I do not see a problem there. @MacSparky has published a blog post about that and it is totally transparent:
When the Fantastical developers were getting ready to release version 3 of the application, they asked me to prepare an extensive screencast series on how the app works and how I use it. I was happy to do so. That resulted in nearly two hours of video screencasts with me working in Fantastical 3 and explaining how to use its many features. Along the way, I was able to drop in a lot of good general advice about how to use a digital calendar. When the project was done, we were all so happy with it that the Fantastical team gave me permission to release all of these videos as a free Field Guide.
Fair warning: another SaaS diatribe follows. Feel free to skip over.
I totally agree with you. There ought to be as much opportunity to make money off of iOS apps as there ever was from Mac apps. People got the idea that apps on a phone somehow are more akin to sticking a quarter in a bubble gum machine than buying software for a computer. If thereâs one thing that Apple didnât drive home hard enough from the perspective of developers, it was that this wasnât some kind of successor to the Motorola Razr, this was more of a spiritual sibling of a Mac. You werenât buying a phone, you were buying a computer.
But that damage is done, and the issue I have in now how the devs are all responding to that mistake is by going SaaS. Itâs consumer-hostile, and cannot be the solution. They may as well have just started to price the apps as though they were for Macs rather than go SaaS. The pricing is nuts. I mean, this package is what, $45 a year? For a calendar app. Compare that to Office 365. $100 gets you calendar, email, word processing, spreadsheets, collaboration tools, and 2TB of online storage plus other stuff. How in the world does that even begin to compare by way of value?
And yeah, I canât get past that it is a calendar app. Same as Ulysses is a text editor app. It might have bells and whistles on top, but at its core, it does what Appleâs native apps do. Now I have no idea what makes these bells and whistles âcriticalâ to you, so Iâm not saying youâre wrong. Everyone has their own idea of value. But honestly, we got by just fine before this. To me, nothing about any of these things is critical.
Gah. I got on my soap box again even though I swore I wouldnât. OK. Sorry. Off it again now. Will try to resist the next time someone goes Subscription.
I see catching up most of this has already been said. Sorry. Nice to know Iâm not alone though.
The subscription is for access on all platforms (iOS and Mac). If a user doesnât like the subscription then move on to the stock calendar.
I use Fantastical every day. I also buy a new planner refill every year. This is the digital equivalent of buying a new calendar. I can easily get my moneyâs worth in one small sale today.
I like the way you couched your post and emphasized that you are expressing your opinion about how Flexibitsâ policies relate to you.
I think that is missing from a lot of posts here (and elsewhere) and people are making sweeping generalizations as if everyones use case is the same as their own.
Thankfully for me, I only use Fantastical (for the last year) as a iOS shortcuts natural language parser for calendar events. I didnât like the prior UI as much (this is much better). But I will continue to use the app in iOS shortcuts, but will not pay that price. I canât justify the feature set with that level of monetary commitment.
It has always been on all platforms with ver 2, this is nothing new for ver 3, iPhone and iPad versions being purchased separately for ver 2 through the app store
Which is worth noting, when users are on, and using, the app on all platforms. But if a user only has a use for the app on, say the iPhone, then relativity speaking the subscription is even more expensive. That user doesnât care that they have developed and are providing 3 additional platforms in the same subscription.
If the subscription doesnât work for a user, then by all means they should move on. Frankly the subscription trend gives me pause for buying any premium, purchased apps now as It appears to me only a matter of time before most apps go this route. Clearly some users have no problem with subscriptions, some even prefer them. Personally I do not.
Also, correct me if I am wrong, but all you are syncing is the proprietary/fantastical only data connected to the new features - correct? If you have some iCal/Google calendars, it should sync with all versions of free fantastical, correct? Itâs just those new features provided that donât âsync.â The only exception to this, I believe, is the Apple Watch? Does anyone know if Fantastical works on the Apple Watch on the free version?
