[blub]

Why is 3 a major update?

I upgraded OmniFocus 1->2, but won't upgrade 2->3, because I don't consider it worth 20€.

The only useful new feature is batch editing, which was quite honestly overdue... And it still doesn't support an "end repeat" date!

Things 3 seems much better featurewise.

[xoa]

>Why is 3 a major update?

Because they consider it a major upgrade, hence the major version number changing? It has a major new UI rework and features? If you don't like those things then it's not a valuable major upgrade to you, which of course is the market working exactly right, but it's still a major upgrade. OmniFocus 2 was released May 2014, so over 4 years ago. That's a plenty long free support period.

>The only useful new feature is batch editing, which was quite honestly overdue... And it still doesn't support an "end repeat" date!

>Things 3 seems much better featurewise.

Then get Things 3! Like, wow, blub has just discovered for the first time that competitive products can be different, and get updated to different degrees, and that there might be reasons to pick one over another one! Who knew right?

[blub]

xoa, I think you've gotten lost in your own argumentation: besides saying that paid upgrades were not a scam, you were also trying to convince newtacamp that charging money for the OmniFocus v2 to v3 upgrade is perfectly reasonable, if you remember...

You claimed that "developing major new versions costs money" and that "it's normal that all minor updates are free".

So far, so good, but the fact whether v3 is a major new version in anything but name seems to be critical to the soundness of your argument. I have v2 and the v3 trial on my device, and unless changing the icons and moving or adding a few buttons counts nowadays as a "major new UI rework" this app did not in fact go through a major UI rework. Neither does it have any groundbreaking new features, rather it's playing catch-up to Things v3 from more than one year ago.

OF v3 is not worth the 20-30 EUR IMO. I do have Things 3. These guys did do a major UI upgrade when they launched it and still managed to charge one third of the OmniFocus upgrade price for the new app.

AppStore upgrade pricing is not a scam, but it's still complicated to get right and can alienate users. I've given two reasons why in this thread: family sharing for IAPs and features / upgrade price ratio.

[xoa]

>besides saying that paid upgrades were not a scam, you were also trying to convince newtacamp that charging money for the OmniFocus v2 to v3 upgrade is perfectly reasonable, if you remember...

I don't think I've gotten lost, but to be clear, to me "perfectly reasonable" does not mean that it's "a good value". I'm not arguing that OmniFocus 3, or for that matter OF or any other Omni apps in general, are something that anyone here should buy. You can all evaluate that for yourselves. newtacamp merely used that specific piece of software as an example. The point is that it's been years since the last upgrade, the older versions have been well supported with minor updates, and Omni considers v3 to be a major upgrade. If you and others do not then that's the market working as intended!

>AppStore upgrade pricing is not a scam

App Store "upgrade pricing" does not exist. That's the whole issue. On their store for the Mac app Omni offers 50% off upgrades from v2 to v3. In general historically and today most upgrade offers are heavy discounts at least for -1 versions (some places differentiate between -1 and -2 or -2++). But unlike subscriptions if you think they haven't earned the fee from a paid upgrade you don't have to pay it, that's not some side "excuse" that's the value. In fact in normal stores "cross upgrades"/crossgrades are a thing adding even more competitiveness, a competitor can allow possible new users to "upgrade" from a licensed copy of a competitor to their own software instead. All this is valuable to a vibrant market. newtacamp argued that a major upgrade being charged for is "scammy" ("repurchase fees" is also derogatory) and by implication argued that alienating users who won't pay is somehow a problem. I disagreed, and still disagree.

[iamphilrae]

Well there’s a simple response to that... don’t upgrade. No one is forcing you to.

[blub]

This is a discussion about AppStore monetisation using OmniFocus as an example.

The original claim that upgrade pricing is a scam can be trivially disproved. My claim is that coming up with an appropriate upgrade strategy is easy to get wrong and customers can still feel that these upgrade prices are unjustified, which does pose a problem for the company making the products and for this method of monetisation too.

What I will do doesn't really matter, but it's reasonable to assume I'm not alone in thinking like this.

[Karunamon]

That's non-responsive to the point of this particular paid update being one of the crappy ones.

Eventually, he's going to have to shell out for the upgrade just to get something that had the right option in Xcode selected so he can still run it, despite an almost complete lack of new features or anything that actual development time was spent on.

[xoa]

>Eventually, he's going to have to shell out for the upgrade

Or if he doesn't like it he could switch to one of the many other options. Or something open source, which can then be maintained himself if he wishes. That's part of the core point of open source you know? That one doesn't -have- to shell out for upgrades is why upgrades are good compared to subscriptions. If a developer puts out a bad paid upgrade, they get the most direct and unignorable form of feedback there is: less money.

>just to get something that had the right option in Xcode selected so he can still run it, despite an almost complete lack of new features or anything that actual development time was spent on.

Thanks for telling us that Apple promises backwards compatibility with all Mac software forever and that there are never any development maintenance of any kind required except "selecting the right option in Xcode". This was really news to me but will certainly make things a lot easier going forward now that I know nothing ever gets deprecated and removed from the OS over time.