Sun Tzu’s professional boxing career was surprisingly short 
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Good update. Hopefully everyone’s satisfied.
@webwalrus Web development/agency work doesn’t have a license that requires the customer to accept any terms, but it has its own methods of escaping future obligations. “Subject to discovery,” “expenses not included (can include freelancers),” etc. Not to mention the informal realistic conversation about what’s needed to maintain a long-term mutually beneficial relationship. I’ve seen many changes to the original price of a build that were done ethically. Appreciate the analogy; it’s a fun one.
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I believe that is correct. However, as discussed earlier, some developers are using subscriptions to sell upgrades.
When you buy an app from some developers it’s yours and you can use all of its current features as long as you want. However after some period of time, let’s say one year, you will not receive any new features that may be added unless you purchase a subscription. If you subscribe you get the new features and can immediately cancel your subscription. You never have to pay if you don’t want the upgrade.
You’re right.
People may be upset about one app’s prices but perhaps it will not be the case down the line. My crystal ball is on the fritz. It is a pet peeve of mine and I let it get the better of me sometimes.
The iPad apps were probably too inexpensive to begin with. The Mac apps are costly (I’m on a fixed income) but many of them make a lot more sense, perhaps because the market is much more of a determining factor.
I just don’t want my data getting stuck in an app wherein it is a chore just to get it out. I could be that I’d be enjoying a Notability-type app to wake up and find the rug has been pulled out.
Fortunately in this case, the only reason I signed on to Notability was the price. But, unfortunately, I have entries in there I never would have put in there had I any inkling it was going to go subscription.
I shudder to think of the effects that 1Password is having. People have relied on it a great deal. I bought it a few years ago and never used it because I was worried about that or something similarly occurring. I emailed them a couple of times when I didn’t use it and thought I might like to but the best they could do was a discount which was no discount at all seeing I should have been grandfathered in. I did pay. My fault, no doubt
That does bother me when they restrict you access. Big time. It has happened 6x, maybe 12x.
Someone is making a fortune and a lot of it may very well be Apple. I do know they are pushing the subscriptions. (And I love Apple!)
That’s why customers should be loud in their complains. Only way to get developers to change their greedy ways.
I dropped Setapp for that very reason. What I initially got from Setapp moved quickly into a ridiculously expensive model if you use a number of devices. In the end I only needed a few apps that I actually used regularly and got them straight from the devs.
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I had absolutely no idea that this was even a thing! I came for the daily planner templates and stayed for the Biology & Anatomy Digital Stickers and the Magic Washi Tapes.
Does anyone know if the Notability subscription of 20% off is for lifetime or only the first year?
I followed up on that and wound up buying a very cool black digital planner for good notes.
I sure appreciated your explanationS, web! I suspect you are quite the gifted coach (teacher). I love apps. If I were to tell you how many I have on my iPad Air you’d think I was certainly joshing you. I looked it up last night and even I couldn’t believe it.
It winds up being quite the bargain app for me!
I 
ed your post but will point out that that approach can also be “played” by the developer in bad ways. We were using a CAD tool that had a $10K/year support fee giving all updates. So they introduced a new version of the program with a different name, and the “support” didn’t give the upgrade, required re-purchasing and that was much more than $10k!
I was the head of sales for a software company that charged 18% a year of the MSRP of the software and barely fixed bugs. They pulled a similar trick when they finally developed something new. I resigned. Interestingly, it was a CAD company!
Some companies I used to deal with didn’t allow you to drop support and later sign up again without paying for the years you didn’t have support.
If you didn’t have a support contract with IBM on your midrange systems, you stayed at the bottom of the queue until they didn’t have any support customers requesting assistance. I’ve even heard of technicians being redirected while enroute to a “time and materials” call at a company without a support contract.
Most of the time the “issues” we complain about are well thought out policies by companies seeking to maximize their income.
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You don’t “own” it. You paid a license to use a version of the software.
I generally don’t want to pay subscriptions but I do want to support software authors in maintaining and improving products. I much prefer to pay for upgrades so that I can choose to do so if I am continuing to use the app.
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Depends upon the contract which few people read. There may be a change to subscriptions and then often a lifetime license is offered when people get outraged.
I would never say that I do not want to support developers nor have I. Where did you get that notion, some time in November…?
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@Katie - people who purchase a license don’t “own” the software if anything they “own” a license. However the rest of the post was stating my opinion that I do want to support software producers and in fact I do pay some subscriptions but I can’t pay subscriptions for all the apps I have previously purchased.
I wasn’t implying anything about your position on supporting developers and apologize if that’s how you read it. Happy New Year!
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I notice that Apple is heavily promoting GoodNotes 5 on their iPad store page. Is that new? am I misremembering or did it used to be Notability?
I’ve noticed that previously if you walked into an Apple store, it was Notability that was installed on the demo iPads. Couple years back they switched to GoodNotes. Don’t think that’s related to Notability’s switch though.
On their pricing page, Notability says the free version has “limited edits” and they don’t seem to specify the number anywhere on their site. Does anyone have free/un-grandfathered Notability, or is willing to install it for the first time, and can post the limited number they’re seeing? I don’t have a spare device I can provision with a new iCloud account and all my family sharing members are seeing the grandfathering from my purchase.