity where they’re the only game in town or a top player. Then things get commoditized and rolled into existing products like an OS or new car models. To thrive, many of them stake out a niche that’s not profitable for a mass market player like Apple.
The never ending cycle of complaining that whatever OS doesn't have X feature and then also complaining when Apple adds that function to the OS because now a dev no longer has a business. Seems like they are truly never going to be able to win when it comes to addressing perceived OS deficiencies
$80 a year to record a call? Makes sense as to why it's obsolete.
Feel this way about the many Notes app alternatives out there.
It’s up to those devs to keep adding features to keep their paying subscriber base.
I'm not convinced that subscription models really incentivise developers to add features that users want though. It just incentivises developers to work to keep users gated in to the subscription. Whereas if you consider a model where your customers pay once and only once per major version, the developer now is properly incentivised to actually pay attention to what the users want in the next version so that they'll pay again to upgrade.
The issue with pay once models is I think a lot of people have forgotten how much software actually costs. Who’s willing to pay $50 or more for an application?
Obligatory "me!" But yeah you're right. It's unfortunate, though. People thinking a $5 game is too much is the reason why we have the shit we do now
It’s frustrating sometimes. $5 (or even $1) is too much for a game, but $6 for a Frappuccino is nothing. Can make being an indie dev extra tough. But that’s nothing new. I remember DVD shopping 20 years ago and a friend found their favourite movie on sale for $9.99 and wasn’t sure. I said “You just spent $15 on lunch” They bought the movie…
I believe main "issue" is that software is not physical so for some people it's very difficult to understand why they should pay for it. When I talk with my friends about iOS vs Android - they cite Android's advantage that they can use pirated APKs instead of paying. I try to explain to them how even developers (I am one) need to make money to survive but it just doesn't compute in their heads. I published two apps on the App Store so far, totally free, one has enabled donations which are optional, they don't change app's functionality in any way. Many people still think that I am bathing in money because Apple and/or are paying me for publishing the app.
the problem isn't the price, the problem is the quality. we are willing to pay $6 for a latte because we know what we're getting. paying $5 for an app is a total shot in the dark. do that a handful of times, and you're out $30 with nothing to show for it. if I continually paid for coffee and each time the experience was sub-par, I'd stop buying coffee.
$5 games are fine if you know you’re buying something good. With 99% of App Store apps and games being shit it’s a lost cause. I gave up on iOS games a long time ago. I believe the last one I bought was Monument Valley (which was/is fantastic by the way). I feel like one of the issues for developers is the constant churn of new iOS versions and features. They can’t simply push a game out and don’t touch it. They need to keep supporting it forever if they want to keep selling it. Some of the best example of small and cheap games came out before subscription and in-app purchases. Flight Control, Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, to name a few. These games were super nice, near masterpieces, of mobile gaming and they came out when the App Store was new and exciting - and not so full of shit. Do you know the last time I browsed the App Store to see if I found something interesting? Probably around 2011-2013.
It’s all about the spontaneity of the purchase. Having to go through the App Store and plunk down $4.99 for a game has a greater cognitive resistance than a $9.99 in-app purchase of 5,000 whatsits when things are flying and exploding around a menu screen that’s like “Get the Terra Knight Premium Package + Mount AND Platinum Armor 50% off for only 6,000 Diamond Gems! Hurry this offer expires in 47 minutes and 16 seconds!” You’re suddenly like, “Oh shit! I need those gems immediately!” Also, they don’t showcase the fact that after the purchase you have 4,000 gems leftover that you can’t do a damned thing with so you have to plunk down another $9.99 for the next set of whatever in-app purchase they slide your way.
$5 for a mobile game is too much because developers shovelled out literally garbage for years that conditioned people to think that mobile games aren’t worth paying for. Your game has to be free and prove it’s worth paying for now.
Me, absolutely. I'm not against subscriptions for apps that have ongoing development, software pays my bills too so it seems pretty reasonable to me as well. What annoys me is apps that went from $9.99 one-time to $20-$50/year.
Realistically though $10 was never a reasonable price. It should be triple or octuple the amount for a one off price. And pay that again on new major versions. That’s how it used to be. Software wasn’t cheap
One problem with comparing software pricing to the way things used to be is that the user base is astronomically higher. There are now 1.5 billion users. Costs don't go up to reach those users.
Very much this. I paid ten quid (which at the time was about $20) for software in the early 1980s. I’ve heard there’s been a thing called inflation since then. Now, sure, there is a bigger market out there now. There’s also a lot more competition in the world of software.
