Apple: Help the best app developers not get "acquihired"
blog.selligy.com
blog.selligy.com
When Google comes knocking on your door with eight figures, what do you expect them to say? How altruistic do you expect someone in that position to really be? They developed and designed a hit app that everyone loved and the team was snapped up. They don't owe anyone anything, it was their own decision, and although they were profitable and could have continued working on their products into the future, they chose to take a huge payday. This has nothing to do with Apple, a 30% cut, or them not making enough profit because they definitely were.
Software is a business, just like any other. Every project -- even open source projects!! -- needs money to operate, and many times these projects -- yes, even open source projects!! -- organize around businesses or foundations. See Enthought and Continuum for two examples: they exist, among other things, to support development of scientific computing libraries for Python.
Does this hurt for people who bought Sparrow? Not really. You paid them $10 for their app. Google offered them up to $25 million. You still have a functioning Sparrow app, and once that stops working you'll return to Mail.app until a new amazing mail app comes along.
Perspective, people. This is a website focused on tech entrepreneurship, and you guys are flipping out over a company sale?
Because, as of now, a tool they've come to rely on is essentially done. It won't get updated, and should future versions of an OS that it runs on changes something, there is no promise of a fix.
This could be solved if the code base was released publicly, but that hasn't happened yet.
> Does this hurt for people who bought Sparrow? Not really. You paid them $10 for their app.
The people behind Sparrow were very public about features they were working on that will never get implemented. I know I almost bought Sparrow because of those public statement. There is also the expectation that buying into an app, it will continue to get updates so it will continue to work. Now, time invested into Sparrow is essentially a time bomb. Eventually it will stop working, and the user will have to switch.
Sparrow is free to take the money. However, how they handled this was a slap in the face to it's paying customers.
I relied on Spool. They got bought, I was bummed, then I moved on. This isn't the end of mail apps as we know it.
Eventually it will stop working, and the user will have to switch.
To Mail.app. Or Gmail. Or any other number of email clients out there.
I'm sure some customers are disappointed. But at some point it's not about the customers--it's about you. If you want to sell your company, you're going to do it no matter what customers want. Customers can't know whether a company is the "sell now" type a priori, and that sucks, but it's also the nature of business.
That's fine. And I'm not expecting companies to come out and say that. I'm also not against them selling out. What I am against is software companies not providing an upgrade path.
An easy solution would be to open source Sparrow. There. Done.
And don't think this is all about Sparrow. It's about indie developers in general. It's a warning. Sell your products! We'll buy! But understand that if we come to rely on your products that we've paid for, when you effectively stop development on it, you are doing your customers harm.
It's why I prefer open source tools (and yes, I've taken advantage of this fact). And the tools I do buy are from companies that have proven they will continue to invest in their products.
Hopefully that explains it more clearly. I'm not against them selling themselves. However, I feel like they slighted their customers. Especially since I know some of those customers had expectations based upon comments they'd made.
Of course, Sparrow will continue to work with Lion and iOS 5. But how reasonable is it to expect that people continue to run iOS 5 if Sparrow breaks on iOS6, missing on all security updates, to get the expected lifetime of their purchase? Or what if it turns out that there is a grave security vulnerability in Sparrow tomorrow?
Suppose that you spend five Euro on a knife. Sure, you should not complain if it breaks after ten years. But if it breaks after six months during normal use, you take it back to the store.
Yes. Updates should be provided. Paid updates, of course. And the updates don't need to work on older versions. The issue isn't providing the same version working forever for free. It's providing an upgrade path. Adobe doesn't just release new software for a money grab. Professionals rely on Adobe to keep up to date, and Adobe does this.
> It was a one time payment, and I'm not sure I should 'expect' anything after that.
I'd hope for any tool you invest time in you would expect continued support for the product.
But, if a company doesn't want to release updates for this, there is a solution (which happens to solve your game problem).
