Apple Prevents Omni Group From Offering Discounted Mac App Store Upgrades

[akac]

Bryan, Apple does seem to be on the customer's side according to the article. The MAS rules do state that the upgrade has to either be offered for free to existing customers or a full version at regular price. Understandable that currently the upgrade system doesn't offer enough options to satisfy everyone but personally I'm all for a free upgrade and that's fair on many levels.
Right now I want to buy Pixelmator. I've used version 1 for a long time and now version 2 which came out on the MAS has been there for a long time with small updates. I'm afraid of buying version 2 because I'm thinking version 3 will come soon. I can't get any kind of answer from Pixelmator as to when and if there will be a version 3. Now if a free upgrade from version 2 to 3 would be offered that would be fair. I shouldn't have to buy a piece of software today and tomorrow I have to pay for an upgrade if one gets released. What would be make more sense for many at least is to give all customers a one-time free upgrade when buying from the MAS. After that then they pay full pricing.

Your whole point is exactly why Apple's method is wrong. When developers provide upgrade pricing, they also provide free upgrades for people who bought the software within x days/weeks/months.

We always did free upgrades for anyone who bought our software in the last 3 months.

However with the app store it removes any ability for the developers to do anything good. In other words it punishes previous users.

Developers cannot survive on free upgrades for life. We pay for employees and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on employees for engineers. Free upgrades for life isn't going to cut it.

In our case we provided free upgrades for nearly 4 years. We plan to continue to offer free upgrades as long as possible for every release - but that only works for so long.

And providing upgrades for new OS releases can require a ton of work, depending on the app. People who think that every shop is just 1 developer raking in the $$$ just have it wrong. Many of us have real businesses.

 

[Khaaaaaaaaaan]

The bottom line here is pretty simple: Apple provides the infrastructure and delivery method for your apps....which means they get to make the rules. If you don't like it then don't sell your app via MAS. Dish it off your site and enjoy the overhead of maintaining and supporting a PCI infrastructure for your applications. No one is forcing you to use the MAS. it's kind of like McDonald's and Happy Meals. No one is placing a gun to your kids head and yelling "Buy them a Happy Meal or I'll blow their FREAKIN' brains out!!"

 

[AidenShaw]

No one is forcing you to use the MAS. it's kind of like McDonald's and Happy Meals. No one is placing a gun to your kids head and yelling "Buy them a Happy Meal or I'll blow their FREAKIN' brains out!!"

This is worse than *any* of the horrible car analogies, by far.

 

[Cougarcat]

I really don't understand what you're getting at, I explained in an earlier post why this way of doing business can easily screw over consumers. It's not wise to implement. This "playing the victim act" is an attempt to change something that's been working flawlessly for years. All just because Omni wants more money. They have their userbase, which apple has granted them, and now that they don't need apple anymore, they wanna take home the bacon and get all the users to come directly to them. Sadly this isn't how business works. Again it leaves alot of room open for customers to get screwed.

I dont see how they are "playing the victim." How is it NOT consumer-friendly for them to (try to) offer an upgrade path for MAS users? The MAS is NOT working flawlessly, I don't see how you can possibly claim it is. If there are no upgrade paths, developers cannot afford to continue to work on their app, unless they make an entirely new version on the App Store, which clutters it up, makes it more confusing, and makes early adopters mad.

Omni is a very popular Mac developer that has been around for years before the MAS. They didn't need Apple to "grant them" a user base, they already had it.

 

[theBB]

We always did free upgrades for anyone who bought our software in the last 3 months.

How is that fundamentally different than "overcharging" the customer who bought it 91 days before you released the new version? There is always a cut off date and there is always somebody crying over the unfairness of it all for buying it just a day or a week or "only a month" before the cut off.

However with the app store it removes any ability for the developers to do anything good. In other words it punishes previous users.

It is your decision to "overcharge" your new users and increase barriers to adoption. I don't see why that should be considered particularly "good" in an ethical or financial sense.

Sure, Apple could offer upgrade prices and trial periods in addition to business models such as ad supported or subscription or full (but lower) priced purchase or in-app purchase based apps. However, every Apple product leaves some options that some users might want, whether it is SD card slots in iPads or removable batteries in laptops or slide out physical keyboards in iPhones and there are always those that lament not having the option, but that is how Apple does business. You don't have to use its products, its hardware or its App Store.

