[Update 12/21/2016 11am CST Informant 5.02 for iOS is available in iTunes. It should be available for download in your market within 24 hours]
Informant 5.02 for iOS is just about ready to get submitted to iTunes for public release. It is currently with the beta group. This release is mainly focused on bug fix & stability issues. The first version of this release went to beta users evening of 12/15/16. We are working hard to make sure this 5.02 release can get approved by Apple by 12/23/16 when Apple goes into their Holiday Shutdown. We figure we need to have 5.02 submitted to them for public release by Monday or Tuesday at the latest. So far, here is what we are planning to include in 5.02:
- Fixed issue where unwanted text would get put into the title field of the task editor when applying a trigger
- Fixed long-standing issue where you could not “quick select” a tag in the filter screen if it had no color. Better visuals in filter and tag picker when dealing with clear tags
- If you applied a clear tag to an event/task, the name of that tag would not appear in the display summary popover (text was clear)
- Fixed issue where Informant Sync accounts that were created “soon” after an in-app subscription was purchased would fail to properly update the Informant Sync expiration date (it would stick at the default 2 weeks)
- Fixed a crash when the view filter decoded a bad Informant ID
- Updated a few “template” references to say “trigger”
- Fixed a couple crashes that could seemingly occur randomly
- Fixed crash when importing ICS files that contained an X-PROPERTY that I5 didn’t handle (like Apple’s travel time property)
- Fixed crash in notes view when selecting multiple notes and applying an action
- Improved visuals when multi-selecting/de-selecting notes
- It was impossible to cancel when you tapped the Trim button on an audio note. The experience trimming an audio note is a bit better in general.
- Fixed issue that was likely the cause of crashes in Contacts view
- Fixed crash that would occur during startup when upgrading from PI4 to I5 (especially if you had a “large” database)
- Fixed issue when upgrading from PI4 to I5 where Informant incorrectly created a task project for each of your Evernote Notebooks
And… additional stuff added just before final submit
- Some stability and layout improvements to the Informant Widget
- Informant Widget now shows overdue tasks in red
- Informant Widget and Create Extension title are now localized
- Fixed issue where the view picker button would sometimes disappear on plus-sized iPhones
- Fixed issue where sometimes you would rotate into a completely grey screen on plus-sized iPhones
- Other stability general improvements
We do know that a number of users are wanting to see some navigation menu and date picker changes and we are putting some work into that, although it won’t be part of 5.02. We have already drawn up a few design concepts for new date pickers and Chris has shared a few thoughts on what ideas he has for navigation.
Please know that we are working (hard) on all this stuff right now. If you are among the users who are frustrated because we have “added clicks” or “moved a feature” we are confident that we will get these things to be better and we will round off some of the rough edges on this new release.
Let’s keep our fingers crossed that the Apple review process does not take too long this time around. Holidays can add a bit of uncertainty to that process.
[Update: 5.02 was submitted to Apple on 12/19/2016 ]
There is an interesting dynamical change in the direction the conversations on the forum are taking place over time.
From ‘no way I am going to pay outrageous $25 per year fee for basically minor cosmetic changes (AND loss of functionality – apple watch, to do options, etc ) to of PI5 when compared to PI4’ (customers really not interested to pay for changes under the hood, unless there is dramatic improvement in functionality . The fact that the code for the app was not kept uptodate for years as it appears from the postings, is not customer’s fault or reason for them to pay now).
To ‘please, please, please change the new cosmetic changes that you like, but we don’t, back to how it looked before on PI4’.
To finally, ‘well if you change the few buttons back, to how it looked on PI4 or similar, it makes total sense of paying $25 a year’.
Really? I mean seriously!?
While I’m glad that changes we all voted for are perhaps at work, and glad that Alex and Chris are listening to our opinion, what do you really think about the price?
It’s not about whether one can afford to pay $25 a year, – I assume most of us can, we all bought an expensive iPhones/iPads after all. Its about whether it is worth it and whether this is the direction/vision you want to support by paying for subscription model on the first place.
I know, I know. Microsoft does it, Adobe does it, Evernote, Textexpander, even 2Do are now subscription based. For me personally though, I would not pay for Microsoft subscription, unless provided free by employer, and frankly free ‘apple office’ or open office is plenty for most of my tasks. I do own Lightroom – get a new upgrade version for 50% off once every 4-5 years, stopped using photoshop, as there are nice free alternatives and refuse to pay 9.99 a month subscription (saving hundreds of dollars in the process). Evernote, I am certain, lost many of the reported 100 mil subscribers with greedy repeated increases in prices that came after the company was sold and changed leadership. Texexpander cased outrage with subscription based new version and when they realized that many customers are going to jump the ship, decided to continue supporting previous version, that is not subscription based. 2Do did the best and most fair thing for its old users, in my opinion. This single developer (I think there is only one person behind the app) made sure, if you purchased the app in the past, you are automatically getting FREE upgrade. If you are new customer, you have to pony up for subscription.
The question to me in the world where there literally hundreds of alternatives to view my google calendar and create my small to do list via Toodledo, is it worth it to pay $25 even as one time deal, not to mention yearly. And to me, personally, the answer is not. I like the app, I got used to it, I got invested into these discussions on forums, but I found several alternatives that are either free or in a 1-2 dollars range that will work just fine for me. It’ll take me perhaps a month or so to adjust to a new view and slightly different menus, but at the end of the day it will be just fine.
While $0.99 app seems to be cheap, iTunes gives developers access to hundreds of millions of people worldwide. If it is a good competitive app, and people like it, its a worthwhile investment by the developer. New customers are unlikely though to even try an app with 1.5 stars rating and this may be a tell tell sign of future success.
To Alex and Chris, I hope you guys will re-think your payment model, and if not, I wish you success in the future.
Thank you,
Your very long supporter, and PI fan from version 1 through 4.
I5 is much more than a cosmetic upgrade and unfortunately I think you got the wrong impression from Chris’ comments about the code-base needing to be upgraded. PI supported a lot of iOS versions over time and with PI5 we have the opportunity to support just ONE OS, not 3 or 4. That’s what Chris was talking about. For example, because PI supported older versions there were certain iOS 9 or 10 features that we just couldn’t take advantage of, or we had to support 3 different ways to rotate on iOS, or things like that. With PI5, its all been modernized because we have a baseline of iOS 10.
As for the pricing – fact is, the market for 99 cent apps is just not the one we are in. There is also no “hundreds of millions” of people that we could reach at 99 cents. If economics worked that way, Office/Photoshop and many other productivity apps would be 99 cents. OmniFocus is $40 for both the iPhone and iPad version. Plus $50 to $90 for their Mac version. Why? Because the market for a *real* productivity app is not in the 99 cent market.
