Forecast and diversity, that's how businesses manage ongoing costs. Subscriptions are just the developer going "business strategy hard, me like money but not work." Making the product is only 20% of the job.
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Deliveries App Loses Functionality as Shipping Companies Refuse to Participate
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I noticed the problem with Fedex. I don't have a problem with the need to log into Amazon and so far USPS and UPS are working fine. DHL has always been problematic. I have been using this app for years and depend on it so I will use it until it is no longer useful. Fedex is supposed to be adding the ability to track other delivery services but considering their status with Amazon that should be interesting.
I wasn't talking about Deliveries. I was going off this post in this thread where sammiemo said Parcel now costs $4.99 per month, but he actually meant to say it costs $4.99 per year. And I actually thought it was $2.99 per month.
I checked it myself as I still have it installed on my Mac and it is indeed $4.99 per year. Parcel is a competitor to Deliveries that is still operating thus me talking about it at all.
Why should they get to profit off of information that Amazon, UPS, FedEx and others provide their customers for free? I think if the companies were getting a cut of the revenue they'd participate.
Software existed for a long time before the advent of the subscription craze of the last 5-10 years. Newsflash, almost every business has always had ongoing costs and always will have ongoing costs. This is not a new phenomenon.
It's kinda karma hitting back unscrupulous devs like Deliveries who started charging annual subscription fees to users who bought the app upfront and helped it become what it is today.
To be honest most of the big ones likely wouldn't participate even with revenue sharing. I don't know how common this is becoming but some delivery apps here let you pay more money through the app to speed up your shipping. Something they can't do if you never use their app to get those upsell prompts.
I regret to admit I've used it in the past, paid like an extra 5 bucks to get a delivery a day quicker because I'm impatient so they do work.
Also a lot of those apps now make it really simple to ship stuff yourself which is basically a way to show you an ad for their own shipping services each time you want to track a parcel coming to you.
You are not wrong, but the data isn't really UPS or FedEx's property. Sure, they curate and serve it, but that doesn't make it theirs any more than I own my iTunes library. One could make an argument that it is Amazon's since they are also a retailer, but I think in the end it's the customer's data.
This has been addressed multiple times. Bye!
I hate the overused and abused subscription model as much as anyone but $5 a year for an app you use almost every day to a small developer that continually updates and maintains it? Cmon, people deserve to be paid for their work.
Data ownership is the gold of the information age. If your business is relying on free information from other companies without you having contracts in place with those companies, your business is doomed.
I have always used “Packages” https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/packages-delivery-tracking/id1229071393 to track my parcels and best of all its free
I switched to Parcel last summer when Deliveries introduced a subscription to ‘maintain development and service’ which clearly isn’t really happening given that Parcel seems to do everything this app did/does (and more) without issue, I had been a long time Deliveries user since the Tiger dashboard widget. The Amazon integration in Parcel is seamless and works well, and that alone is enough to justify the subscription, plus it uses iCloud to sync not the proprietary Junecloud sync.
I bought the app upfront a few years ago then Deliveries dev decided to impose a subscription fee on those who already bought it going against App Store guidelines. Good riddance indeed 😤
I don't get so many deliveries that a consolidated app to track all of them would be useful to me. But I can see the value of it to others.
It should be possible for the delivery services (UPS, Fedex, DHL, etc) to allow a third-party app to have access to an individuals tracking details if that individual has given the app authorization to access that information on their behalf. Similar to giving someone a power of attorney to do specified actions on your behalf.
The OP article doesn't explain what the relationship is between this app and the delivery services today. If other apps (Parcel seems to be popular, and still working well) are able to work effectively, then are they doing something different or do they have a different relationship with the delivery services?
It should be possible for the delivery services (UPS, Fedex, DHL, etc) to allow a third-party app to have access to an individuals tracking details if that individual has given the app authorization to access that information on their behalf. Similar to giving someone a power of attorney to do specified actions on your behalf.
The OP article doesn't explain what the relationship is between this app and the delivery services today. If other apps (Parcel seems to be popular, and still working well) are able to work effectively, then are they doing something different or do they have a different relationship with the delivery services?
Deliveries also has iCloud syncing.
Might be different in Canada, but Amazon packages get tracked fine for me. I'll continue to be a loyal user for as long as this provides any functionality at all to track packages. Even as a list to track current orders. It's a nice place to centralize all my online deliveries even if I don't get to see the exact delivery date.
If the problem is that shipping companies are making their API access proprietary, then I would expect any 3rd party app to have the same difficulty. Maybe Deliveries is just the first to raise the flag that it can no longer provide same services anymore??
It might be data of customer transactions yes, but it is stored on the servers of Amazon, UPS, etc. Only they have the proprietary information on where their trucks, boats, planes, vans, helicopters, etc are. Only they know how long packages will take to be processed at their sorting facilities.
If I were operating on the scale of Amazon et al I wouldn't want some company profiting off of my proprietary information that I provide to my customers for free, without recieving a cut.
Parcel is my go-to app for courier deliveries in the UK, Deliveries is the back-up.
