Yesterday, Realmac Software, the makers of the popular to-do app, Clear, announced that it was planning to release a new version of the Clear app for iOS 7. The catch? You’ll have to pay again to receive that upgrade. Other developers may well follow suit. So, we want to know: will you pay for your favourite apps (again) for them to get a more iOS 7-centric look?
Realmac doesn’t fully explain why it is releasing an entirely new app, but mentions that one factor is that Apple doesn’t offer upgrade pricing options within the App Store. That’s good for consumers, but bad news for developers, especially when major changes to the code base are required.
The upshot is that old version of Clear will work perfectly fine on iOS 7, but won’t get additional support moving forward. We’ll get more details on what improvements come with Clear for iOS 7 on 18 September. In the meantime, tell us: if this trend continues, are you willing to pay for iOS 7 app updates?
Comments
10 responses to “Are You Willing To Pay For iOS 7 App Updates?”
Don’t use iOS, but this kind of happened with TapaTalk on Android. They merged their tablet centric app in to the new version after I had bought both the standard and tablet versions, so now I have paid twice for 1 app really. Thing is, the app is useful so I don’t mind. Though if they were to charge me again for another update, I would probably not pay unless is was a significant update. App dev’s need to make it worth the while to pay again if they want their customer base to be ok with it. If it’s just a cosmetic update, I wouldn’t want to pay.
I’m in two (maybe three) mind about this.
1. If they released a seperate app for iOS7 and attempted to charge (again) for something I had already paid for on iOS6… then F Off, I’m not paying again for potentially the same app on a new iOS
2. If they released an update for an app for iOS7 and attempted to charge (again) for something I had already paid for on iOS6… then F Off, I’m not paying again for potentially the same app on a new iOS
3. If they released an update for an app for iOS7 and attempted to charge for something I had already got for FREE on iOS6… then I might considering paying the 0.99c / 1.99 / 2.99 for it, if it was riddled with features that may not previously have been included
Ok, so I’m probably in 1 mindset about this, just explained it 3 different ways
No.
Nope, there are enough variants of the apps to move to one which didn’t require a re-purchase. I would also move to free versions in a pathetic attempt to boycott them.
Wow, you’re such cheap assholes. 99c for an app is less than 1/500 of the cost of your precious phone. The developers need income, to have to give you unlimited support for the rest of the life of the app is not going to help them build better apps.
Don’t be a cheap asshole and support developers.
I have no problems with buying apps, and developers should get paid for the effort.
The argument is whether you should have to pay for the same app all over again.
I think one of the data counter apps did this not so long ago, they basically changed quite a bit in the app, but couldn’t charge for it, so they just depreciated the original app, and released revised app under a different name.
From memory, caused a bit of a furore.
This isn’t the first developer to do this, nor will it be the last.
Atebits did the same thing with Tweetbot’s iOS 6 and their iPad offerings, and I bought each one simply because I use it on a regular basis and found that supporting the developer was worthwhile.
Having said that, having to pay full price again for an app you already own is a bit of a kick in the teeth, unless it’s clear that the developer has put in the effort to make the upgrade worthwhile by providing more or better features, or even offering a discount for existing customers.
I can understand why they have to resort to these measures, since they put in the work to make it fit into the new design but it does mean the consumer has to weigh up whether it’s worth the upgrade.
I get the reason for it, but if I have to pay again, I may end up buying a different app.
But I’m lazy, so my ios 6 apps are going to be around for a while 🙂
Provided the changes warrant payment, yes but if a developer hasn’t (mostly) rebuilt the app or spent considerable time then no.
A great example is Pocket Weather by Shiftyjelly, the app was to replace the existing one and featured some pretty major changes, I’d have happily paid more than what they were asking.
Yeah, the cost is understandable. The transition to iOS7 is quite a big one development wise – there are some quite major changes that require rethinking how apps work on a visual and scaling perspective – dynamic fonts, the white dominance, the pixel dimensions, 64bit processing, and sizing of the status bars etc. The change is quite significant and could require quite a bit of dev work to make it happen.