While I think itâs a bit much, the subscription model is what it is. Seems like linking very basic functionality to their server backend is a bit of a land grab. I donât want to give flexbits access to my google calendar. Seems that theyâre trying to lock you into their walled garden, while charging a premium for things like âweekâ view. I think the Apple blogosphere has become a bit of an echo chamber for them. Time to start listening to your users flexbitsâŠ
I think the bigger (claimed) features for the money are the collaboration/invites/scheduling features. These require the flexibits account (and server expense I imagine). The views are probably going to be the biggest missed features though.
I donât disagree. Do you absolutely need to connect to their server backend for those? They want all of your notifications, spotlight search, etc. to go back through fantastical. I think thatâs the wrong approach. Itâs a calendar. Develop a kick-ass calendar app and move on. All my opinion and certainly not worth a whole lotâŠ
âŠmy point being it has always been on all platforms as long as you purchased the mac and iOS versions separately , all platforms is not a new feature on ver 3. I have had fantastical on iphone and iPad and mac since 2015
Flexibits would be wise to follow the examples of 1password, textexpander, omnifocus, and drafts. The developers of these apps left their prior ânon-subscriptionâ versions in the AppStore with a warning that they would not be supported forever. This gives users a sense of control by choosing when they upgrade. It always looks bad when it appears the dev is pulling the rug out from under the user and dictating a forced upgrade. I donât really want an account with Flexibits in order to use my calendarsâŠ
This is what I acknowledge. This part of the feature set is competing with services like Calendly, Doodle and many alike. This is a service, which requires infrastructure. I have no issues with charging a small monthly fee for that.
Cluttering the entire interface with nag screens, ignoring legitimate feature requests for years that were clearly missing in the iOS (iPhone) app to be called âfeature completeâ, such as calendar sets and a portrait mode week view, and then making them premium only, is a dark pattern of design. Similarly the forced lock-in to use their backend servers, despite not being interested in the premium scheduling features. Itâs a shady attempt to pull you into their subscription service. Simple settings sync could easily be done via iCloud, no need to use (and trust) another third party server.
All this while it is entirely unclear how and why their backend server sync and log in is required for the Apple Watch app to work. Is there some form of event processing on their server side to deliver the push notifications directly to the Watch? Then their claim that all data syncâd to their servers is end-to-end encrypted canât hold up.
Another aspect of the whole discussion is that there is no way to now pay the price of a one-time purchase to unlock the Fantastical 2 features for platforms that you previously havenât been using anymore.
If you before only had purchased the iOS iPhone app, your macOS and iOS versions wonât have a week/month/year view, as far as I could tell from screenshots posted on Twitter. This is bad.
There are many more feature set inconsistecies depending on which platformâs versions you had bought.
If there would have been a 2-4 week grace period, where you could decide, whether you want to buy the iPad and/or macOS additionally to keep those features on those platforms. That would have been a much smoother transition.
I think this is what weâll see in the future more often. Buy a basic app for a fixed one-time purchase price, whenever a major version steep seems done. You keep the features of that version, similarly to what Agenda and Sketch have started doing.
If you are on the premium plan you will get additional services (like the scheduling and appointment proposals) and always have the newest version of the app.
This actually seems like a fair compromise, when it comes to catering for power users and casual users.
There was a discussion yesterday about the sub changes and features for previous owners on Connected. The discussion runs counter to what many of us have claimed in this discussion. So I think either we are wrong, Connected is wrong, or Flexibits is telling two stories.
The big takeaway for me was that Connected doubles down on V2 features staying for V2 purchasers - even in V3. đ€·đ»
@leo I do really like the agenda model - which I donât use as much anymore, but it is nice to know I can keep what I purchased as long as the company is around.
Is Watch functionality really limited to subscription only? I had figured that was a bugâŠ!
Edit: Watch app use is locked to a Fantastical accountâyou can no longer use the Watch app without the account, but it doesnât need a subscription. Sadly it looks bugged if you try to use the Watch app without an account. A sync icon loops endlessly, without any indication of whatâs gone wrong.
Perhaps not âa big problemâ but the podcast/Sparks often gives the impression being independent, he is not or at least not as much as one thinks. That puts a lot of his suggestions and proposals into question (at least for me).
Listen to some of the early podcasts and you notice more openess imho.