Open sourcing the code is always a solution, and if Sparrow did that, it would, in effect, silence all the people with an issue.
I hope that better explains my point of view. I'm not expecting anything free. I'm not expecting long term support for old software. What I am expecting is an upgrade path. New version coming out that keep up with the times. That's software I'd pay for (and I do).
Note: I didn't purchase Sparrow. I just understand the issues.
>> "Software is a business"
It is, but selling an app for 18 months and then selling your company is not. It seems to be ingrained in tech culture that you should sell your business. Why are so few companies aiming to become profitable and build a sustainable business? I understand companies like Instagram with no revenue stream selling, but Sparrow had a solid revenue stream.
And I had a similar train of thought as the OP: "I wish Apple could make the App Store even more profitable, so we can have more great independent developers like Marco and TapTapTap that continue to make great apps without being gobbled up by large companies eager to put talent into unrelated areas."
I don't know if it's possible, and of course no one can fault Sparrow for cashing out. But there it is.
I'm not sure this even follows. Every time we see an iOS hitmaker acquired in 8-10 digit deals it tells the dev community that their golden ticket is to develop for iOS.
...
"There are two things Apple can do to help developers make more money:
1) Allow developers to charge monthly/annual subscription pricing...
2) Allow developers to track the success of social and internet ad campaigns."
Neither of these ideas would have gotten Sparrow's devs anywhere close to the money they made by signing up with Google. Sometimes people want to cash out, we need to stop pretending that is the end of an era of decent email clients. Sparrow is still there and it works. Other clients will clone and improve on it.
Just take a look at Instagram's wave of complains when they released an Android app.
EDIT: It looks like, to me, that there's almost some kind jealousy from high profile bloggers, but that's just me.
What I find weird are the people who thing that somehow Google's behavior (hiring talented iOS developers with huge hiring bonuses -- the horror) is in bad faith, or that (per the OP) Apple should be responsible for "fixing" it.
I think the lesson here is that you buy a thing as it is today, not for how it could be in the future. If you are not happy with a thing as it is, do not buy it.
See, for example: http://www.buzzfeed.com/mattbuchanan/it-never-gets-better
Acquihiring is irrelevant. If anything, what's making the app developer community look bad are developers making promises they don't or can't keep.
It's simple: if you promise something, deliver it.
Know why Apple doesn't pre-announce features? Because announcements are promises, and nothing can be promised until it's done. Heck, even being as careful as they are, they've announced features that never shipped. At my company, we're extremely wary of pre-announcing anything when we interact with our users and, when we do, we go to lengths to emphasize that we can't promise anything until it ships.
To be clear, I'm not accusing Sparrow's team of willfully misleading, lying, or misrepresenting anything. I'm certain they were confident their promises were good. Nor do I fault their decision to join Google; I'd probably do the same given the right compensation and opportunities. This is just a great example of why promising features is risky and should be avoided – you never know what the future will bring.
You would think this crowd would be more immunine to Steve's reality distortion field.
But appearanty, their perspective is that of a sports team supporter. Not the perspective, of critically thinking adult, let alone that of a professional.
They are consumed with tribal emotions, yet fail to see how its clouding their judgement. Trying to rationalize what they feel, when they would have never done the same, if did not concern the apple ecosystem.
The correct phrase is not "human" as you put it, but "immature". Replace apple/google with band names and hear 14 years olds being as pathetic, and manipulated, as they could be.
Considering the audience, you would think they would be just a tad bit more mature. I sure wouldnt invest in any person that needs specific products to establish their idenity. I would have, like this rule, where i would expect people to be an adult.
"Sparrow has been acquired by Google. As the team works on new projects, there will be no new features released for the Sparrow apps, other than minor maintenance and bug fixes."
If they had instead communicated that they would continue development, or that there would be a better version of the product in the future, not as many people would have been disappointed. And if Apple had done this acquihire and there was such an inflammatory message left on the app description, there'd probably be even more complaining, as people generally trust Apple much less than Google.