I should add that before, Informant cost $10 on iPhone, $15 on iPad, and $15 a year for Informant Sync. Its now $25 for everything. Other services like Toodledo range from $15/yr to $80/yr. I think our pricing is extremely competitive for the market we are in.
I understand not everyone will love the new model, and not everyone will stay along – but we’ve tried a LOT of different pricings from $5 to $20 and what we’ve found is that the lower prices simply don’t work. Yes, we get a lot more volume – but the costs go up and in the end it doesn’t work.
I think that the value in the Informant 5 price and subscription is long-term. You’re going to get a better Watch app, you’re going to get more features, more powerful features, and better support over the long term.
I appreciate the feedback, but I also understand the business – and the business won’t work any other way right now. You can point to other developers doing things differently – and each business is different, but I suspect they will get to where we are at some point in the future.
Alex,
I echo the sentiments expressed by bremin001. Having, within the past year, paid $14.99 for the PI4 premium pack, I do not think it is worth paying $24.99 a year to “upgrade” to I5.
In the long run I suspect that you may retain the loyalty of your “power users”, but that you will loose your existing “regular” users. As for attracting new users, with a $2.99 staring price (since your “free” app is so crippled that it cannot really be evaluated) and a 2 star App Store rating, Good Luck.
Having invested in PI4, I will probably continue use it and once it becomes obsolete, it will be time to make a switch. I am concurrently evaluating Fantastical2 and if it meets my needs, the end may be sooner………..
Maybe all of the whining about the subscription fee will die down soon. Both of the nearest task management apps/services are more expensive. Todoist is $29 a year and Nozbe is a whopping $96 a year *at a minimum*. I5’s task management is at least as good as either of those services and neither of those incorporates a full featured calendar.
Bremmin001,
I’m curious to know which one of the following “customer segments you might consider yourself part of:
1) Power User: (one or more of the following) Uses Informant on multiple devices (including iPad or Mac), Utilizes the “Informant Power” features like Informant Sync, Tags, Projects, or sync to 3rd party apps.
2) Casual User: (“Run-of-the-mill”): Like & use Calendar AND task features. Only need sync with Native data. Single device Informant User
3) Free App Surfer: Only downloaded app because it was free, but I have come to really like it. “I won’t pay for any app if I can find a similar one for free, but I might pay for informant because I got a chance to use it first.”
4) Anti-Subscription: “I won’t use apps on subscription. It’s just a principle.”
Or if there is a different segment you recognize, please share it. It might help us better nail down the discussion if we understand this.
Primarily because PI offers a service tied to the app (syncing), I think they absolutely should have subscription based pricing. You mentioned Toodledo—I think Toodledo is crazy to offer syncing services for free. It’s one thing to give out a product for free; it’s a whole ‘nother thing to support that product with services for free! Well, it’s not crazy—it’s a charity! 🙂
You hit the nail on the head: it comes down to, “Is it worth it?” That’s it! If you’re using the syncing, I think it’s hard to say it’s not work $2/month. But really, that is totally up to each person and their needs. If a less expensive solution works for you, then it’s not worth it!
The voice of reason is different from whining.
To use your example, Todoist offers a functional App for free with the option of enhanced options for a price. With I5 you do not have an option to try it out without paying at least$2.99. Put yourself in the place of a potential new user on a budget. Will you be willing to put down $2.99 to try out an app which has a rather low rating with negative comments from its long-term users?
If you want a free trial of the full version you can sign up for the monthly option. iTunes will automatically give you a free 7 days before billing you.
Todoist’s free version is hardly usable for anyone with a serious task management need, so I’m not sure you made your point.
Let me take Alex’s comment a little further. These are my words, not his. Alex has said that I5 isn’t in the same market as 99 cent apps. Along those lines, if you can get by with Fantasical or Google’s Calendar app or Reminders or the free version of Todoist, then I5 is not the task management app for you. That’s perfectly fine. Nothing wrong with that. Until you resurrect disagreements with the pricing model. It’s really time to move on.
Last time I checked PI was so much better than other task apps that the only real question for me is what pricing model will allow PI to thrive. If we want quality, we might have to pay more than we did in the past.
I would rather see a discussion here on improving PI to a level which makes PI task management truly a competitive edge for its users – even though it is the best it still.needs some additions to fully empower its users.
Can we discuss that here for a few days w a hope that the best ideas will soon be incorporporated into PI?
.
Allan,
Please share your thoughts here. We are listening. Also, we are taking feedback on the Uservoice forum (link below). You may want to browse that to see if you suggestions are already being discussed here.
http://feedback.webis.net/forums/562453-pocket-informant-5-for-ios
Quote from Alex
“I think that the value in the Informant 5 price and subscription is long-term. You’re going to get a better Watch app, you’re going to get more features, more powerful features, and better support over the long term.”
You’re asking us to pay a premium price now in the hope that in the future we “may” get a better experience with informant 5!
I have no idea what the future holds for informant 5 but at the moment it’s not looking great
Sarz,
Your comments are fair. The launch wasn’t perfect and we may not have the pricing thing totally perfect yet either. We have not “YET” delivered on ALL of the value that we have promised or that we intend to. In the past 2 weeks our team has delivered a 5.0 version, a 5.01, and a 5.02 has just been made available to beta users. (We hope apple approves it before Friday). The Watch app is getting worked on practically as we speak. So…. other than just continuing to deliver on our promises and delivering bug fixes, evaluating user feedback about things like the date pickers, navigation, creating surveys to gather feedback on pricing, I guess that is what we can do for now. I suppose your statement about not knowing what the future holds is a fair one. We know we will be here, and keep adapting and keep building the best app that we can. For those of you that have been with us for years, you should be able to rely on past experiences to know that we will keep moving forward. Tomorrow will be better than today, and we will keep making progress.
I don’t believe this app deserves a 1.5 star rating on the app store. There have been some bumps in the upgrade, but not to this extent.
The ratings are caused by frustration with the new pricing model. The perceived value of the new v.5 vs. the previous versions did not justify the massive price increase.
The challenge you will face is the loss of many current customers that are not power users and can find more reasonable options, and the challenge to attract new users with such a high price and poor rating.
As has been stated by a number of us previously, consider moderating your subscription costs. You would be better off with a committed user base and good reviews in the app store to attract new users. Understand your business needs for predictable funding, but you are at risk of doing even worse than before if the frustration level by your long term customers is not fixed. After the cash from the original upgrades to try the new product run out, you may be challenged to have a sustainable business.