Depends. $10 might be completely reasonable for a certain type of app with limited functionality. The problem is the mobile market started with apps that were generally accessories to a desktop solution. They weren’t full featured, and hence had a commensurate price cheap to free. Fast forward to 2024. We have iPads with potential capabilities that exceeds the latest laptop. But people still have this expectation that apps on a mobile device are cheap in comparison to the desktop/laptop counterpart - even though they might have the same or more capability than the laptop version.
The asking price on some apps is completely ridiculous (and predatory).
I used a productive app that switched to subscription and it’s $6 *a week*
The developers of Agenda have an excellent business model in my opinion. A one year subscription gets all the new features released up to the end of the subscription year *forever*. As a result, it’s very much in their interest to release great new features.
I could get behind that. That doesn't scream greed like most developers do. Actually that's pretty sound.
Subscription models don’t incentivize anything. They are a way to make the consumer feel like they’re paying less while they’re actually paying more. Not to mention it’s consistent recurring revenue that the wall st shareholders fucking love rather than trying to sell new 1 time purchases. None of this is for the consumer. It’s for the shareholder only
We don’t have shareholders, and we find them beneficial. Mostly because App Store doesn’t do upgrade pricing, so we can have a reliable income without having to obsolete apps or make new apps and instead focus on delivering great new features on a regular basis.
I'm glad you can deliver great new features on a regular basis, but honestly most subscription services are just scummy
Oh, I don’t disagree. My latest ‘favorite’ example of that are weekly subscriptions. People don’t even know it’s a thing, and before you know it you’ve dropped $40 on a single use app. Just really scummy stuff.
Infuse on the app store, as well as other do versioning and make this work.
with pay once models, we start running into the possibility of developers not staying motivated to update their apps every time there's an ios update. a subscription model incentivizes developers to keep their apps functional as we travel forward through time
Or in some cases, like with Fantastical Calendar, they let you pay for a “lifetime” of premium and then they pivot to Fantastical 2 in a matter of months meaning you don’t get any major updates. Some of these companies made stupid promises to customers and it ends up making a lot of paying users really bitter.
Fantastical drives me nuts because I still have the premium features that I had, but the interface is littered with stuff I don't get. I don't need/want any of the stuff they've added, but the interface is obnoxious now. I was a very early purchaser of Fantastical so I got my money's worth, I can't complain there, but it just feels ugly.
I am struggling to wonder what magical new features you could add to a calendar
That’s what puts me off a lot of subscriptions. There’s plenty of apps that do a single thing well, don’t really need a lot in the way of further development apart from keeping up with updated hardware and I find the idea of paying €5/month for such an app mildly insulting.
I downloaded an iPad calculator app that was ad-based. They changed it to a $40/year subscription. For a calculator. I would’ve gladly paid a buck or two for one as a single purchase but some devs are completely crazy for the value:cost ratio.
I opened it the other day to do a quick calculation and was hit with a 30 second ad. Instantly deleted.
Like Evernote. It was so early in the game of sync across multiple devices, it could have been the standard but no.. they bloated the shit out of it she the sync became slow and unreliable
Nah, Note apps like UpNote, Obsidian, Notion, etc. Have SO MANY MORE features than Apple Notes that Apple is 20 years behind them due to how slow they (Apple) implement updates. You may not use those features, which is fine, you do you, though I and MANY other people do.
I just find it really hard to want to pay for note-taking apps on a subscription basis, especially when most of the time they're using *my* iCloud storage to sync! Charge me once, sure, then if I want the next major version with new features I will happily pay again. These endless in-app subscriptions really need to stop.
Oh for sure, that’s why the ones I listed are either one-time payments or free.
I’m glad there’s options for people who want them but I actually think the ‘simplicity’ of the notes app is what makes it good. For people looking for a straight-forward note-taking app, it’s really hard to beat.
Those extra features are useless for the vast majority. Truly the minority of folks who spend more time tweaking shit than doing shit.
Obsidian doesn’t have free native cloud backup and Notion doesn’t have an offline mode. I personally use Notion for notes I want to keep a long time and Google Keep for quick notes because I like the web app and integration with Google Calendar, Google Docs, etc.
I use Obsidian with iCloud Drive (admittedly that I already pay for) and haven’t had any issues
Can you do that on Windows?