Both Google and Apple have some great examples of hiring a team and then that team going on to make an even better product. But when they hire a team specifically to shut down the product, it comes out looking pretty bad no matter who does it.
In general, I think if you work for Apple, if you had a preexisting app in the App Store, you get to keep it. However, you are forbidden from developing it further. Side projects are frowned upon at Apple. They want all of you.
I would assume Google has similar policies.
For an example of an Apple employee: Eliza Block, one of the presenters of the famous Scrollview WWDC talk, had a top-selling crosswords app, "2-Across" in the App Store [1]. "2-Across" was one of the first App Store gold rush success stories [2]. She was probably (rightly) hired on the basis of the quality of the app. That app has not been updated since 2008. No retina graphics. No iOS4. It has languished, rightly - other apps have far surpassed hers now. And there seems to only be a Lite version now. So she is no longer getting revenue from her app.
[1] http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/2-across/id285513624?mt=8
It occurred to me that other day that one of the best things Apple could do for both developers and end-users is to do away with the whole business of "Lite" apps.
What I mean by this is that iOS users should be able to download and use any app prior to purchasing it. The developer would determine the trial period. The developer would also decide if you get to try it on both an iPhone and an iPad or if you just get to check it out on a single device. The OS would enforce the mechanism and keep everyone honest.
Once the trial period expires you have to pay for the app or it auto-removes itself. Of course, you can always go back to the app store and purchase the app to get it back.
What I would hope this might do is create a situation where one could price apps at a higher level right from the start. There are lots of apps that are not even worth $0.99. I've certainly purchased a number of them. At the same time, there are apps that are grossly under-priced. The problem is that it is tough to get people to spend money on some of these apps, particularly if they've been burned by paid apps that are crappy. An OS-enforced trial-period mechanism might allow developers to do quality apps and charge accordingly. It would also allow users to really explore and find exactly what they want without having to waste money.
Having said that, my gut feeling is that Apple makes a ton of money from crap apps that go for $0.99. People buy them to try them out and, because they are cheap, don't really get too worked-up about them afterwards.
Apple already does this. But only in Taiwan: "Apple Offering 7-Day Refund Policy on App Store Apps in Taiwan" (June 2011)
http://www.macrumors.com/2011/06/27/apple-offering-7-day-ref...
> my gut feeling is that Apple makes a ton of money from crap apps that go for $0.99
They barely make a profit on the App Store. They make money selling hardware. The software is just an appetizer.
If it's about clarity, it's about grammar. No need to apologize.
Now, assuming this is a recurring trend, it still remains to be seen whether its one worth dealing with for Apple. Even if this kind of poaching happens, its likely that its on such a small scale that it makes almost no difference to the ecosystem of the app store. Basically, the assertion that "Apple is depending on apps like Sparrow to make the iOS platform shine" is backed by nothing.
If nothing else, the points about what Apple could do to help devs make more money are useful. Even in this case, I don't see why apple providing support for subscription fees is superior to letting the app creators handle that through online accounts. If the subscription part were handled by Apple, that just means more of a delay when the app makers want to change the structure/pricing of the subscription and even less control over the statistics that they can gather. The point about providing detailed statistics is great.
As achampas said, acquisitions and talent poaching is simply an economic reality, and a good one for developers because it gives them better economic prospects and more freedom in choosing their jobs.
Overall, a personal disappointment over the fact that Sparrow will no longer be under development is completely acceptable("my favorite email application on both iOS and Mac OS"), but thats not a good reason to decide that some trend is bad and that it should be fixed.
On one hand, I think this could be great for Gmail and even the wider world of email by bringing Sparrow's great UI/UX work to a bigger audience and more platforms and experiences. Gmail's engineers and back-end technology + Sparrow's UI/UX team seems like a match made in heaven.