Well said, Christopher. As I wrote on a different thread, Fanatic’s attitude appears to be (with apologies to Roger Waters):
“We have seen the writing on the wall
Still don’t think need to change the pricing at all”
m_g58,
You might be correct in saying that Fanatic hasn’t “made” any changes to pricing yet, but to say that they aren’t listening or considering ways to accommodate different situations would be incorrect.
We are still very early in the launch of Informant 5… We have not even formally announced (via press release or PI4 in-app announcement) that I5 is available.
Christopher,
Thanks for your comments. What is your suggestions on pricing? You can share them here in the blog comments, or you can complete this survey on pricing: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/655XRKY
I also agree that the app store reviews are a bit harsh right now. (I can also say that ALL of the comments including the good ones, only represent 0.35% (or 0.0035) of the people who have actually downloaded the app. I think many users are frustrated about navigation changes, pricing changes, and are venting a bit with the 1 star reviews. While all of these complaints are valid for specific users, I think that the app specific complaints will get better within the next few weeks. And as for price, we ARE listing on pricing and we are considering numerous options.
Yeah, to me, the big deal about the pricing is the HUGE price INCREASE. While I do think it’s worth $25/year, I still cant wrap my head around how much MORE this is. I’ve been with PI for 12 years. If I continue for another 12 years, it will be $300. That’s like 1000% more than what I have paid the last 12 years!
My recommendation for pricing would be $15 for the app and $10 annual subscription. My guess is at that level you would keep most of your current users and substantially increase your reviews.
I would also suggest that this will lead to a better long term financial outcome for you.
The reviews may be a small percentage of your total subscribers, but they are representative of the frustration. They are also the only views that most potential new subscribers will see.
I believe I have some reasonable suggestions for heavy-duty task management that PI would be perfect for with just a few added features and capabilities. Or could there be another venue for such a discussion? I believe it is very deserving of time and attention but I don’t want to spend several hours providing the requisite descriptions unless there is a good chance of consideration and implementation. TIA. lombardi3g@gmail.com
Allan,
We would be happy to hear you out. You can put some comments here or you can email them to us. I’ll send you my email address to your @gmail account.
I voted by cancelling my subscription. It was rather easy via the email receipt/confirmation for the app subscription.
The ONLY subscription based feature of value to me is sync to Google. That alone is NOT worth $25/year
As has been said here before, it’s not about affording $25… It’s about spending $25. I can afford $7 for a bottle of water, I won’t spend $7 for it.
Offer value, manage perceptions (better).
btw…I agree the days of 99¢ apps are in the past and not the future.
You seem so ‘heels dug in’ on this, I want to offer you some mind candy…
My grandpa once told me “if the seller AND the buyer feel like they got screwed, it was a good deal for both of them.”
This seems a little more one sided, and there’s another name for that position.
I don’t personally have a problem with paying more to support software development, and I get it. $25 a year is a little high in relative app store terms, but I’d be fine with it, even if it was to continue supporting PI 4. Informant 4 offered a lot more than most apps that cost a great deal more. I also appreciate many of the things you tried to do with Informant 5, such as email integration with tasks, making navigation easier on some iPhones by providing the button right button to navigate, making task information available along the top, etc.
That said, Informant 5 still looks like an alpha release that you have to pay to have the privilege of trying beyond the calendar, which at first glance is a fairly standard calendar when the other features are stripped away from it. You can make a monthly subscription and cancel it to try it all free for a week, which I only found out by coming to your website. There’s really no way to know that other than to click ‘buy this monthly’ and be told after the fact. Most people aren’t going to go to your website and happen upon you putting that information into a random blog post of Informant 5 tips. Everything about your subscription model incentivizes people away from even using the monthly subscription option. This was a massive oversight. Letting people try it free within restrictions would have been preferred, or having people pay up front. You’ve somehow found a way to make the worst of both worlds with this. This seems easy to correct, and would address many a concern. That this hasn’t been done is somewhat troubling.
I understand what goes into rewriting an app over time, and that a lot of that can have no cosmetic appearance to users, leaving it entirely unappreciated. I understand the need for continued funding to keep up development and make a living. I understand why you’re trying for the subscription model because it’s now popular. I get it, just as you understand new and old users are going to be hesitant about being suddenly asked to pay more than they are used to, and will be critically evaluating any changes made to an app they use to help manage their personal and professional lives. In a situation like that, you have to be very careful with what you give people. Right now, Informant 5 is largely less functional than Informant 4, it looks like an iPhone app blown up on an iPad in many views because of the changes that were made, many things are verifiably less efficient than before, and on and on.
You are very talented developers. I have no doubt you can make Informant 5 as good or better than 4 someday. Releasing 5 in the state that it is in, however, and showing clear signs of a lack of thorough beta testing and debugging, was a recipe for disaster. You are doing business in a very competitive space filled with apps that have ample marketing and vibrant communities behind them, and you have released a new iteration for a product that is worse than the version which came before it, while costing existing users more in the hopes that some of what was great about the old app will someday be added back in, maybe, someday. You can appreciate why this is infuriating to so many people, particularly going into the holidays.
SRhyse,
Thanks for your post. We also are not happy with the “bugs/issues”. You said that we should have done more beta testing, etc… Truth is, we did quite a bit. We are not a large company with endless resources but we did beta test this product with over 200 users. We felt like the decision to put the product live in iTunes was the right one at the time. It’s always easier to have 20/20 vision in hindsight and to 2nd guess someone else’s decision.
We do want to (and will) make an easier “try-it” experience, but this too is new to us (and most other Apple developers as well). While there are plenty of “good reasons” for all of this, at the end of the day only our close friends really care about all that. Customers want perfection and they deserve it. So, I won’t sit here & make excuses. I’ll simply say, Thank you for your input. We are working hard to satisfy all the feedback that we are receiving.
Since the release of PI 5.0 I have followed this blog and also wrote some comments. PI 5.0.1 was released and PI 5.0.2 is pending.
Interesting situation here. Yes vs no voters, afford vs. spend and some well thought contributions on justifying this. Both from the devs and customers.
Looking at App Store reviews is just one thing, the other thing is about damage control and what to do next.
It is very easy to loose a customer but in todays AppStore eco system it is much more difficult to get a new one. Sure hardcore PI users still want to spend 25 per year but probably the majority will look for an alternative; there is enough available. You might say these alternatives are of lesser ‘quality’ but apps like Fantastical or BusyCal bring calendar wise a lot. Former also on your Apple Watch.
I looked at your survey and really do not understand what someone’s total household income has to do with spending money for an app. Aren’t there any rich people just driving a Volkswagen if you know what I mean.
