The own it option for Informant 5 for iOS will be going away….for new customers. If you already have taken advantage of the Own-it option, nothing changes. You still have it, you will keep it. If you still want to take advantage of this option you have a few more weeks to do so. This announcement simply means that we will not be offering this to new customers in the near future.
What is the “Own it” option?
This is (was) an optional way to purchase Informant 5 for iOS in Apple’s App store. It was offered as a way to transition past customers and honor previously loyal customers who weren’t too excited about our move to the subscription model with the launch of Informant 5 in November of 2016. For $25, the same as a 1 year subscription, users were given a fully functional version of Informant 5 for iOS. They also received a 1 year subscription to the Informant Sync Connection bundle. At the end of the first year, the sync services stop working, but the app stays in full function mode.
Why is it going away?
The “Own it” option creates complexity. Complexity in working with Apple’s licensing system, complexity for customer in understanding our business model, complexity in our product marketing, complexity in creating special offers and free trials, and complexity in our messaging to customers. It has created many long-winded and generally weird conversations. So basically, it’s confusing and complicated and we wanted to find a better way.
Our priorities in finding a better solution:
#1) We don’t want you to feel like your data is held hostage. You will have permanent access to it. When you sign up for a subscription service, we know there is a feeling of risk that you might lose access to your data. We know that the data you keep in Informant is important not just for today, but important as a history and a reference. A “good” solution for us means that you are never locked out of your own data.
#2) We want you to be able to “come back” and use the full version. As much as we want all customer to stay on the subscription and use the app, we know that some people may drop off. We also wanted to provide a way for these users to come back when the time was right.
The Solution:
We will provide an export to CSV. So even if your subscription is expired, you can export your data so that you have it for future use. We may also consider other options that may allow read only access or periodic unlock periods that customers can take advantage of.
The Bottom line:
We want you to feel like you can subscribe anytime and feel confident that you can always have all of your data any time you need it—even if you cancel your subscription, you still have all your data.
Additional Benefits:
By simplifying our pricing and licensing we can improve our ability to offer free trials on subscriptions, this means we can give more opportunities to users on the Free version to try the Full version more frequently.
We know that this might be bad news for a few of you, so if you are still wanting to take advantage of the Own It option and just haven’t done it yet, you will have about 1-3 more months to do so before this offer is gone forever.
If you are a customer who bought the app under the Own It option, your app will not change. You will still have the full version without any requirement to buy a subscription going forward. We are simply discontinuing the sale of it going forward.
Thank God I do not have any data on informant. I only view information from exchange, google and toodledo in informant 5. It think Keith you still not understanding, that there are a lot of really good or even better calendar/task apps out there. Informant 4 and 5 is unique and specially for me, because it can sync with toodledo. So you now change again the pricing model an there is still no better price for just the toodledo sync option. No professional user needs to use the informant sync, because the data is, for example, on an exchange server. The improvements are really slow (6 month to work on the absolut not use able date/time picker), far to high yearly price for just one feature i need and the “free month for invitation” is also dead since a week. I already testing other apps and they are really good for a fair one time price. I only have to use two apps instead of one, after my sync connection bundle expire.
Keith, just tell us the truth–you’ve already taken the own-it option away, even from those–like me–who supposedly own it.
In January, my subscription expired. Never mind that Apple informed me days earlier that the renewal had been paid, I still had to contact support to get it active again. Worse, during that time INFORMANT LOCKED ME OUT OF ALL VIEWS AND ALL DATA EXCEPT THE CALENDAR!
I’ve been using Informant Sync continuously since before I5. I should be among those who “own” it and at least retain access to my local data. Apparently not. I’ve been one of Informant’s more supportive users for 15 years, and think $25/year for Informant Sync is a good price, but my trust is broken and I’m thinking that by next January I’ve got to find another answer.
And in a related question, why do you automatically take my money but do not automatically extend my subscription?
