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BBEdit Returns to Mac App Store

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Bare Bones Software today announced the return of BBEdit to the Mac App Store after a nearly five year hiatus.

bbedit.jpg

The popular text, code, and markup editor is a free download on the Mac App Store with full features available for $3.99 per month or $39.99 per year via in-app purchase. BBEdit remains available on a perpetual license basis for $49.99 via Bare Bones Software's online store and at participating resellers.

BBEdit was updated in February to become a sandboxed app, a requirement to be distributed through the Mac App Store. Sandboxing limits apps to their intended use and is a protection implemented to prevent malicious software from working. BBEdit will require explicit permission to access files and folders on the Mac.

Bare Bones says BBEdit's features and capabilities are identical for all customers, whether downloaded directly from the Bare Bones Software web site or from the Mac App Store, and whether using a subscription or a perpetual license.

BBEdit offers a 30-day evaluation period, during which its full feature set is available. After the evaluation period has expired, you can continue to use BBEdit in "free mode" with permanent access to editing capabilities, but not web authoring tools or other exclusive features for paying customers.

BBEdit 12 features more than 300 new features and refinements since the last Mac App Store release of the software, including 64-bit support, macOS Mojave and Dark Mode support, Git integration, and much more.

The Mac App Store version requires macOS Mojave 10.14.2 or later, while the direct version requires macOS Sierra 10.12.6 or later.

Article Link: BBEdit Returns to Mac App Store
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2019/04/04/bbedit-returns-to-mac-app-store/
ghost187 said:
I hate all recurring payments period!

My rule of thumb before I sign up to any service is I religiously search for a one time fee alternative or just don’t sign up if I don’t absolutely need it.
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Bare Bones says BBEdit's features and capabilities are identical for all customers, whether downloaded directly from the Bare Bones Software web site or from the Mac App Store, and whether using a subscription or a perpetual license.

The Mac store offers a subscription model and the non-Mac store download offers a license.
 
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BBEdit is updated every 3 years (BBEdit 13 should be released fall 2020).

Perpetual major version license costs $49.99 and Bare Bones typically offer generous $20 discount when you upgrade (or $29.99). 6 years of latest perpetual BBEdit license can cost as low as $13.33/year.

So $39.99/year is ridiculously overpriced. It should be $1.99/month or $19.99/year at the most.
 
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nutmac said:
BBEdit is updated every 3 years (BBEdit 13 should be released fall 2020).

Perpetual major version license costs $49.99 and Bare Bones typically offer generous $20 discount when you upgrade (or $29.99). 6 years of latest perpetual BBEdit license can cost as low as $13.33/year.

So $39.99/year is ridiculously overpriced. It should be $1.99/month or $19.99/year at the most.
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Is the new price overpriced, or is the old price underpriced?

And is the lower price always better? If the extra cash is going to a weekend in Las Vegas, then I prefer the lower price. But if the extra cash is going back to the company (e.g. to hire another developer), then for many apps I prefer the higher price.

It all boils down to how much you care for the given app. Care that they add new features. That they fix bugs. That they scrutinize the code for security holes. Etc etc.
 
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johannnn said:
Is the new price overpriced, or is the old price underpriced?

And is the lower price always better? If the extra cash is going to a weekend in Las Vegas, then I prefer the lower price. But if the extra cash is going back to the company (e.g. to hire another developer), then for many apps I prefer the higher price.

It all boils down to how much you care for the given app. Care that they add new features. That they fix bugs. That they scrutinize the code for security holes. Etc etc.
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Perpetual BBEdit probably is underpriced, but Mac App Store customers shouldn't pay dramatically higher price than perpetual license. Even if you take Apple's 15-30% cut into consideration, Mac App Store costs way too much.

Office 365 costs $70/year (1 user license). Perpetual release is on a 3-year cycle. Office Home & Student, which is much more limited to Office 365 (no Outlook, none of the online services, no mobile license) costs $150, or $50/year.

If Bare Bones wants us to pay $40/year, they need to throw Mac App Store customers some bones (no pun intended) to justify 100% price premium.
 
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I'll be curious to see if the App Store version includes the command line tools - guess I'm not sure what they specifically had to change to meet Apple's sandbox requirements.

Regardless, I've been a happy customer for most of this millennium, and likely will continue to be for years to come. The web is constantly changing, but if you do this for a living - the need for a good text editor doesn't change.
 
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jlc1978 said:
Bare Bones says BBEdit's features and capabilities are identical for all customers, whether downloaded directly from the Bare Bones Software web site or from the Mac App Store, and whether using a subscription or a perpetual license.

The Mac store offers a subscription model and the non-Mac store download offers a license.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I didn’t know, though I was just talking about subscriptions overall.
 
Great software, and it is good to have the option of purchasing either a perpetual license and paying for upgrades, or buying on subscription. That said, the subscription price seems a bit high.
 
Solomani said:
BBEdit is a "classic" 3rd party Mac software from the Golden Age of Macintosh….. just like Eudora (which was made by QualComm :p).
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I wonder what is the oldest Mac app that is still in active development.

The first Macintosh came out in 1984. And Steve Jobs gave Microsoft a preferential treatment to bring Word (and Multiplan) to Macintosh, which was released in 1985. So my guess is Microsoft Word.

Among the creative apps, I think QuarkXPress is the oldest (1987).

Both BBEdit and PCalc both came out in 1992.
 
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nutmac said:
If Bare Bones wants us to pay $40/year, they need to throw Mac App Store customers some bones (no pun intended) to justify 100% price premium.
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They have. You have the option of buying it on the App store, getting automatically notified of update, and only paying $4 if you just need the advanced features for a month,, and then paying another $4 if you need it again in the future and thus paying less than a perpetual license. In addition, you can share with up to 6 family members, not sure what the license is for the perpetual.

They are giving customers a choice, the App store or direct.
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nutmac said:
I wonder what is the oldest Mac app that is still in active development.
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Hello World
 
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iforgotmyoldact said:
I remember using BBEdit many years ago (15+ years ago?) to write Perl and HTML. But with VSCode, Atom, Vim, and Emacs all thriving and free, as well as Sublime (not free but certainly has more community support than BBEdit) is there any reason to even bother? Honest question.
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No reason at all. Nostalgia maybe.

There’s also Eclipse (eclipse.org) for a lot of programming needs.
 
Well, good it is now 64bit, but on the other Hand SublimeText 3 is much butter and the developer is on the long run not that greedy.
 
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radus said:
Well, good it is now 64bit, but on the other Hand SublimeText 3 is much butter and the developer is on the long run not that greedy.
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I bought Sublime 3 several years ago, use it on Mac as well as Windows and Linux VMs, and get constant updates because I'm on the dev track. Definitely no complaints there, well worth the cost, which I've only had to pay once.
 
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