I think this thinking will not solve the gap on app pricing.
My suggestion would be to price PI5 USD 15.00 once and additionally a USD 3.00 IAP for weather. I predict a boost in sales and everybody happy. Isn’t that a win-win situation. Who knows.
Michael,
Thanks for your thoughts. And thank you for your suggestions on pricing. I also appreciate understanding how you use it as it helps me better understand “who” are different user groups are. (Remember, I’m kinda new here). True, There are many alternatives out there. As much as we are competitive by nature and confident in what we have built, we are humble enough to know that there are other great teams out there who have built good apps as well. I know that we don’t have all of the “Product-Market-Fit” and “Product-Positioning-Price” totally dialed in. We are still working on that. We are listening to the comments here, in support, in surveys etc to get a better understanding of ALL the factors that go into these pricing decisions. You asked why we asked about income in the pricing survey: We were curious to know if there was any correlation to such factors. Interestingly enough, there does seem to be a slight trend. (But not in the direction you might think). Also, there is a trend in the Country of origin data. What I mean by that is that there is a slightly higher representation in Pricing survey respondents from Germany (for example) than in our historical purchase history. Or in other words, if purchases from Germany represented 6% of purchases over past 12 months, the people who respond to the pricing survey from Germany was closer to 12%. You could infer that people in Germany were 2x more affected by our price increase & change to subscription than people from other parts of the world. UK & Australia were over represented in the pricing survey while USA was under represented. (The assumption is that the people who participated in the survey are/were more impacted/affected/opinionated about the pricing).
Now, I know that our “scientific methods” thus far are based on some intuition, and we are looking to use some data to make better decisions. In reality we probably have too many variables changing at once (Price change, subscription change, Product change, different countries, competitive landscape changes) to get perfect data that doesn’t have some significant bias in it. So to make any drastic changes too quickly would probably be just as dangerous as not doing anything. Our initial focus has been on fixing the bugs (that are normal with any new product), and dealing with the navigation and date picker feedback which as been louder (and with a more obvious solution) than the pricing discussion.
Here is were we stand on the pricing topic: We are early in the release of PI5. We think that if you are a “power user” that Informant is a terrific value at $25/yr (Thank you to the users who have validated this with your positive feedback). We also realize that we have other customer types (markets) that like Informant who might not find the same value. (We love & respect ALL of you so please don’t be offended). We are considering options which include creating more variations on the product, promotional discounts/coupons, etc. If you are someone who would love to try Informant before the end of the year then you will probably have to pay the current price. If you are someone who is more cost conscious and is willing to wait for a better price, then please sign up for our newsletter, take our surveys, follow us on facebook or Twitter, etc as that is where we are most likely to make discounts available. We have said that we will be offering discounts and coupons on the product. We have not said that we will permanently lower the price but anything is possible.
Michael, I hope this reply answers you questions and provides you with some transparency into our thoughts. Above all, we are listening, we are evaluating, we are organizing the various complaints & issues, and we are working on the ones that we thing we can make the most impact on in the fastest manner possible.
All the best to you & please keep engaging in the conversation.
Hi Keith, thanks for your extensive reply. I live in the Netherlands an am also involved on localisation of apps. Do visit the various EU app stores a lot to read reviews on applications.
As you live in the USA you might not completely know or understand the “difference” between the different EU countries and how people feel they need to write a review.
Don’t shoot but my experience is that Germans feel more to complain on negative aspects and write an app review on that base. People from Scandinavia or Benelux have a “softer” (more positive) attitude. At least that is my interpretation reading EU app reviews for years and speaking with German devs a lot.
Michael,
That is helpful to hear. I think that some people might say that you are stereotyping, but I don’t see it that way. I think that it is just fact that some countries and some cultures communicate in different ways. Because this Informant community is literally world-wide, I think that some times what someone feels is “simply being assertive” others can be taken as “just rude” by someone else.
Thanks for bringing lite to this fact that some cultures communicate differently. As I have said before in my posts, as a “Marketing Guy” I tend to try to buffer the “Assertive” (some might perceive as overly negative comments), by bringing up some of the GOOD things in addition. I’ve been accused of misdirection or “avoiding the real issue” when I do that, but really I’m just trying to paint a fair picture of Informant. We have a few worts, and some things that aren’t perfect, but we do have a Super Star team and we can fix stuff so quickly that it is awesome!
In General I like to advocate for an Assertive/Respectful communication style. In my book, that means you “say what needs to be said” but do it “in a respectful way”. If I could give any direction to posters here in this blog, it would be just that. You can say Anything… You can say a certain feature is terrible, or that we screwed up… We can handle that…. Just please add the “respect” component that will make your feedback more likely to be acted upon.
When someone delivers “Assertive” feedback without the “Respect”, it is just an insult. When you add the “respect” component, it is more likely to be considered “Constructive Criticism”.
In this domain, I think the respect part sounds like, “I’ve used informant for years, or I really like how you do x,y,z, OR, this works great.
Lastly, I’m not telling anyone how they MUST communicate with us, I’m just throwing out some of my own personal opinions on the best way to communicate with someone when you want them to do something for you. (Which is what I think most of you want… You want us to fix stuff, make stuff better for you, so you can spend more time on the things you love, and less time being frustrated). 10-4
Steps to initiate damage control first requires recognition of all the existing problems/issues. While efforts are underway to squash bugs, the elephant that is also in the room is being ignored.
I have been a very long time supporter of WebIS. I am not a “power user”. I use the calendar & task functions, templates & Google sync. I do not need all the other sync options, or to know what the weather is or is likely to be. I am a “run-of-the-mill” user, and I think the majority of PI users4 are like me. I would like to request a less expensive option to purchase I5 outright & be able to use it like I use PI4. This is the feedback I submitted in the survey.
Steps to initiate damage control first requires recognition of all the existing problems/issues. While efforts are underway to squash bugs, the elephant that is also in the room is being ignored.
I have been a very long time supporter of WebIS. I am not a “power user”. I use the calendar & task functions, templates & Google sync. I do not need all the other sync options, or to know what the weather is or is likely to be. I am a “run-of-the-mill” user, and I think the majority of PI4 users are like me. I would like to request a less expensive option to purchase I5 outright & be able to use it like I use PI4. This is the feedback I submitted in the survey.
m_g58,
I think you are saying that the Elephant in the room is the pricing issue? Is that right? I also appreciate your description as “run-of-the-mill” user. We have been working on identifying specific User Profiles, perhaps you could comment:
Would you agree with these Personas?