 

[cammonro]

Your whole point is exactly why Apple's method is wrong. When developers provide upgrade pricing, they also provide free upgrades for people who bought the software within x days/weeks/months.

We always did free upgrades for anyone who bought our software in the last 3 months.

However with the app store it removes any ability for the developers to do anything good. In other words it punishes previous users.

Developers cannot survive on free upgrades for life. We pay for employees and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on employees for engineers. Free upgrades for life isn't going to cut it.

In our case we provided free upgrades for nearly 4 years. We plan to continue to offer free upgrades as long as possible for every release - but that only works for so long.

And providing upgrades for new OS releases can require a ton of work, depending on the app. People who think that every shop is just 1 developer raking in the $$$ just have it wrong. Many of us have real businesses.

Well said. I'm surprised by the number of people defending Apple on this. I think these people are not understanding the issues.

What Omni is trying to do is provide discounts for users who already bought a previous version of the software. They don't care where you bought it. They are not trying to "steal profits" from Apple by directing users away from the MAS. They are offering a discounted version of the software outside of the MAS because the MAS won't let you offer upgrade discounts!

I am a huge Apple fan but I steer clear of the MAS wherever possible for this reason. This is a huge flaw in their model and this recent move against the Omni Group (one of the most die hard Apple supporting software companies I know) is just garbage.

 

[buddhistMonkey]

OmniGroup has been around since the late '80s, and their business model reflects that.

They have four apps available for the iPad, the cheapest of which is $20 — the others are $40 and $50 — while the average price of an iPad app is $5. A user can buy Apple's entire collection of iPad apps (Pages, Numbers, Keynote, iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand) for less than the cost of Omni's task manager, OmniFocus. Apple's world-class audio/MIDI sequencer for the Mac, Logic Pro X, which comes with 35+ gigabytes of instruments, samples, and loops, costs as much as OmniGraffle Pro, Omni's app for creating org charts.

The kicker is that every one of Apple's apps is amongst the Top Paid and Top Grossing apps. In fact, on the Mac App Store, Apple's software accounts for 6 of the top 10 most popular apps, and 8 of the top 10 highest-grossing apps. If OmniGroup simply adjusted their prices to align with modern expectations, they'd sell far more copies of their software, and upgrade pricing wouldn't ever be an issue.

 

[JonneyGee]

Can they not offer an in-app purchase as an upgrade and then a standalone app for new buyers?

I am not a developer so I don't know if this is possible or extremely inconvenient but it's just a thought.

Seems to me like it would be slightly more complicated but feasible. They'd have to do but fixes, etc. as free updates, but could sell new features as IAPs. Since that's the major selling point of a new release anyway, seems like that would work.

 

[Renzatic]

The kicker is that every one of Apple's apps is amongst the Top Paid and Top Grossing apps. In fact, on the Mac App Store, Apple's software accounts for 6 of the top 10 most popular apps, and 8 of the top 10 highest-grossing apps. If OmniGroup simply adjusted their prices to align with modern expectations, they'd sell far more copies of their software, and upgrade pricing wouldn't ever be an issue.

I guess the race to the bottom that practically killed PC OEMs is still alive and well in the software sector.

Apple can get away with lower cost software because it's used to entice people to their hardware, which is where they make the vast, VAST majority of their money. A 3rd party software house doesn't have that advantage. They have no choice but to price higher than Apple does if they want to make any money.

----------

It is your decision to "overcharge" your new users and increase barriers to adoption. I don't see why that should be considered particularly "good" in an ethical or financial sense.

Because they're not "overcharging" at all. Those people who are getting the cheaper upgrade have already paid full price for the software previously. They're not punishing new users so much as keeping older ones from having to pay full price for every new version.

 

[bdkennedy1]

Cheaper applications mean more market share if the app is as good as the developers think it is. That said, I haven't heard of OMNI group in years.

 

[HenryDJP]

Your whole point is exactly why Apple's method is wrong. When developers provide upgrade pricing, they also provide free upgrades for people who bought the software within x days/weeks/months.

We always did free upgrades for anyone who bought our software in the last 3 months.

However with the app store it removes any ability for the developers to do anything good. In other words it punishes previous users.