A clarification question: I got I5 as an upgrade from PI4.x. As such, I did not “buy” I5. Your message here says, “If you are a customer who bought the app under the Own It option, your app will not change.” I am wondering how this policy change affects users such as myself. Will our data or usage options be threatened or constrained becuase we sis not buy I5?
After the initial upgrade to I5, I was pretty active on this blog, trying to navigate the new version and lobby for the changes I wanted. After a few months, I gave up because it was only frustrating me. Instead of having questions answered it seemed like a never-ending sales pitch and I just didn’t want to participate anymore.
So, after trying to find another app that combined events and tasks the way Informant does, and failing, I finally decided to accept the program as it was and just ignore the blog. Accept that changes might or might not come, when my subscription ran out I would just live with the “full version” I thought I owned since I don’t need to sync with anything. Turns out I don’t own a fully functioning version of the app after all since all of my projects have disappeared overnight (my subscription ran out yesterday). I’m sure its something simple having to do with my calendars or something, but it’s still another annoying obstacle and I’m really getting sick of the obstacles.
So I decide (I don’t even know why) to visit the blog again only to find another change and another sales pitch. I feel like, six months from now I’ll visit this blog again to find out I6 is ready and it will cost double, and only work with a subscription and an iPhone 8. And 6 months after that, the subscription will double in price again, and so on until it costs over $15 each month to use the app, or as Keith would say “isn’t $.50 a day a small price to pay for all that Informant does for you?”
This has all been so disappointing.
And now I find out I can no longer use my Siri reminders without a subscription. I knew I’d be losing the option to email tasks to my calendar which I used a lot, now I’m also losing the ability to have Siri add tasks. There sure are a lot of functions tied into the Sync Bundle that I thought I didn’t need since I don’t sync with anything.
And I’m finding out that my missing Projects aren’t such an easy fix after all since they still aren’t back after 5 days working with Support. This just keeps getting better and better.
Another sad long time supporter of PI3 on Windows Mobile way back in the day to someone who had paid for PI through v4 on both iOS and Android. App pricing was different back then, and PI was priced appropriately for the marketplace.
I’ve been using v5 in free mode. My primary calendar is my work calendar. I have to sync to Exchange via an inTune managed solution to get data down to my phone. OS-level sync for google services is good enough.
The primary benefit being touted for subscribing to PI is something that unfortunately has no value to me, and the one-time cost that is soon going away is priced well above every paid solution in the market, and doesn’t demonstrate enough value, especially when used an extension to my primary tool on the desktop.
PI5 has had growing pains, every app does. I get that. Apple’s licensing structure makes paid upgrades difficult – I have seen some companies use bundles as a way past that When PI4 went freemium, that became difficult to implement. Others live in a more mobile centric world than me. I get that.
Offer me a local app with no access to Informant Sync at a price competitive with Fantastical 2, Calendars 5, aCalendar, Awesome Calendar, etc… You could justify a premium for contact and to-do integration. But at $25, PI5 is simply overpriced relative to the market. I will be sad when the day comes that I remove it altogether from my devices, but I see that day coming.
I’d like to continue supporting this company. I’d love PI5 for Android to some day see the light of day. Make it possible for me.
Observe, there is no response to your comments (or to earlier ones on this topic). It appears that the focus of the company has now firmly changed from serving customers to strategies to generate revenue. A sad day indeed………
Is it fair to say everyone that’s shitting all over the app at this point on the blog is doing so over it being a subscription now? I never personally had a problem with the subscription or the price, only 5 upon release being less functional than 4 in ways I relied on while at the same time asking me to pay for it again at that time.