1) Power User: (one or more of the following) Uses Informant on multiple devices (including iPad or Mac), Utilizes the “informant Only” features like Informant Sync, Tags, Projects, or sync to 3rd party apps. Use Informant for work, or I rely on Informant for my job.
2) Casual User: (“Run-of-the-mill”): Like & use Calendar AND task features. Only need sync with Native data. Single device Informant User
3) Free App Surfer: Only downloaded app because it was free, but I have come to really like it. “I won’t pay for any app if I can find a similar one for free, but I might pay for informant because I got a chance to use it first.”
4) Anti-Subscription: “I won’t use apps on subscription. It’s just a principle.”
What is your recommendation for pricing for each of these 4 personas? Do you think there are personas we are leaving out?
One conclusion that I am coming too is that there is not “One Price” that will satisfy all market segments, AND fulfill the needs of the business. Perhaps there may need to be multiple products to match the markets? (Please comment)
I might want to differentiate: there are app power users and device power users.
On the Mac – since 1986 – I consider my self a power-user and since the introduction of the iPhone/iPad also cross platform (macOS/iOS).
IMHO a CASUAL USER (cat 2) can also use PI on both macOS AND iOS. Most people do won multiple devices and PI is an universal app after all.
I agree on native data sync. For most people using macOS and iOS only, services like iCloud and Dropbox are completely satisfying. I do not need Pocket Sync.
Michael,
So far on my “user persona” matrix, I am putting your use case of multiple-device use in the “power user” category, simply for the fact that 2+ devices using Informant would require Informant Sync in order for the Informant Only features to sync.
It is true that you could sync core data (Calendar, Tasks, Contacts) across devices using native data (iCloud, google, exchange), but the “Only in Informant features” wont make it through that sync route. (Because they don’t exist there)…
So maybe a better question for you… As a multi-device user of Informant, do you find any value in the “Informant Only Features” such as templates, smart filters, tags, etc?
I want to take up two points. The first is with Keith’s suggested definition of “power user”:
“Uses Informant on multiple devices (including iPad or Mac), Utilizes the “informant Only” features like Informant Sync, Tags, Projects, or sync to 3rd party apps. Use Informant for work, or I rely on Informant for my job.”
All of those apply to me EXCEPT the last sentence. I regard myself as a power user only in the sense that I love to get the best from any app and so explore it thoroughly. As I’m retired my requirements for the calendar are limited to a few personal appointments and remembering birthdays and anniversaries. I love tasks but need only simple task reminders (and have plenty of those). I use notes to a rather limited extent. Notwithstanding all of that I still consider myself a “power user” simply because I’ll use every tweak in the app I can find in order to make it appear and perform as I wish. Sadly, all of that does not put me in the position where an apparent “power user” price is very attractive.
I mention this only to suggest there are other ways of looking at what a “power user” may be.
The one other comment I wanted to make relates to this fix in 5.02:
“Fixed issue where unwanted text would get put into the title field of the task editor when applying a trigger”
I have been wrestling with exactly that problem with event triggers ever since the initial release and it’s the one aspect of the release of PI 5 I’m actually quite irritated about. (I do try to be measured in my responses!) In spite of a number of early comments about the need for guidance in using triggers none was forthcoming and this wretched bug has caused me some hours of frustration while trying to work out what I thought I was doing wrong. A number of people have mentioned in blog comments about difficulties getting old templates to work as triggers and I do think it’s very unfortunate this bug was not earlier acknowledged. (I did not wish to bother support with it for two reasons. First, I thought I must be making some mistake. Second, from one bug report I did make it was clear from the very late, but courteous and helpful response, that support was under a lot of pressure—which I well understand, of course.) I appreciate all that is now water under the bridge but, given that triggers are such an important aspect of Informant for many of us, regret the lack of earlier information.
Stephen
Stephen,
I will incorporate your thoughts in my assessment of “user profiles”. Probably should have listed that last line of “power user” as “OR, uses informant for work”. My thinking there is pretty much anyone who uses informant as part of their job, could be lumped into the power user category, but not that all power users are using it for work.
I agree, we could use some better communication on bugs found etc. Part of these blog posts, like this one are aimed at getting more info to end users prior to a formal release.
Thanks for your input.
Keith, Thank you for your response. I am glad that you are open to recognizing the elephant in the room and address the pricing issue. Chris has been doing his bit by seeking & eradicating the bugs, but until now, Fanatic’s stance regarding pricing has been rather rigid.
I agree with your descriptions for user types #1 and 2. I would use the term “Curious User” for #3. As for #4 that may not be a group by itself.
If I were you, my focus would be to take steps to retain those in #2 & entice those in #3 to migrate to #2. One way of doing that would be to offer a limited term trial of ALL the features of I5. This will allow users to explore the capabilities of I5 & decide if they want to continue to use it, at a price. Having already paid $14.99 for PI4, I would be willing to pay another $10 to migrate to I5. $10 – 15, may be an appropriate price for new users. This is for purchasing the App outright.
My guess is that the number of your “casual” users exceed the “power” users & your goal should be not to give the former less importance.
I know that I have been critical in my posts, but that is because I care. I do not want to see Fanatic fail.
m_g58,
Those are good suggestions. We have been thinking of ways to offer a more complete “full experience” trial. In fact we do have a 2 week trial to Informant Sync that can be used for this purpose but it hasn’t been marketed, or made apparent as well as we would like. (We’ll work on that). In fact, Apple doesn’t like it when we do anything “outside” of the app-store so that limits our options as well.
Your point about our current pricing working better for Power Users and less well for Casual users is fair. It is something we are trying to find some common ground on.
As for you being critical in the posts: No problem at all. We appreciate the honest feedback, AND your support. As a Marketer by trade, I often feel overly sensitive to how the criticism would be looked at by a “new person”. I think that leads me to be a bit defensive or to try to say.. “yes, but…” and that makes some of the passionate users like yourself think that I’m not listening to the criticism or like I am trying to divert attention or something. Truth is, we are listening and we all working to find the best solutions. We are all in this thing together [customers & company] and we [Informant] can’t be successful without making customers super happy. So, we will keep working at it. Thanks for your help.
That’s the spirit, Keith.
As tab wrote yesterday, the best outcomes are when it is a “win-win” for both the customer & the merchant.
Couple of thoughts:
Answering to Alex about future features we may or may not be getting by investing into the company, I have a negative experience of paying for Informant for Mac back in May of 2015, so far it did not materialize and never left beta version, as far as I can tell.