Developers cannot survive on free upgrades for life. We pay for employees and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on employees for engineers. Free upgrades for life isn't going to cut it.

In our case we provided free upgrades for nearly 4 years. We plan to continue to offer free upgrades as long as possible for every release - but that only works for so long.

And providing upgrades for new OS releases can require a ton of work, depending on the app. People who think that every shop is just 1 developer raking in the $$$ just have it wrong. Many of us have real businesses.

Understandable, but many people here say the same thing about Apple's OS upgrades, Mavericks in particular. Many people want Apple to offer it as a free upgrade, not caring about the work or manpower that was put into it. And there are plenty of developers doing extremely well on the app store. Supporting Developers who offer great software at a fair price is my #1 interest, however as a consumer my wallet dictates what I buy and Developers have to do creative selling as well. I do agree that Apple needs to come up with more options for Developers but for right now using crazy tactics to lure the iOS customers outside the MAS to get discounted upgrades isn't going to fair well with Apple and the Developers in question could lose their contract. And I wouldn't be surprised if more than 50% of the Developers (particularly the smaller, lesser known ones) are doing this just to avoid the 30%. I mean, that's all that's ever talked about around here.
What you CAN do as a Developer is just offer your software outside the MAS. That's not against Apple's rules. They allow anything to be installed on a Mac.

 

[springsup]

Developers have been asking for this, and for demos since the AppStore began.

Apple responded with IAPs, which I think most of us feel is monetizing at too small a level and is having a detrimental impact on App quality.

It's hard to believe Apple hasn't done anything about this for so long, and despite so many requests. Developers were hoping that Apple would do this once the AppStore matured and they needed it for new major versions of their own Apps (like Pages). Apple responded by never pushing new major versions of those Apps.

 

[skellener]

Hmmm... 10.8 to 10.9. Seems like a minor upgrade to me. Should be free if it was purchased in the Mac App Store. I like your reasoning.

Actually - I wouldn't be surprised if they did put it out for free. Mountain Lion was almost free at $19.99. Just as you never have to buy iOS updates, I get the feeling Apple may move in that direction for Mac OSX as well. Let's see when Mavericks debuts. It just might be free this time around.

I think Apple needs to allow developers both timed demos and paid upgrades in the Mac and iOS App stores.

 

[sinned72]

The iOS App Store has introduced a somewhat new way to buy software in the instant sort of way but the platform is not the kind where you expect to see 'upgrades', in my opinion.

This philosophy does not hold so great on the desktop computer where applications can have a much larger complexity and where certain things can be cost prohibitive to buy or develop. I think for some types of apps it is fine (games come to mind where you do not get new 'games' that are version upgrades) however other apps are a much bigger 'investment'.

I like some of the premises of the App Store but I do think for desktop software the lack of paid upgrades is a lot more of a hardship on developers that it seems. I am also not certain Apple could implement it in a way that would not be filled with a large amount of loopholes/bugs/purchase errors so that is why they chose not to.

I have been a longtime user of OmniGraffle Pro and it was the first piece of Mac software I bought and one of the first pieces of productivity software tools I ever bought. I used in 2005 and bought it pretty much right because the tool worked as it described and was better designed overall compared to Microsoft Visio with the added benefit of not being over 1000 dollars in price. Since version 3 that was out at the time, I have either paid to upgrade to 4 and 5 or I got the 4 upgrade for free because of timeline and then paid to upgrade 5 (it is possible that free upgrade was for Outliner Pro from 2 to 3, but I do not remember.) I do feel their software is worth the price even though my use of it is much more limited than say Excel or Pages but it fills a very specific niche and I would continue to pay for it to keep the quality high.

Software like Parallels Desktop on the other hand should just stop with their 'upgrade' plan as it is pretty much a sham with their 10 or 20 dollars off unless you 'defect' from the VMware (who also have a messed up model as well, not as bad as Parallels in my mind.)

I am not a developer, so my opinion is not really that valuable, but I the way I read a lot of what I see suggests you either write it once, post it and then forget about it and start working on a new app (or a full paid replacement) with only fixing major issues that drag your name through the mud. Otherwise, you do IAPs to keep money coming in so development can be paid for continuously, and with productivity software IAPs do not seem that feasible. I would almost say, everything here is really meant for the 'casual' users and anything more serious like professional or enterprise software is not really meant to be on the App Store and should be found the hard way, as unappealing as that is.

