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Apple Launches $0.99 Mac FaceTime App on Mac App Store
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Seriously, people are bitching about paying 99 cents? 
Apple had to do this for accounting purposes, and it's hardly outrageous. This site has the biggest collection of whiners.
Apple had to do this for accounting purposes, and it's hardly outrageous. This site has the biggest collection of whiners.
Can anybody confirm that FaceTime does not support HD video even if I use an external HD-capable webcam?
The specs on Apple's site say so, but it seems too ridiculous to believe...
The specs on Apple's site say so, but it seems too ridiculous to believe...
Seriously, people are bitching about paying 99 cents?
Apple had to do this for accounting purposes, and it's hardly outrageous. This site has the biggest collection of whiners.
Probably not going to buy this as I have no need for the non-beta version... unless there are security issues being resolved or something :S
Why on earth did you spend for anTV in the same room as the computer? Buy a video cord next time.
Oh my god, you mean I could have just bought a video cord and saved money? Wow, I really wish I would have consulted you before I spent the money on the
tv. Man there is egg on my face now. Or is it at all possible that maybe, just maybe the egg came before the chicken? Maybe I had the
tv before the iMac came into the room?I do believe making people pay for this piece of software is outrageous too (well maybe not outrageous, but stupid). I mean, people are going to be able to do the exact same thing with Skype (Free App on iPhone + Free Mac App).
But that is also why I believe Apple will make it free soon. I still have the beta version which I got for free and it still works so I'm all good.
But that is also why I believe Apple will make it free soon. I still have the beta version which I got for free and it still works so I'm all good.
Well, not yet, I mean, haven't you read any of the Grimm Brother's stories? This is an often recurrent theme. Somebody offers an incredible deal to somebody who's put into a distressing situation until somebody comes to save the day, with some sort of compensation and often it's a great deal at first, before it starts to grow unreasonable
Rumpelstiltskin is a great example. When a Farmer's daughter was thrown into a locked room to fulfill her father's impossible promise to the king under threat of execution, he came to save the day. He proceeded wove three increasingly larger rooms full of gold out of flax over the course of three nights and his fee for the first two was nothing but a ring for the first night and a necklace for the second. It 'twasn't until the third that he asked for the queen-to-be's first born child. She took the deal.
This could become a rather disturbing analog if we consider the farmer's daughter as the customer, the king Steve Jobs, the locked room iOS, Apps as Rumplestiltskin, the prices as Rumplestiltskin's set fees and the first born as Mac O.S. it can become a very disturbing analog. The story ends on the happy note of the farmer's daughter cheating Rumplestiltskin out of his dues by guessing his name and the little man ripping himself apart in his anger. Which is to say the customer guesses the encryption key needed to unlock Apple's trusted computing platform while Apple ticks off legitimate buyers with their arbitrary terms and conditions taking a nosedive in market share.
Anyway, I respect content creators, I really do and as such abide by all lawful terms and conditions they set for use of their product, even when it'd be really easy not to, in spite of peer pressure (here's looking at you unscrupulous Game Players, Anime Fans, Photoshoppists and Music Lovers). However, I have an expectancy for anybody selling any products to either meet the market standard pricing or exceed the competition in proportion to their price if they want to gain my usership.
It's just basic salesmanship: the product offered has to fulfill the wants or needs of the customer. If I have another offer that's roughly equivalent, there's little use in paying more than I have to. Communication is also important in salesmanship as it enables discourse between the various parties as to what they want out of the deal. I know Apple probably won't read every post in this thread if they even look at it at all but they'll probably gauge the level of customer satisfaction or discontemptment and figure out why. It's important for us to talk amongst ourselves so their marketers get the hearsay and provide feedback to the company.
Besides, this is the sort of thing that should come out of the R&D budget for Lion features. Everybody would probably love to pay for this as part of a software bundle and it could give fence sitters further incentive to buy. It'd probably even be the 'must have' feature of Lion. Maybe hey could even charge up five dollars for it to make a nice, ubiquitously transparent number and nobody would know where the price bump came from.. Sometimes Ignorance is Bliss (Okay, okay the flash animation has nothing to do with this conversation or possibly even my usage of the term but it's still quite funny and worth a watch).
What? You all know it's true.
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Seriously, people are bitching about paying 99 cents?
Apple had to do this for accounting purposes, and it's hardly outrageous. This site has the biggest collection of whiners.
I agree with the above guys who say software isn't free but when you take something which people already had access to for free (and expected to remain free) and then try to charge for it, no matter how nominal, it will lead to backlash.
And in this case using that accounting argument... I know where they are trying to get at but if the feature wasn't definitely going to be released at the start nor was it promoted as a feature which people wanted/bought the software or hardware for in the first place, then I don't see why they'd need to defer revenue recognition. I'm sure there are many other companies out there (e.g. Microsoft and Xbox360) which have had uber big feature updates over the years but not had any accounting issues as a result. It's an expense to develop and distribute the software. No issue.
Push App Store
I think they are really charging 99 cents to force people to start using their app store environment.
I think they are really charging 99 cents to force people to start using their app store environment.
I think you haven't followed other posts that explain that this was a necessity. They don't want bad press every second of their lives.
Macs are non-subscription based devices, and are accounted for at time of sale. As such, any changes to the reported revenue would cause problems, so Apple charges for upgrades to avoid this. Apple is probably being careful by considering FaceTime an upgrade to the device and thus charging a nominal fee.
If they didn't do this, they'd have to take a charge against the future cost of upgrades when they book the revenue, and then move the money to revenue as the upgrade occurs. That would be a massive accounting effort that is avoided by having a nominal fee for upgrades.
Safari, Quicktime, and iTunes are not sold but given away; so no revenue is booked at the time of sale so there is no need to charge for upgrades.