I do not understand why would anybody pay or need Informant Sync, besides perhaps to link their Outlook via another payed app. I would rather prefer support of syncing my data via Dropbox as 2Do and many other apps (including informant in the past) provide for free. On another hand I will only consider this option for my tasks as a substitute to Toodledo as I use google for my calendars. I am sure that Dropbox just due to its size has better supported and more secure servers to begin with (and its free)!
Tab, I am not sure how you found a way to unsubscribe by using email – the only option I found there was to cancel my future subscription in December 2017. I had to spend over 40 minutes with Apple on the phone to cancel my subscription and I had to convince them to do that as Apple has “all sales are final” policy.
Based on responses from the team it is clear to me that their strategy is to wait and see with pricing, while trying to retain those few of us who are passionate about the app, but do not support current pricing model. As Keith has suggested in one of his previous posts, only 25 people left positive or negative feedback in the AppSore, while over 7000 people downloaded the app (not sure if this is the same as bought subscription). An this latter number is all what matters, not how many people are posting here (there are about 10 of us overall) or post negative reviews on the AppStore.
Very disappointing.
Boris,
I’m sorry your experience was not great so far. Now, let’s get specific on a few things..
Mac Informant: We HAVE made updates on Mac Informant since May 2015. In fact, there is another update coming shortly (after we get through some of the Informant 5 feedback.) Is there something specific you don’t like about Informant Mac in its current state? Specific feedback is most helpful. To say that it is unfinished or that “you don’t understand why would anybody pay or need Informant Sync” makes me think that either we don’t understand your user needs (which is possible) or that you don’t understand what Informant Sync does.
Why would someone need Informant Sync? Informant sync is the ONLY way for you to sync the Informant specific features such as: Tags, Contexts, Triggers(Templates), between your Informant devices (iPad-iPhone-Mac) and to work with 3rd Party syncs beyond the native apple data.
RE: Dropbox, Free, etc… From your comments about these services, it looks like you are attempting to string together various “free” offerings in order to get as much “free stuff” as possible. I understand that. I respect that. Nothing wrong with that, but you should probably realize that you are going to have “less than ideal” experience when trying to cobble together a solution rather than investing in a solution that is designed to work together. For example, I’m not sure how many “free services” you can run through dropbox, but I had to move to a paid account so that I can keep all the files I want. Look, I’m not trying to be negative on trying to get “free stuff” but I am also trying to advocate for software developers everywhere who ultimately gets taken advantage of when users simply cobble together free versions of various different software solutions to avoid paying any of them a fee.
Why do software developers give away free software? Usually as an incentive to “try” it out, or as a way to get you introduced to a product. “Giving it away free” is not a long-term strategy for a software developer unless you plan to try to build a user base and then sell it to someone or monetize it “someday” or through ads. There are not routes that we want to go. Currently our preferred path is to build software that has value and have people pay for it. Getting that dialed in to the right value exchange is our current objective. I hope you will help us do that with your feedback.
As for your disappointment about our current pricing strategy…please share your thoughts. Tell us what features you actually use. Which ones would you actually pay for? How much would you pay? Give us some actual tangible feedback and we will work with it.
I know this seems rude to do on their own blog, but Alex’s ($$$) solution to make complainers happy is subscribe then cancel the next day…
Here’s how I done it…
‘Your subscription confirmation’ &
‘Your receipt from Apple’… are the two emails you receive upon purchase of IP5.
Open the ‘Your subscription confirmation’ email…click on ‘review your subscription’ follow directions from there…
Keith, I also made the same “error” on PI Mac. To me a 0.98 version is still not a 1.0
Using Apple for 30 years now, and looking at other software I can only think of Spotify Mac using numbers below 1 when releasing. Off course there are others but < 1.0 numbers are giving at least a wrong impression.
Lastt but not least, on your home page http://staging.pocketinformant.com there is no direct mentioning of PI Mac. You have to select "Apps" first to read there is also a Mac version
As a Mac user and owner of PI Mac (bought in April 2015) it feels as the Mac version is a bit of the forgotten child…. Sure this is not your intention 🙂
Michael,
That is definitely fair assessment. I am working on some new stuff for the homepage to better communicate the “main message”.
We’ve been discussing what would be the main message there from an SEO perspective and from a general messaging perspective. We are not 100% settled but we are targeting something like:
“Best Calendar for IOS”
“Best Planner for iOS, Mac”
“Best multi-device Calendar & Task (ios,mac,Android) *(I don’t like the sound of Multi-device for marketing language, sounds weird)
“Best Personal Productivity System” *(Kinda vague…)
If you have better ideas, please share them with me. I can use all the help I can get on this sort of stuff…
Keith said:
” Is there something specific you don’t like about Informant Mac in its current state? ”
Forgive me for jumping in here, but there is one key cosmetic issue I’d like to see addressed. It is currently something of a nightmare trying to choose, on Informant 5, dark mode colours that (after sync, of course) display well on DI. We need either:
(a) not to sync colour schemes so we can have independent schemes for Informant 5 dark mode and DI “light mode”; or (preferably)
(b) have dark mode introduced on DI.
Stephen
Thanks Stephen. I know Chris is planning to put a cycle in on Desktop Informant after the rush around Informant 5 for iOS dies down a bit. I’ll make sure he sees this.
@Keith You asked: So maybe a better question for you… As a multi-device user of Informant, do you find any value in the “Informant Only Features” such as templates, smart filters, tags, etc?
Back in the ’90 I was already beta tester for Now Up-to-Date/Contact a great suite of two apps former being a calendar- and latter a contact manager. This software was also able to share data through AppleTalk.
NUD/C did not make at to OS X as Now Software went bankrupt. Also about the same period the iPhone was introduced. Time to switch to Apple Calendar and Address Book.
Two former Now Software developers started a new company BusyMac and continued with development of a calendar sync solution. As we all know BusyCal and BysyContacts are available of macOS and BusyCal for iOS. I am still testing for them.
Before my iPhone I had a Palm and discovered Pocket Informant Software. When the Palm was changed for a iPhone I had to find a alternative. Iambic brought a Agenda version for iOS but was stopped soon.
When Pocket Informant iOS was released I bought it in an instant.
Currently on my iOS devices I use Fantastical 2, BusyCal 3 and Pocket Informant 4 Premium (no Informant Sync). In fact I do not use Apple Calendar
On macOS I have Fantastical 2, BusyCal 3. I bought PI Mac but do not use it. On Mac I prefer Apple Calendar and BusyCal (great list feature)
All apps have there own specific features and plus and negative sides.
I don’t use Informant Sync as for my use native iCloud is sufficient. (have about 13 different calendars). Connection to Exchange is not in question, nor Google Calendar (which I did use in the past when iCloud was less reliable).