P.S., Omnigroup does not have advertising on their site, even for their own products (by way of standard Internet practises.) Their site is a place to go for their products and everything you want to know about them, much like Panic who is another developer I like and support (although I have spent much less with them but I get a bit more use from Unison.)

 

[Lazy]

That's the user's choice, not everyone needs to be babied. All this says to me is apple is becoming a control freak and is only going to make their platforms more and more closed.

A little bit of that and a lot of not wanting to lose out on their cut of the upgrade revenue. Of which there is none currently with the MAS... Which is another reason why it's completely inexplicable (previous flawed attempts in this thread to explain aside ) paid upgrades aren't an integral feature.

 

[Liquorpuki]

OmniGroup has been around since the late '80s, and their business model reflects that.

They have four apps available for the iPad, the cheapest of which is $20 — the others are $40 and $50 — while the average price of an iPad app is $5. A user can buy Apple's entire collection of iPad apps (Pages, Numbers, Keynote, iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand) for less than the cost of Omni's task manager, OmniFocus. Apple's world-class audio/MIDI sequencer for the Mac, Logic Pro X, which comes with 35+ gigabytes of instruments, samples, and loops, costs as much as OmniGraffle Pro, Omni's app for creating org charts.

The kicker is that every one of Apple's apps is amongst the Top Paid and Top Grossing apps. In fact, on the Mac App Store, Apple's software accounts for 6 of the top 10 most popular apps, and 8 of the top 10 highest-grossing apps. If OmniGroup simply adjusted their prices to align with modern expectations, they'd sell far more copies of their software, and upgrade pricing wouldn't ever be an issue.

Apple commoditizes software to sell hardware. They pricedrop their OS and first party apps below market value in order to fuel hardware sales. Software developers can't do this because they draw 100% of their revenue from one market alone.

Worst part is after 3 years of budget software being the standard on iOS, people now think software that costs more than a small pizza is a ripoff, and that Freemium to $5 is a sustainable pricepoint for quality software. At the same time they have no problem putting down $1000 for a computer with >50% profit margin.

 

[charlituna]

I mean, this makes total sense, sorry to say. You can't have users buying Apps through the App Store, then updating that App elsewhere. It removes the customer benefits of security, ease of updates, and security. Oh, and security.

And their complaint is bull. There is a way. IAP.

Apple doesn't want folks charging for are basically bug fixes but there is no issue with charging for new content

----------

If I remember right, Coda 2 debuted on the App store for 50% off for a few days ($49.99 vs $99.99). This is how Panic got around it.

That is another way to do it.

 

[Lazy]

Upgrades are NOT going to happen. Daniel Jalkut is NOTHING to Apple but an ex-employee. Even Omni is small potatoes in the scheme of things. Why is Apple supposed to take advice from companies that don't have their level of success? All things considered i'm gonna take advice from a billion dollar company versus a million dollar one almost every time.

Apple built simplicity into the App Store. You see see an app you buy it at the price. There's no gotchas. Even with expanded IAP it's very clear what other costs may exist.

As one of the posters said before. Upgrades are just paid bug fixes with a few enticing features added.

Apple is practicing what they preach. I'm not worried about the Aperture 4 upgrade being a full version because the app is only $79.

Paid upgrades are never simple. Someone is going to get screwed. Apple is well within their rights to prevent this as they are the ones that have to answer to angry consumers.

Previous responses pointed out what's wrong with your million vs. billion dollar comment.

How is having a price for an upgrade any different from having a price for an IAP purchase? It would be equally clear with both ahead of time exactly what the cost is before purchase. If you mean that IAP prices are listed along with the initial purchase price, what's your point? The same could be done with upgrades. Also, nothing stops a developer from changing their IAP price, so you can't know for sure what you might have to spend later (analogous to not knowing what an upgrade price might be).

A software upgrade could range from nothing to a complete rewrite with substantial new features. Your statement is categorically false. As long as you're not forced to buy an upgrade, so what if some are minor and others major? Buy the ones you think are worth it to you. Just like you do when you make the initial purchase decision for any software.