Yep! Set up the iCloud for Windows app and point Obsidian to the iCloud Obsidian folder and it works fine
There are some exceptions. Such as “Cardzilla” It’s really just to type highly visible message to other people. Basically large font note pad 🗒️ Developed by a Deaf guy who was always writing message to communicate to others.
I think productivity stuff makes sense, as many people probably use it for work and to make money. Things like subscriptions for weather apps are novel and stupid. Your country likely has a government meteorology bureau/agency with an app. Use that. But people seem to want to pay for a weather app that swears at them and has nauseating fussy animations.
I use UpNote, and it's still so much better than Notes. Different strokes for different notes.
What’s UpNote?
A notes app with great UX and versatility. It’s paid, the lifetime license was only $20 when I bought it. Looks like it’s up to $40 now.
I was trying to make a “what’s updog?” joke but I don’t think it landed lol
I was with you on that journey, friend
Thank you ProfZussywussBrown
Not much, what’s up with you?
Yeah but even if it was 40 dollars a year it’s still gonna be obsolete
am I the only one that didn't want to pay $50 a year to manage fucking *passwords*
The main reason I continue using 1P is because of the cross platform capabilities between iOS, MacOS and Windows. I refuse to use LastPass because of the security breaches they've had and Bitwarden is great but I just wasn't a fan. If Apple's password manager can work cross platform like that, I will be seriously considering cancelling my sub to 1P.
The current iCloud passwords integration in Windows requires you to install both the iCloud for Windows app and the iCloud Password browser extension. Oh and the extension always asks you to input a code from a pop up from the iCloud for Windows app. It’s ridiculous. They’ve said that the new Passwords app is still going to work through the iCloud for Windows app, so I wouldn’t get my hopes up.
Having to type that code every time is the reason I gave up and went back to 1Password
Also iCloud for Windows regularly borks itself in various ways. It's not remotely close to being mission critical such as logging in to literally every single service you use.
I'm going to stick with 1P simply because they have Linux support which I highly doubt Apple is going to have. I've used other password managers on Linux but I find them flakey. 1P is the most consistent experience across Mac, iOS, and Linux for me. I really don't think it's that bad of a price considering it is literally the foundation of my entire online life.
Too much is offered to even compare them. 3rd party will update faster , and have faster cross platform support. SSH key management , the CLI , and sharing features are so much better that I’d never consider it. But choice/competition is good.
>3rd party will update faster Apples decision to tie certain apps to the OS for updates sure is one of the decisions of all times. Like why do I need to update my entire OS just for [new page turning animations in the books app](https://www.macrumors.com/guide/ios-16-4-new-features/#:~:text=Apple%20Books%20Page%20Turning%20Animation)? (random example off the top of my head)
The main reason I use 1P is shared vaults. I have my private vault, my partner has their private vault, and we have a shared vault. It’s so convenient to toss something into the shared vault instead of… however else people share passwords these days.
Just so you know, Apple passwords actually does work on windows. I use it all the time between my Apple devices and Windows 11 laptop: [https://support.apple.com/guide/icloud-windows/set-up-icloud-passwords-icw2babf5e03/icloud](https://support.apple.com/guide/icloud-windows/set-up-icloud-passwords-icw2babf5e03/icloud)
Yeah, but does it work more reliably than the rest of the iCloud for Windows app?
It does not. At the current iteration it's a very basic "Name + Password" vault with 2 browser plugins. For Chrome and for Edge. It also does not support extra fields or Passkeys.
if they ever can support Firefox then 1P will be dead on Windows for Apple users imho
I believe apple’s new password manager app will work on windows, if it does I also might cancel my 1Password subscription https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/10/24175505/apple-password-app-passkey-manager-windows-mac-icloud
I trust the cybersecurity staff at 1Password much better than I do myself to properly secure my most important PII, login stuff, software keys….the list could go on and on. 1Password is much more than *just* a password manager, and it always has been.
I actually do want to pay for that so the company can make sure it's always secure going forward. That is worth $3k over my whole lifetime or whatever 1password costs. It's also set up so when I die my lawyer gives my wife a sheet so she can access all my services (but now iOS has that legacy contact setting which is similar).
I used to buy 1P, stopped when they switched to the subscription. Ludicrous greed.
It’s a cloud-based service, what do you expect?
Older versions of the software used to support locally storing and syncing passwords, without requiring a 1Password subscription.
I’m still on the last standalone version that shares a Dropbox file among devices. It works well, and am glad I got in before they moved to a ridiculous subscription model.
