I just saw the announcement about Pastebot 3 and it looks great, but when I tried to upgrade from version 2 (purchased from the Mac App Store), I was told by the devs I was out of luck. They are not offering any upgrade path for MAS customers. The reason they stated was “upgrade pricing has always been our way of thanking people who bought directly from the site.”
This doesn’t strike me as very fair. I didn’t see any warning on the Mac App Store listing that this version will be ineligible for upgrades (otherwise I would have bought direct). When I pointed out to the devs that their MAS customers were still their customers, I was told there was still nothing they could do (because of MAS policies) and “Good luck with your alternative search.”
I love supporting indie developers and most of them have been very accommodating about upgrades, that’s why I’m so disappointed by Tapbots’ response.
Anyway, now looking at either building my own clipboard manager using Keyboard Maestro or checking out other non-subscription options like Maccy. Would be grateful for any recommendations.
Tapbots are a great firm, they’ve made some excellent apps, they sweat the small stuff and have a track record of good customer service. They got screwed over majorly by Twitter (and Elon Musk) and recovered.
I don’t think that they’ve mislead you in any way, it doesn’t sound like they’ve been rude to you, and if you buy on the Mac App Store they take a hit of up to 30% on selling directly after paying their processing payment fee.
Still would like a proper Pastebot iOS app. I know they have Universal Clipboard functionality but if there’s great organization with the Mac app then that “system” is what you’re likely to want on iOS as well. I’ve been a Tapbots fan for years but since I don’t do the social Mastodon/Bluesky/Whatevernewservicehasjustcomeout I haven’t been able to utilize any Tapbot apps. The $40 wouldn’t be a big deal to me if it was a Universal App.
See, that’s the thing - MAS customers aren’t actually their customers. They’re Apple’s customers, who bought Tapbots’ product from Apple.
Apart from the other comments about them taking a 30% hit on the MAS, my understanding is that offering upgrades to MAS customers is a much more tricky process as the dev has zero visibility into the licensing part of things. Apple isn’t providing the devs with any useful info whatsoever to help them facilitate non-MAS upgrades to MAS purchases.
I’m looking for the documentation for the CLI for the non-MAS version. It doesn’t look like it’s available on their site or through the app. Is that available somewhere?
In a technical or perhaps legal sense, this is true. But I think for most end-users who are not developers themselves, the perception is that the user is indeed a customer of the developer (who is selling through a store). I bought version 2 of Pastebot. In my mind, I am a customer.
I think the stance that “we’re not offering upgrades to our MAS customers because Apple takes a 30% cut and there is no easy way to verify MAS customers” is not great customer service and does not make me feel great about the developer (despite my sympathy for them being screwed over by Twitter/X).
Yup I’ve used it for years and it has features that I haven’t even fully leveraged yet. ScreencastsOnline had an excellent review of it where I learned a lot.
I like the “Mac Ass” Tapbot apps but until something is demonstrably better than Copy’em i’m staying put.
Wow – Copy 'Em looks fantastic. They’ve got a bundle on the MAS with PasteQueue (which also looks very useful). Thanks again for this suggestion. I guess something good has come from the Pastebot upgrade problem.
Because the clipboard managers in Launchbar and Unclutter are so readily available and I use both apps frequently, those are the ones that I use. Then again, I don’t use any advanced features.