You should be worried about there ever being an Aperture 4. Sadly it's starting to look like Aperture is on the discontinued-but-we'll-never-announce-it path like a few other notable Apple apps.

What do you mean paid upgrades were never simple? All they were not is automatic or one click to confirm. But mostly they are no harder than an initial purchase.

What do you mean by "someone is going to get screwed"? I cannot even guess what confused thought could cause you to make that statement.

What angry consumers? How will letting me buy an upgrade for less than the full price because I already own something make me angry?

 

[Eriden]

What utter pish. You are not restricted to software from the Mac App Store. You can download software from anywhere as you always did.

You have a bit of a reading comprehension problem, don't you. Quite understandable, as English may not be your first language. Nowhere did I say that Apple has currently implemented such a restriction. What I DID say is that such a restriction is looking more like an inevitability. And that, Mr. Delta-NC, is a fact.

 

[Renzatic]

And their complaint is bull. There is a way. IAP.

Apple doesn't want folks charging for are basically bug fixes but there is no issue with charging for new content.

Actually, that's a pretty good idea. If you're inside the app, that means you've already bought it, and are eligable for an upgrade. All the developer would have to do is add a few hooks in to allow for in app patching.

edit:...though Lazy does bring up a few good points an IAP setup might not be able to address. Simple additions that could be plugged in modularly are one thing, but would an IAP patch be able to apply massive, sweeping updates to the entire program? What about the executable itself?

 

[charlituna]

Kudos to Omni for not sitting still. This does look really heavy handed on Apple's part. It's one thing to offer an outlet to developers, another to enforce a business model.

The rules were stated clearly before Omni voluntarily decided to put their apps in the MAS. They have no one to blame but themselves

 

[Renzatic]

The rules were stated clearly before Omni voluntarily decided to put their apps in the MAS. They have no one to blame but themselves

I love this blame the victim mentality that goes on around here sometimes.

"Sorry you can't do something that's been a normally accepted standard across the entire industry for decades now due to a bunch of arbitrary reasons we've decided upon. You have no right to complain cuz we gave you a readme before signing up. SO SHADDUP YOU STUPID DEVELOPERS OLOL EAT IT".

-xoxoxo Tim Cook

 

[willybNL]

Might sound silly, but can't developers 're-use' in-app purchases for this?

I know Navigon does that with 'freshmaps'. You buy it in-app, and you get the new version of the maps only after that.

Example: You can actually upgrade the program, but new features stay locked.

 

[charlituna]

This is different. The original OMNI purchases are OUTSIDE the app store, and the upgrade is inside the app store.

Other way around. First purchase in store, web downloaded app moving you OT of store for the upgrades

----------

Well said. I'm surprised by the number of people defending Apple on this. I think these people are not understanding the issues.

What Omni is trying to do is provide discounts for users who already bought a previous version of the software. They don't care where you bought it. They are not trying to "steal profits" from Apple by directing users away from the MAS.

The rules were clear when they signed up. If they didn't want to follow them they should have kept with selling direct,

----------

I love this blame the victim mentality that goes on around here sometimes.

"Sorry you can't do something that's been a normally accepted standard across the entire industry for decades now due to a bunch of arbitrary reasons we've decided upon. You have no right to complain cuz we gave you a readme before signing up. SO SHADDUP YOU STUPID DEVELOPERS OLOL EAT IT".

-xoxoxo Tim Cook

Abiding by rules that were given to you from day one is part of being a professional so yeah, they can eat it.

 

[tonytiger13]

I'm a full supporter of getting your App outside app stores when possible. But have you been to downloads.com recently? A great site ran by CNet, a great team of people for sure. But when you go and try to download a great tool like Malwarebytes or Ccleaner or Filezilla or Cyberduck or whatever, you get SOOOO many ads on the sides and above and below that say download. The average consumer can easily be confused. And this is a site I'd consider top tier in recognition. Those ads lead to sometimes harmful or subversive applications. When I point this out to friends or clients that I help, they're floored and soon realize how easy it is to get viruses and other malware (usually why I'm there in the first place).

Places like the Mac App Store help consumers stay safe on the ever increasing dangerous web. If it gets the job done, I say use it. But otherwise, be vigilant and use some common sense (well, it's not as common as you'd think) or get some training on using the web, seriously...