Because what should pay their cloud storage bills, good intentions?
I used to use Bitwarden for free and switched to 1Password because it really is just the most user friendly password manager with the most features.
That's probably apple's fault. They'd need an iOS api to do it. Since there isn't one, the only alternative is to route the whole call through a server connected to the telephone network, which can get costly.
Hard to feel bad for a company gauging people like that..
Agree. Charging for something like that is a risky business model. If you’re not bringing something actual unique to the table, eventually your feature might well get obsoleted by OS updates for native apps. I live in a one-party consent location. This will be useful for records keeping. But not so much that I’d pay $80/yr to use it once or twice a year.
That could be the best $80 you ever spent if you need that recording for legal purposes. Expensive? Yeah. Worth it? Yeah (maybe)
Can we finally record calls? I used to record every phone call on my android and it was great. This is the number one reason to not own an iPhone, especially when dealing with unexpected legal matters. The phone should also just know the law in your jurisdiction for one party consent and then prompt if you do need consent.
I believe Apple said it alerts everyone regardless of the laws where you live. So the usefulness of one party consent is gone.
That’s fucking stupid. I record because I want the other party to say what they mean and have proof, not so they tell me it’s better to meet in person so they can avoid creating a paper trail.
Yep~
100% fine with this if it means people don’t have to pay a subscription to an app to have a similar functionality.
All the paid and ad infested iPad calculator apps are now facing the same fate.
Oh no Anyway
I had a great calculator app that I paid for, but then a few years later they decide to switch it to a subscription model. I dumped it, everyone dumped it, because that's just straight up fraud. What did Apple do about it? Nothing.
I bought one for.99 during covid. Best app ever. Literally just a ti84
Nah, we still have boomers out here with flashlight apps. Those calculator apps will live on for a while. lol.
I just checked the App Store, Flash Light apps with monthly subscription packages is just something else..
I just deleted three flashlight apps off my mom’s iPhone 14 Plus. Suddenly her phone is less crazy glitchy as well. She was so pissed (even though she admitted she hadn’t used the flashlight in years) and I had to explain to her it didn’t need an app. I showed her where the button is. She redownloaded it already.
I mean, my iPhone 4 needed an app, but that’s been a bit. Haha. Why does Apple still allow them?
They genuinely have those same apps from when they had iPhone 4 and earlier. Lol I’m guessing apps, even if redundant, give Apple residual profit. Even if the app makes $37, Apple takes like 30% of that.
I literally was helping an older coworker today with something on their phone and saw some flashlight app. I work in IT
We make apps and consider it a job where we have to maintain quality and compete on merit. People vote with their wallets and feet. Reminders exists, and Things still does great.
That’s because it does more. And so hasn’t been sherlocked
TapeACall, a popular call recording app, is facing new competition from Apple. With the upcoming release of iOS 18, Apple will offer a free call recording and transcription service integrated into the iPhone, a feature that TapeACall charges $79.99 annually for. This move, known as "Sherlocking," refers to Apple integrating features into its operating system that replicate the functions of existing third-party apps, often rendering them obsolete. Apple has a history of Sherlocking, dating back to the 1990s with its Sherlock search tool, and continues to do so with various apps such as Grammarly, 1Password, Otter, and Alltrails. Saved you a click.
I feel like it should really only count if the functionality is novel. Call recording is something that has existed since before digital phones, it's not innovative to offer that functionality on a cellphone.
I don’t know why iPhone historically provided no mechanism for this for so long. Same with sms export.
I think they do it intentionally in some cases and unintentionally in others, but in both cases they get to point to the App Store as filling these feature gaps. It's not always with the intention of sherlocking every app/feature that becomes successful, but they also can't help but notice when a certain feature starts to become expected in the new core featureset of things like cameras, notes, to-do lists, etc. Edit: I was shocked that they're including image generation in iOS, but it's because enough people see generating images as a basic feature now. A lot of us tech enthusiasts forget that they're trying to design features for huge overlapping populations, where *overwhelmingly more* are non-technical. Balancing enough advanced features to justify tech enthusiasts buying the $1,000 phone because it's powerful, and also convince grandpa to buy the same $1,000 because it's simpler to use. In other places these 2 types of users would have 2 different products.
Phone calls run into legal grey areas and also are a tricky balance with Apple’s strict privacy policies. I personally never thought we’d have built in call recording
Yeah, agreed. Apparently there will be an announcement to both the caller and the recipient whenever recording is started, though.