My main concern was only ever the state of the app and it’s functionality, not the price. If anything, I’m okay paying $2 a month to keep an app I rely on from disappearing like most of them. $25 is the price of a single meal here in the Bay Area. You can flounder about trying to come up with reasons to charge people to get the revenue stream viable enough for them to keep up with the app, but the main point is to make this a viable thing to keep developing, which I’m okay with, so long as they actually do keep developing it and keep it functional and active. If an app I relied on tanked and I had to spend even a single hour of my time migrating my data or even paying attention to that, that hour of my time would already be worth well in excess of $25, as I’m sure it probably is for a lot of people that use apps like this. Even if you made $8/hour, you’re realistically going to spend at least several hours setting up new stuff if an organizer app you use tanks, to say nothing of finding another one and trying them out.
While I agree phrasing it as a subscription can rub people the wrong way in the wake of apps like TextExpander charging a subscription—which does seem silly in the case of that app, I’d have been fine buying a new $15 version of it every year over being offered ‘team sharing’ for something as personal as text snippets—I just wanted to chime in and say I think it’s kind of silly to spend so much time complaining about $2 a month app on the internet. I’m saying this because I check back in here periodically to see if the problems I wanted fixed have been fixed yet, and every time I mostly see people complaining that it’s a $2 a month app now, and has been for more than a year now. OmniFocus is like $60-80 and they come out with a new version every several years for you to buy again, and their sync could easily be accomplished with Dropbox.
“My main concern was only ever the state of the app and it’s functionality, not the price.” Since you state that you only periodically check this blog, you may missed the post that Alex is no longer with the company. Just FYI, since you also state that you are worried about an App “tanking”.
@m_g58: I, too, must have missed the post indicating that “Alex is no longer with the company.” That would certainly mark the passing of an era.
Wait, Alex is gone? I thought Keith just ‘owned’ things now, took over the marketing direction to try and make this a viable business that would some day integrate with his other online app thing, and Alex et al were still the heart of the app. I can’t seem to find a post on Alex flat out leaving.
Sadly, Alex’s role appears to have changed to that of a part-time consultant.
Here is what Keith wrote in a response that you can find in the MacOS 1.0.2 topic “Alex is a consultant and still does some work. Lately he has had health problems and is not doing too great. Maybe you could wish him health”. Let us hope and pray that Alex’s health improves so that he can resurrect Informant.
Yes, as far as I’m aware Alex is employed by somebody else now and he is only a (occasional?) part time consultant for Fanatic. It also looks like everybody else stayed.
After all the big announcements for PI5 and big (but delayed) announcements for change of ownership, this was a very silent and discreet way to leave the company he created. A bit too discreet if you ask me.
We all hope his health is improving, of course, wherever he works.
Alex is away since more than half a year. I was and I am still participating in the Beta program, but I had to notice that development of I5 came to an almost end.
It seems the only developer left is Chris, who focuses primarily on Informant for Mac, so that is why the development of I5 stalled.
Sadly to see, that now one has to pay regularly for an app which needs several important fixes.
The time picker for instance is waiting for more than 6 months to be fixes. Ok, there is a blog post from February, but no one knows when this will be implemented.
Then there is a non working widget which did and does work in PI4, but not in I5.
So that is why I am also complaining about paying monthly.
Given all of that, I can see why people are still complaining then. I was under the impression that it was just about the new pricing, and had trusted everyone on the team was still here working on it daily in development to warrant the price. It does feel somewhat deceptive to have Alex’s exit be brushed under the rug like that. That’s a big deal.
Everything at Fanatic has been deceptive since Keith was “introduced” to us as the new “spokesperson”.
Observe, he has not responded to a single post on this topic, or tp others on this blog for quite some time now.
Unfortunately its not so simple. As my wife likes to say – I have multiple jobs. Drives her nuts sometimes. Yes, I did have a health scare earlier this year. Auto-immune issue with my gut…not fun. The only good thing is I lost a ton of weight…but that seems to be coming back. That’s another story.
*Do I still work for Fanatic/CompleteXRM (the Company)?*
No. Technically I haven’t worked for the Company since I sold Fanatic in November 2016. However, I was still actively working on Informant up until very very late last year – right before my health issue.