On the other hand, this is the end of the fantastic iPhone and Mac apps. Eventually bugs or incompatibilities with new OSes will end of life them, and Google does not have a good track record of making good native experiences for any platform other than Android. I hope that doesn't continue.
The worst thing for me would be if Google took this talent and only improved the Web experience, while also no longer delivering a good iOS experience. Good should take the Sparrow iOS app and make it into the official Gmail app for the platform. They should then take parts of it for the official Android app. After that, the Mac Sparrow app should become the basis for future Mac and Windows Gmail apps.
Recommended reading: "Who Moved My Cheese?"
Like it's stated in the article, you pay a fixed price for a song that's released. Why should my software stop working if I don't want new features?
Apple needs to allow app demos so devs can charge higher prices without scaring away customers and they need to allow for paid upgrades. The truth is that it's too hard to make money at app store prices.
I ask because I'm sceptical of Sparrow's business model in the first place. I am most people. I come from a culture of ISP bundled email services (hidden cost) and Hotmail and Gmail and I basically refuse to pay my own take-home income to be able to send & receive emails. I'm actually more generous than most people because I might even pay $3 for an app that will make my email experience better but what happens when all the people who are into doing that (not a whole lot of people) have purchased the app? The market will have dried up. And what then? Monthly subscription? Unless it is bundled with other services I'm not interested. Upgrade to a "Pro" version of the product? No thanks.
I think this is the beginning of the end of nice-to-have paid apps. Once a developer has exhausted his or her market they are forced to find another brilliant idea. How many brilliant and executable ideas do you have in you?
I prefer it to the gmail web app because I can keep it visible and it's a couple of keyboard shortcuts away to read and send email, can keep me logged in to both accounts simultaneously without having to "hack" gmail with an incognito window or two separate browsers, and...it's not a web app. Oh, and the interface is so much simpler than gmail and I confess to not using labels or tags or filters or anything "advanced" in gmail so it is perfect for me.
I'm personally not so bothered that they aren't going to continue improving it because it does everything I need it to do, but for me it was definitely worth the $10 I paid for it and it fits my workflow/screen layout much much better than a web app would.
This is possible via IAP, and some apps follow this model, but unfortunately in a world of $.99 apps users just aren't willing to pay a subscription fee for a utility app.
2) Allow developers to track the success of social and internet ad campaigns.
I agree that this would be very useful, although again at a price point of $10 or below (minus 30%), all you're going to find out is that your ad campaign has negative ROI anyway.
Either way, these suggestions do nothing to prevent developers from getting acquihired if a big company comes along with a big offer - especially if they've previously raised a round of funding.
Marco has managed to avoid acquisition because he bootstrapped Instapaper entirely on his own, retains full decision making power, doesn't have investors pushing him for an exit, and hasn't received an offer he's satisfied with (yet). But I would say his situation is probably the exception rather than the norm.
The biggest blocker is scale.
This will probably happen when one of the big Apple Mac app store apps needs an update. Aperture, Logic, Final Cut...
#1, is doable, but Apple probably will never do it. Why buy the cow when developer will submit updates for free?
#2, link tracking, will never happen. That's a whole can of worms (privacy advocates, etc) they don't want to open.
And so the cycle will only continue: developers build up product/skillset to a certain point, get bought out. The users complain, believing that by spending a few bucks on an app they should get ponies for life. Sorry, it doesn't work that way.
A lot of mobile ad networks (if in app, not mobile web) will cookie you with the UDID before and after you click on a link.
Android lets you pass some referral information on links to the Google Play market, letting advertisers do this w/o cookies and also on the mobile web.
Perhaps you are a Google fan since you are the "Founder AndroidWorks consulting"? They also take 30%.
Of all the problems with the app store, I think the cut that Apple takes is pretty far down on the list - in fact, I find it downright reasonable.
1) The app store pioneered the 99c app. Windows shareware was usually $30 before that(think WinRAR, WinZip). A $5 price is considered outrageous now.
2) Apple does not provide a way for developers to charge for paid upgrades