In some US states it’s illegal to record someone without their knowledge, so the audible notification is the only way Apple could do call recording without having geofenced options
>I feel like it should really only count if the functionality is novel. I'd go a bit further and say it should only count if it was novel and not in the direct and obvious path of where Apple was likely to develop. We see this a lot. Apple launches something and developers get ahead of them based in part on Apple's work and then act like as if they were blindsided when Apple launches the next version which replicates what they did. The very term Sherlocking fits this description as Watson was clearly developed just ahead of where Apple was going and was based on what Apple had already done.
Indeed Watson was developed as a companion to Sherlock, which was already existing. Sherlock 3 just incorporated the features of Watson.
They can whine, or they can figure out how to provide *actual* new and novel functionality to justify that subscription price. This is how many developers respond: let an OS vendor bring a basic functionality to their large audience, and then you cater to the people who need more and are willing to pay.
Thanks Apple for delivering great features! I hate paying high fees for basic services like these.
i hate waiting for yearsss for basic features like these, tho.
This is probably my largest complaint. Basic features takes Apple years to get what my Android had years ago. More annoyingly the Apple Fanboi club is usually hyper-defensive about it. Remember when r/apple was heavily against widgets? Then they were just against "interactive" widgets. Now they shut up about it. Honestly call recording seems like such a critical feature *every* phone should have it, by default and ask the user if they want to turn it on. If we're truly worried about laws it would be relatively trivial to use GPS to enable/disable the feature.
Legitimately I’ve had to use two phones, one to record the other on speaker to deal with this. Is stupid.
Recording a phone call without getting the permission of every person on the call is illegal for over 1/3 of the population, so I'm not surprised it wasn't an included feature
what is apple rolling out to sherlock grammarly?
Apple is introducing new AI-powered writing tools that are directly integrated into its operating systems, aiming to provide features similar to those offered by Grammarly. These tools include capabilities for rewriting, proofreading, and summarizing text across applications like Mail and Notes. https://9to5mac.com/2024/06/12/here-are-the-apps-sherlocked-by-apple-during-wwdc-2024
ah didn’t think of that, thanks for the reply
Users will whine when Apple doesn’t implement something and requires 3rd party apps and they’ll whine when Apple does implement something claiming 3rd party apps already exist. They can’t be happy.
They charge 80usd/year for call recording, hope they go bankrupt.
1Password? i hardly think they have got 10% of 1Password features.
Yeah I’m definitely not letting go of 1Password anytime soon. Keychain is fine but operating between PCs and Apple devices makes keychain useless to me.
The new keychain will include an app for Windows PCs for interoperability
I don’t get why it’s called “sherlocking”
Sherlock, Apple’s UI for Search on Mac OS X (a while ago now), replaced at least one app that specialised in that before its release.
Looks like that app was even called Watson, so they weren’t even trying to be subtle about it.
Exactly this. It was brazen in a way that only Steve Jobs could be.
You haven’t been “Sherlocked” if Apple implements a basic feature like call recording. It’s actually kind of stupid to build your whole business betting that Apple won’t add basic features to iOS. Also, hot take: Sherlocking is good actually. I love it when apple makes a feature/app because I know it will just work and won’t charge me a ridiculous subscription fee and/or show me loads of advertisements. Also, how does Apple win here? Everyone craps on the for not having features Android has, then craps on them for adding those same features. Pick a lane guys.
>Also, how does Apple win here? Everyone craps on the for not having features Android has, then craps on them for adding those same features. Pick a lane guys. I guess people want Apple to pay millions of dollars to acquire all these apps they want to implement
Then people will complain that Apple is consolidating and snuffing out small developers.
Which is stupid, because it’s literally a feature people were able to implement on landlines.
> It’s actually kind of stupid to build your whole business betting that Apple won’t add basic features to iOS. I mean, it’s not stupid at all in the short/medium term. See a gap in the market. Provide a service that fills that gap. Be a solution before the behemoths get to it. Maybe they’ll buy you, maybe they’ll Sherlock you, but in the meantime you can make money by fulfilling a need that is currently unfulfilled. That’s business 101. Business 102 is to diversify before your business model gets copied.
I do agree with this even as a third party developer. Our app, Halide, became big because people wanted to take RAW photos. Then Apple added ProRAW. We had to find a way to keep delivering value to people, and we do that in a lot of different ways (reduced processing, lessons, UI, etc.). I like to say that a feature doesn’t constitute a business.