I have also been working on a two other startups since I sold the company. Late last year I did make a decision that my primary career is going to move from small startups to a corporate gig. Smaller fish in a big ocean, but its a great way to expose myself to new people, methodologies, and development practices. I have been bringing some of those new methodologies back to Fanatic as well. If you follow my LinkedIn you’re going to see some changes in my work coming shortly, but that doesn’t really affect my work with the Company.
*Do I contribute to Fanatic/CompleteXRM (the Company)?*
Yes, I do. How much? Depends. I continue to consult with Chris almost daily. I consult with Wesley every few days. I consult with Keith weekly. What I do during those consultations depend on the needs.
*Who is still part of the team?*
Chris, Wes, Tabetha. In fact, a couple people were added to the team in other capacities. So while Chris has the bulk of development – he’s also cut out a ton of other responsibilities.
Are releases slow? Depends. For new features…yes. But a large part of that has to do with the fact that there is a lot of work that has to be done behind the scenes to support things that we are working on that we haven’t announced yet, or just basic Apple Mac/iOS stuff stuff.
Finally, I need to add a few things because lately I’ve been getting a few emails from beta users or customers asking me things directly. I’ve redirected those back to the Company and/or Support because while I consult and have my fingers in the pie, I am not driving the truck that is carrying the pies. Also my time is extremely limited.
First is that I would *please* ask you not to email me directly. I *am* going to just redirect you back to the official channels. Secondly, I do not know everything. Its now been a year and a half since I sold Fanatic and while I do consult, I am not involved in the daily standups. Finally, I don’t ever read the blog or forums or anything there. Again, I just don’t have time.
I hope that helps.
“My main concern was only ever the state of the app and it’s functionality, not the price.”
@SRhyse, I could not agree more! And this is exactly where my disappointment stems from. Without getting into details, PI5 and Mac Informant are still apps that don’t make me feel like can rely on them. I still feel like I have to constantly monitor them to make sure expected behavior is occurring–not to mention waiting on much need UI and performance improvements. Enough time has passed–with little enough development–to make me feel like there is no end in sight.
Shoot even the customer support platform has problems AND the customer support techs have problems (just recently I asked how to get to apple maps from a PI event location link and I was told that it WAS apple maps).
It is because the state of the app and company don’t feel like they are improving enough, that I am very unhappy about the cost. But, similar to you, look for and implementing a new solution would be much worse right now.
Thank you for finally being honest and clear about the situation, Alex. I guess there’s nothing to add. I just wish you had sold Fanatic to somebody more passionate about it, rather than to a person who doesn’t care and has basically stopped development (at least for iOS) and decided to get a yearly fee for that. It is clear that Informant iOS will die. I had really a hard time to find a satisfying substitute, I’ll go on until my subscription expires (which is quite a bit in the future), and in the end either things will have changed or it will be, finally, the end for me too. I’ll force myself to alternatives. If the founder has thrown away his own software there’s no reason why customers shouldn’t.
Gennaro,
While I appreciate your intensity, you are dead wrong about your impression of things at the company. We are all very passionate about Informant and development has certainly NOT stopped. In fact we have new releases going out this week or next on both mac AND iOS.
We DO appreciate your subscription. It is paying customers like you that allow us to continue the development of Informant. Without the continuation of paid subscriptions Informant would die. Fortunately continued subscriptions ARE happening and we appreciate it.
Thank you for commenting.
Does anybody can confirm if PI4 works Ok with IOS 11.3? Thanks.
It may. However, if I were you, I would switch to an alternate App. I have been using CalenGoo & it serves my needs. It has features that are not available on Informant such as floating events.
I checked CalenGoo but I don’t think it will work for me. I like to have tasks and events together, like PI4 does. PI4 has been working fine for me in my iPhone 7 with IOS 10.3.3 but I will probably want to be able to update to IOS 11 at some point.