Smart templates or tags are not used in my workflow. FYI I also use Instapaper, Evernote, Things and Wunderlist to keep everything well organized.
Keith
Your comments on beta users and testing really isn’t fair.
You had a significantly shorter beta test for PI5 than even point releases and we both know beta users told you it wasn’t ready for release – a view that has been proven correct.
Also releasing 5.02 to Apple Monday when you only sent it to beta testers late Saturday? In my view some of the bugs you claim to fix are still there.
Trust is hard gained but easily lost.
Ngem,
You might be right. I was not as close to the beta on 5.0 as Chris & Alex were. I do know that they both voted to release when we did. Again, always easy to second guess in hindsight, but I trust them. So I’m going to stick with my position that we made the best decision we could at the time with the given information.
As for 5.02, you are right. We would like to take a few more days beta testing it. But, once again… life is just not as ideal as we would like it. Apple goes into shutdown mode for about a week from Dec 23-27. Since we know this and we know that other developers know this also, we figure that the wait times on apple reviews is going to spike later this week. Our internal goal is that we want to get 5.02 submitted to apple before noon today. Even with that, we are not 100% that it will get approved. So, What would you do?
a) Submit 5.02 knowing that you HAVE fixed quite a few issues that people are SCREAMING about, knowing that there is a small chance that you either left something out that should be in, or maybe even (heaven forbid).. broke something new.
b) Wait until after holiday shutdown. Deal with even more people screaming about the same features that you have already fixed and are just waiting for apple so you can get them out there.
Here is what we are going to do: Submit to Apple today a 5.02. Keep testing it while they approve it. If we find something terrible in the testing, we WON’t release it to the public, even if apple approves it. Meanwhile, we are going to keep working on a 5.03 that will catch even more of the issues that we find. 5.03 wont get submitted to Apple until after the Holiday.
Hopefully that explanation helps earn back some of that trust.
For Keith, for what it’s worth, here’s how I use Informant. My apologies to everyone else for the long windedness :).
I organize using a GTD type system and I have many, many more tasks than I do appointments. I use two tags, work and personal and use the tag colors to differentiate between the two visually (I really want to be able to sort these in the Focus view so I can separate work and personal and to group by context or importance as needed, I also wish when I changed the Action to “Waiting” that it would move the task to the bottom of my list). Every task has a project (for example, entertainment, vehicles, accounting, work accounting, work reports, etc.) and a context (laptop stuff, errands, housework, work phone calls, work errands) and I assign icons to the context as visual representations of what needs to be done.
I’m a big fan/user of Templates (nka Triggers). I have a template for each context (minus the project). I have these shown in the menu, so when I need to enter a new task I choose the correct context and fill in the title, project and date. I have a number of repeated tasks that are just there every day (or week or whatever) and add additional tasks throughout the day as people come to me needing things. In all I complete about 20 tasks each day. I’m a big fan of being able to tell Siri to remind me of something and have those reminders turned into tasks. If the triggers could be assigned to my Siri reminders automatically that would be amazing.
I only use one device, I did at one time put it on my tablet but I never was in a situation where I had my tablet and not my phone and my phone was always quicker to use. Plus I didn’t like that when I did open my tablet, I would see all the reminders of things that I had long since completed on my phone (this was with the Android version, not sure if that would apply to iOS).
I use Informant Sync for the sole purpose of being able to email items directly into the app. Even with email integration I need this feature. For me, the email pops up on my phone so I’m already in it and can forward from there quickly and easily. To use email integration I would need to close the email, press the button, choose tasks, choose mail and then choose the email in question. Also, I send both personal emails from my phone and work email from Outlook. I never want my work emails on my personal phone so email integration will never be fully useful for me.
Weather is nothing but a novelty. I never use when I’m actually curious about the weather. I can’t remember who said it, but one user wrote that if his favorite weather app suddenly added a calendar feature and charged him for it he would not be happy, I feel the same way.
As for price, I did take the survey, but to summarize, I don’t mind the price for something I use everyday, but I don’t really like how it all came about. For one, I don’t think it was right to charge the full amount when so many things aren’t working right. If the app isn’t ready to wow people you shouldn’t raise the price just yet. And two, this doesn’t affect me, but I think people should be able to pay for the app and own it, with all features (minus the syncing and weather that cost money). If someone wants all the customization and unlimited projects, contexts and calendars I think a one time fee should be sufficient for those things.
As for a trial period, I actually don’t know if this would be useful or not. For me it took a long time, and a lot of effort, to make Informant something I’d be willing to pay good money for. I don’t think I’d put that much effort into something I wasn’t sure I was going to keep. Perhaps if you had a manual or instruction videos a trial period might be enough, but if people are left to figure out everything by themselves I don’t know that anyone will be won over after two weeks.
Mehill,
Thank you for that feedback. It is actually VERY helpful to me. I do predict we will make some adjustments to better accommodate some of these different scenarios. Informant is a super powerful tool, but what I am finding (remember, I am sort of new here), is that there are many distinctly different “ways” that people are using it. It will be one of my goals over the next few weeks to better understand those variations and see if we can find some patterns that might better align with product feature groups, or pricing… Thank you for the time you took in writing all that down.
Here’s my two cents!
Can all/most of the features work as an “overlay” for iOS database items? Like the WinMo days, where PI just displays and edits the built-in iOS databases. Give a one month trial period for this, then it costs like $3-5/year (so as to avoid reverting back to the “when do we charge again for a major upgrade?) A price like this makes it easy to call it something like, “upgrades/support for life.”
Better differentiate the syncing services (versus the “stand-alone” app functionality) and keep them at $25/year (or maybe $20!). You have to charge for an on-going service! Obviously, if they signed up for syncing, the $3-5 “upgrades/support for life” would be included.
Then, of course, make sure you use that revenue to produce stellar upgrades (always focused on app stability), rock solid sync services, and superior customer support.
I think just resume the PI4 date and time picker design in I5 will win you back two thumbs up, high5 or even high10 right the way. No need to drill too deep into the new design. 80/20 rule works well.
Well, I think I too can outline a summary of the way I use PI.
I share my time between Italy and UK (which are in two different time zones). I travel quite often between the two countries, and activities I do in each country are not very related. I use two iPhones and an iPad, and I also sync with Google Calendar and Toodledo. With all that, I don’t consider myself a power user because I don’t use yet PI as extensevely as I would like, for me it is still a “side tool” in many ways.
I use several calendars, but mainly: (1) A calendar for activities and appointments relative to the UK, attached to GMT, (2) A calendar for activities and appointments relative to Italy, attached to GMT+1, (3) A calendar for generic activities, no time zone, (4) A calendar for children’s appointments, GMT, (5) A calendar for my trips, that I share with family, so that they can easily know time and dates of my trips, and where I am at the moment.