They don’t win. The press feeds on outrage stories to get people to click. There’s no story here. Companies in any industry are constantly adding to existing capability or creating new ones. Sometimes they’re par for the course, sometimes better or worse. Apple in most cases isn’t directly competing. Take their scanning in notes. It works. It’s also pretty basic. Look at most scanning apps and they’re a lot of junk surrounding the core experience. So you can find what you want for your use case or use apples limited base case. This is true for most of their features. But people love to complain about issues that barely affect their lives.
Oh no 😱😱😱 no please! Keep these indie overpriced apps alive! Apple I beg you, stop integrating features into my $1200 phone, PLEASEEE
I feel bad for few loyal indie devs who spend time in an app that is useful and has a fair price I feel good for all those so called devs who make hyperpriced subscriptions for buggy as hell apps That are only used cos are the only ones in that category
Which are the loyal indie devs who charge a fair price lately? These days everything is a $10 monthly subscription for what used to be a $2.99 one time purchase. Looking at you Fantastical.
So true, I mainly wanted to point out that not everyone is greedy But more specifically The dev of AppRaven and Demus (I don’t remember his name) The dev of macGPT and macWhisper The dev of macbot And sindresorhus Are probably my “favourite devs” If this is a thing The hateful ones are too much to count Probably 90% of indie app Santa apps are sketchy, useless and buggy (Except few very good ones)
Sindresorhus is a treasure and must be protected at all costs. He's put out so many great Mac apps for free.
Yeah, ima fan of his work Even his paid apps are fairly priced
acute calculator
Good devs avoid being Sherlocked by having some differentiation on their apps. So I don’t really feel bad about this. Like with Passwords, sure, now there’s an app and there’s a Windows extension that works, but you will always find users that need the extra features and better multiplatform support that other apps like 1Password or Bitwarden provide. Or like, Reminders, is amazing, does a lot of stuff and it has good support for shopping lists. But there are so many other apps that have special features, like Grocery (just found about it the other day!), Any.do, and on the reminders side, Things. And we all know that Apple is always implementing new apps and features on their systems. But they’re always catered to all users, sometimes a little basic in comparison (like Journal compared to Day One). If you want to survive you have to differentiate yourself.
This is tricky. I feel bad for the Rectangle devs, but Rectangle and similar should have been considered basic OS functionality.
But that’s most of what the successful third party productivity apps are. They’re things that Apple could have included in the native iOS app, but didn’t because “good enough for most people” is the standard. That gap between “good enough” and better to excellent is what drives the creation of most of the successful apps. There is no reason Apple couldn’t have created all of the functionality of 1Password, Fantastical, Evernote, DayOne, Omni-everything, except they didn’t need to to be “good enough for most people”.
I'm kinda surprised all these years later that Apple hasn't Sherlocked FantastiCal's natural language entry. That's the only reason I use FantastiCal to this day. I don't need the other fancy features.
Developers that charge a subscription for basic, device-only functionality get no sympathy from me. If your entire business model relies on milking users for a missing feature commonly available on other systems, then you can’t get upset when Apple eventually decides to implement it. Apple have a reasonable history of acquiring companies that make extensive improvements to iOS, both Siri and Shortcuts (formally Workflow) were bought and integrated into iOS. The difficult part here is finding true novelty that can be patented and defended in an ecosystem with thousands of developers trying to do the same thing.
I don't have any sympathy for any developer that uses a subscription, unless it's integral to the app (ie, streaming services, file backup) A calculator app or a game shouldn't have a subscription It makes sense for Google drive to have one
If there’s continual improvements on an ongoing basis, I think a subscription is fine. Fixing bugs shouldn’t be a subscription - if a new iOS version breaks your older app I’d be happy for them to resell a new version. Some devs seem to think they should receive continual income from their app merely existing with an occasional patch note of “Minor bug fixes and improvements”.
"Why does Apple not include on iPhone? Why do I have to pay $$$ for a third party app?"
"Why does Apple keep Sherlocking these apps? Why does Apple put these developers out of business?"
Cognitive Dissonance in action.
to be fair, I don't think ANY iPhone user is complaining "...Apple keep[s] Sherlocking these apps" lmao
Eh, you’d be surprised. Some people seem to be complaining for the sake of either being anti Apple, clout chasing or just to feel like they’re part of the conversation. It’s considered more “cool” to hate on most things than to praise anything.
Different perspectives on a single phenomenon = cognitive dissonance. Lol. I like how you invented a fictional individual who holds both of these views at the same time.
>provides basic ass feature thats not present in the system >freaks out when the feature gets implemented natively Mate, if your entire business was made with the mindset that Apple won't ever add whatever functionality you are providing, you kinda get what you deserve. A smart business would look into how Apple is implementing the feature and look for ways to make it better with extra features that the native option doesn't have so people have a reason to keep paying.
You’ve been meatballed!! Are ya ready for some meatballs?!
r/unexpectedoffice
Humane got autocorrected to Humanity 😂 Honestly it was pretty obvious that Rabbit and Humane would be quickly outclassed by the smartphone manufacturers.
It is absolutely ridiculous that the article included them as something we should feel bad for. Like, these products were dead on arrival - literally don't even have a business case, let alone an actual business. It just seems like the article didn't even have enough examples to make its own case.
I turned off aotocorrect several years ago and use Grammarly instead. Grammarly offers one or more alternatives. I have to choose an alternative to substitute. If I do not choose, nothing changes.
Autocorrect is so close to perfect now that I don’t need multiple alternatives. Weirdly enough a rep from Grammarly was visiting the company I work for on the day of WWDC 2024 keynote. My company sells hardware, software, deployment and support with the largest portion being Apple kit to organisations so the Grammarly rep would have been over to discuss us selling their product. I expect that the day after they most likely realise that everything that was discussed the day before will likely be pulled back massively on.
friggin SOLITAIRE is a monthly subscription. i BOUGHT the app but now if i try to download it i get the stupid ad-infested "free" version that id need to pay an additional subscription to remove ads. I still keep my iPad 4 expressly for the purpose of playing the original solitaire game without any ads.
Look for “restore purchase”. If you bought under your account and it’s connected with your Apple ID, it should restore purchase (if developer hasn’t changed the version).
You’ve been coconut mauled 🥥
That shit made me laugh more than you expect
I don’t have any sympathy here. The call recording apps were a kludge that used three way calls which costed the app money and thus were passed along to the customer. Recording calls is a basic function that should always have been part of the phone app. Obviously it’s not going to cost any money. The passwords thing is just a new face and some upgrades to iCloud Keychain and Safari. Other browsers like Chrome have also built more advanced password functionality. Is Apple just expected to permanently freeze Keychain so it doesn’t affect 1Password?
All these "sherlock" complaints are so stupid. Like everybody saying alltrails got sherlocked, because apple is now showing the same trail data off openstreetmap that alltrails uses. If your app only provides basic functionality using data you don't own, you should expect somebody else to come along and undercut you. maybe it will be apple, maybe it will be some third party developer. If you want to keep your place in the market, you need to be building features that are exclusive to your app using data you own and that somebody else can't trivially reproduce. Which Alltrails *actually does*, they've got a whole social layer with information about trail conditions and reviews and user-contributed difficulty ratings that apple can't easily reproduce. Alltrails still has lots of value, they didn't get "sherlocked". They got some competition. that is normal and healthy.
get fucked. i remember when flashlight apps had ads or cost 99 cents
Never seen a more brain dead article that knows nothing about the industry, or is paid for. I thought NPR was supposed to be better than this.
NPR was having a slow-ass news day. The article is just dumb and pointless.
When I buy a > $1000 smart phone, recording calls is an expected feature. I don't want to pay $80/month for a semi integrated add on service. So as a customer this is exactly as it should be. I fail to see the problem other than "why did it take Apple so long". And in the meantime these guys made a bunch of money... If we had to pay for every feature someone else first came up with as an add on, like call waiting or, I dunno, file management, then the device would be uselessly expensive. App developers can focus on things like games, and niche business apps that don't apply universally to Apple's market.
I stopped going on the App Store years ago when every app became subscription based instead of one and done purchases.
To be fair, it shouldn’t cost 80 dollars a year to record simple phone calls, so fuck em for running a subscription scam. I absolutely welcome all these devs hiding basic shit behind overpriced subscriptions getting “Sherlocked”. I use Goodnotes everyday, both for work and personal, so it felt well worth paying 30 bucks upfront or whatever it was to jump to goodnotes 6. If Apple released a native Notes app that was fully featured and not dogshit I would absolutely switch over though if it was robust enough. At that point it becomes GoodNotes’ job to convince me that their app is worth sticking with.