Typically, when I’m in a country I wouldn’t want to be bothered by things I have to do in the other (I don’t need to be reminded to put out the bin in the UK when I’m in Italy and stuff like that), so I use filters a lot, and I filter both by tag and by calendar
I use tags only for filtering, mostly to filter tasks but also for calendar events. I try to take advantage of the fact I can add as many tags as I want, so that I can easily check all the times I need to go to the hospital, or when I need to go only to take my son or only for myself (one of the reasons why I’d like AND/OR tag filters).
There’s much more to it, but that’s in a few words a coarse outline of my usage of Infomant
I just want to say,I have been using PI since the beginning,, I didn’t like the new policy of subscription, but finally I decided to pay the subscription. Although I found this version is worse than PI 4 which was the best version of all, but I have understood that a company cant survive with the 0’99 price model, I realized that there are not others calendars that fix my needs, I have been using for years almost free I paid just once and I had all version for free, so that’s not fear for a company who organized my life with the best calendar all include.
There are many things that they have to improve in Pi 5 with is not the best version is not operative, many clicks for changing views, lots of bugs, but I supported the company with Only 25 USD, is not too much for a company which is making a big effort in getting better the app, I know they will do it in the next version, but the free app for ever is the past all the companies are changing to the subscription pricing, I have Evernote and I paid more than this.
Anyway I don’t like PI 5 bit I support the Co. Because I am sure the will make batter versions like they did in the past
Sorry for my English I am Spanish
Fernando,
I can not thank you enough for your support and faith in us. We may have missed the mark (just a bit 😉 – with this new release, but I can guarantee we will make things better and make the product fit with the needs of our long time customers as good as humanly possible.
Thank you!
Informant 4.94 took years of fine tuning with customer feedback and lots of hard work from the developers. It is fast and very stable
I really don’t like the UI on version 5 and it could take months to get it right.
It’s obvious version 5 was rushed and the UI was created without any feedback from its users.
I’m going to give version 5 a miss and probably have a look at it in a year’s time.
On 5.02 on my IPhone I still get extra words when I use a t”trigger” word to insert an Event template. I do not get the extra words when I use a Task template. For my taste I wish you would revert to the old templates. The screen to add the template seems much more cluttered and the “trigger” feature adds little.
Mark,
Hang in there with us. We will get the new Triggers on-par with the old templates soon. They really are “better” in many ways. There are a few things (as yo mentioned) that we are fixing. Look for a 5.03 build soon (beta may be next week), and then a 5.1 release in the next few weeks that will fix this and a number of other issues such as view picker issues, date picker issues, and much more.
by Keith: “We do know that a number of users are wanting to see some navigation menu and date picker changes and we are putting some work into that, although it won’t be part of 5.02. We have already drawn up a few design concepts for new date pickers and Chris has shared a few thoughts on what ideas he has for navigation.”
Why? Can’t understand you. Why you don’t go back to navigation and date picker from PI4? It is perfect, easy to use, best view, many users told this to you…..Why do you want to create some new when the old one works great and the users loved it?
“Never change a running system”
Or is your motto: We want to create something new, no matter what it costs?
Regards Albert
Chris has just posted part 2 about date and time picker
It looks better but still not as elegant as what’s in version 4.
Maybe In a few years version 5 will be perfect 🙂
I’ve seen it too late…….and you’re right sarz👍🏻😉
Like many on this forum, I am a long time user of Informant. It was one of the primary reasons I got an iPhone, since it was a more efficient way to sync my Outlook calendar with my iPhone. I now use an iPhone 6 Plus and an iPad Pro to sync with Outlook on my Windows 10 laptop. I am a consultant and visit customer sites with my iPad and iPhone and update my appointments, tasks and notes with Informant and have all of that information sync with Outlook via gSyncit.
I recently loaded PI5.02, after experiencing many crashes with 5.0, and it appears to be a more stable product. Now that I can actually use this new version of Informant, I am getting use to the new interface and actually like much of what I see, but I have the following observations:
1. I do most of my Informant work on my iPad, and use my iPhone to check where I am supposed to be and what my next tasks are, while I am in transit. So I find it extremely frustrating not to have all the buttons I need on all of the open space at the bottom of the screen. If you are a heavy iPad user, having to tab the button to get to additional features is a total waste of time and motion. I am pleased to hear that this is being addressed in a future release.
2. I like what I see with the new date picker. This could be a vast improvement of the current version. Please bear in mind that many users need to make changes to dates using one hand on their phones, so that should also be an important factor in the ultimate design.
3. As to pricing, I am not a fan of the $25 price point, but I do support the subscription method. I only sync with Informant Sync and I use weather. But I plan to retire later this year, so I will not need to use weather as much in the future. For me a basic rate for subscription for Informant Sync would work best, and then incremental increases for other services like weather, email integration, Google, etc. I don’t use those services currently, but it would nice to have the option in the future if my needs change. I just can’t see paying $25 for everything.
4. That being said, I certainly would be more comfortable with that price point if there was some kind of documentation available (FAQs, YouTube videos, etc), particularly focused on new features, like triggers, date picker, etc. You made a major shift in the user interface, changed the pricing model, introduced a new voice for your organization, all without any documentation. It has been difficult to see the value we were suppose to get, particular when the software crashed on both of my devices and I had to go back to the prior version. If some basic documentation had been in place, and Keith was introduced as the new voice of your organization ahead of deployment, maybe the storming that occurred could have been diminished a bit.
The December Fanatic Software newsletter that I have just received starts with an announcement that Macworld.com awarded Pocket Informant as “Best for Long-Term Planning”. On reading the source article, I found that this was a news item dated 9/1/16 that discussed the best replacement calendar apps following the demise of Sunrise. The overall “winner” was Fantastical with Calendars 5 being the “runner-up”. Informant was the favorite for long-term planning.
Does reference to this article from 3-months ago hint that the focus of Informant 5 will be changing from daily and short-term scheduling?
m_g58,
Thank you for taking the time to read the newsletter and click the link. The reason for placing it there was more as a tie-in to the fact that it is the end of 2016 and many people are doing “long range planning” in planning for 2017.
We felt that was reason enough to include that reference from a well known 3rd party as a validation.
As Alex said at the time of that article, we think that Informant is the “best for overall planning” but I guess they are welcome to their opinion as well.
So, to answer your other question.. No. Informant is not changing any focus from long to short or short to long…It is just a good planning tool for any duration.