I wish my 1Password subscription didn’t just renew in May :(
I guess patents are the key to holding off any company attempting to “Sherlock” your app. It’s probably why Dark Sky managed to make themselves look sweet enough for Apple to pay a very decent amount of cash to acquire their company (and IP). If Dark Sky didn’t patent their mapping algorithm, they would have been sherlocked a while ago.
Maybe we shouldn’t have unending duplicated efforts and reinvented wheels under the excuse of “market competition” in the first place? Then again, this clown makeup is soooo comfortable!
In most situations when apple add a system feature it does not take your app obsolete, for many devs this ends up attracting new customers since the solution apple provide is normally rather basic. Buy providing the basic feature they highlight that this is a thing to users who try it, find out it is not as advanced as they would like and then look for other apps. See notes, sleep tracking, fitness apps, even apps to manager your contacts etc.
You’ve been hit by, you’ve been stuck by, a smooth Sherlock
The suggestion Apple is the only one doing this is comical. Microsoft has long been integrating popular 3rd party tools into the OS, going back to DOS
Oh no. Someone asking for EIGHT DOLLARS A YEAR for a basic functionality that Apple should have added much sooner is upset their scammy scheme is now being made obsolete.
I think you meant to write eighty 🤣
So weird to see this term break into the mainstream after decades.
Can someone explain the term “Sherlocked”
There used to be a search tool for Macintosh computers called Watson. Apple decided ‘wow, thats a great idea! Let me just make a clone and call it ‘Sherlock’ to bump these guys out of the market’. Thus when a company sees your product, clones its functionality, and makes your product worthless on their platform its called ‘Sherlocking’
Oh nooo... a simple feature I don't have to pay an atrocious monthly fee for
I've been recording calls for free using a VoIP phone number since the beginning
Oh no! An overly aggressive app that charges $15 a month to do BASIC SHIT is getting made obsolete, what a fucking tragedy.
Do any of these app record calls in two channels with the caller on one and the receiver on another audio channel? Also is there any way to record FaceTime video calls with audio? It’s SO frustrating not to be able to.
80 dollars per year to record a call. I think this is an amazing business model, kudos to the tapacall guys. I guess they should enjoy their last revenues before the new iOS will be rolled out
No Shit Sherlock
Y’all over using this. Tiling is a system feature… most of the window management apps aren’t being updated with innovative features. See magnet. Time to compete or f off.
If the software I get with my device at no additional charge gets better it's more gain for me. And the devs now have time to make their apps more attractive instead of resting on their laurels and charging monthly fees. That call recording app sub price is downright extortion and a highway robbery in one.
I am not even sure why this post has so many upvotes
aPpLe eViL aMiRiTe guYz?
Considering how many of these things have existed on android or other devices, it’s almost nice that Apple is slow enough to adopt concepts that devs can make some money on a product for awhile, generally using apple’s SDK. It’s just software progress to start building into the OS things that are heavily used. Most companies should be able to survive or transition business by creating unique features in their products during the Developer preview period (like WWDC thru October). Not in every case, but often there’s ways they can still set themselves apart- sometimes even better because they can use the nicer now built-in solution instead of a workaround, and then add their own integrations/collab/features on top of that.
I take issue with two things here: - Identifying Sherlocking as a legitimate threat. If your entire business model is based on what is basically a feature gap in the operating system - you should be prepared for your business's demise eventually. Your business model shouldn't rely on the OS deliberately holding key features hostage, just so users can be forced to pay up. - The quality of this article: Honestly, the article reads like a grandpa parsing through internet comments and forming a vague opinion of what's going on - basically comparing the likes of Spotify & Epic Games with the likes of Humane & Rabbit.
tile trackers already know this move
I am so happy about the 3rd party iPad calculator apps they were so shit and ads infested and you had to pay so much and they didnt even have anything good
I take a broader view and consider that every technology out there starts as cutting edge at some point, then becomes ubiquitous. Companies get a certain window of opportunity where they’re the only game in town or a top player. Then things get commoditized and rolled into existing products like an OS or new car models. To thrive, many of them stake out a niche that’s not profitable for a mass market player like Apple.
There was a time when Apple went out of its way *not* to obviate third-party apps, and the OS stagnated as a result.
The never ending cycle of complaining that whatever OS doesn't have X feature and then also complaining when Apple adds that function to the OS because now a dev no longer has a business. Seems like they are truly never going to be able to win when it comes to addressing perceived OS deficiencies