4 ms·

$10? Adobe Ideas is free. http://blogs.adobe.com/designandweb/2010/04/adobe_ideas.html http://blogs.adobe.com/designandweb/2010/04/adobe_ideas.html

by joubert 16y ago

joshkaufman 16y ago
I really don't get the backlash about the price. If a customer uses 37signals services and gets a ton of value from the app, how is $9.99 unreasonable?
- qwzybug 16y ago
  Sure, that's true as far as it goes, but it gets a little strained when you see the similarly-priced competition. Pricing isn't a function of absolute utility and value, it's also a function of economic environment. Take Apple display adapter dongles. Do I get a ton of use out of them? Do they make my MacBook better? Sure, but $30 is still a cruel fucking joke. My wine key feels great in my hand, never breaks, and has given me loads of value and joy over the last decade but I would still be a fool to pay more than $5 for it. I've carried a plastic Japanese fan in my bag for more than ten years that has saved my sweaty ass in many social circumstances, and is indispensable for my personal well-being between July and September; it's covered in ads and I got it for zero yen and I wouldn't have paid much more than that for it. All that said, the correct price of a thing is whatever people will pay for it, and 37signals has certainly demonstrated an uncanny ability to find their market.
  - DougBTX 16y ago
    Sure, but $9.99 still isn't expensive.
    - qwzybug 16y ago
      That's the thing, though, it really depends. $9.99 is a good price for a display adapter, a pretty spendy price for a wine key, and an absoludicrous price for a crappy Japanese hand fan. Among iPad apps, $9.99 is top-shelf.
      - singer 16y ago
        iPad apps are underpriced. There really isn't much profit left after you consider development time, product updates, support, etc. How often does your existing display adapter get updated with new features?
      - loewenskind 16y ago
        >Among iPad apps, $9.99 is top-shelf. You think that because that's what the fine Apple iWork apps cost, but keep in mind that they normally sell that as a package, and now each application costs $9.99. So the total price for many people will actually be $29.97, 38% of the cost of the Mac OSX version. Now that the "iFart" craze is over, expect to start seeing more specialized apps selling at higher prices. "Things" is already about $20 and they are a top grossing app.
  - shasta 16y ago
    > I got it for zero yen Sounds cheap, but what is that in USD?
- jsankey 16y ago
  It seems like it's just the culture that has been established around iPhone, and now iPad apps. There are so many $2 apps out there it's no wonder you need a big hit to make decent money from a single app (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1451496 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1451496). I'm generally neutral on 37signals, but I actually think the $10 price point is a great choice in this case. It's almost deliberately against the grain, which makes sense if you don't think the current pricing of apps is sustainable.
  - joshkaufman 16y ago
    One of my clients charged $10 for his first iPhone app against competitors who charged $1-2. He had just as many downloads, and much higher profits. Having a higher price signaled higher quality, so he got more business.
dpatru 16y ago
Adobe's Ideas has an 8 minute "user guide" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nILS13_b2p8&feature=player_embedded http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nILS13_b2p8&feature=playe...). 37Signals's Draft presumably doesn't require a user guide. If all you want to do is what Draft offers, then the extra "features" of Ideas just get in the way. It's worthwhile for some people to pay $10 for a tool that works very well rather than make do with a free, but less-than-ideal alternative. The two products are a great example of how one can profit by selling a product with fewer features. The key is to understand the product from the user's point of view. Draft was meant to replace a sharpie and a paper notebook. Ideas is MS Paint for the iPhone. Although the two apps have an overlapping feature set, they don't present the same value to the user.
- qwzybug 16y ago
  Have you used Adobe Ideas? Its featureset is much closer to Draft than MSPaint. Your "features" scarequotes make it sound like you have no idea what you're talking about. It has two more colors and you can change the marker size. Oh, and you can pinch-zoom, which really shouldn't need a user guide on the iPad. Some of the buttons on the drawing screen in Draft are on the documents screen in Ideas. Ideas' simplicity rocks, and Draft looks good too, though I'm not in love with the white-on-black scheme. One thing I would like to know: if 37 signals only makes apps they use to get their work done, and the only work they get done is to make their apps... have we discovered a perpetual motion machine?
LargeWu 16y ago
$10? Big deal, I spent that on lunch today and I didn't think twice about it. One of the main features is that Draft is integrated with Campfire, which indicates that it's probably targeted at businesses and other organizations who pay to use Campfire. Does Ideas do that? If you're a Campfire user, that feature alone is probably worth $10. furthermore, 37 signals always talks about selling your byproducts. If this is something they were using anyway, why not polish it up a bit and make a bit of money? And what would they gain by giving this away for free?

$10? Adobe Ideas is free. http://blogs.adobe.com/designandweb/2010/04/adobe_ideas.html http://blogs.adobe.com/designandweb/2010/04/adobe_ideas.html

by joubert 16y ago

$10? Adobe Ideas is free. http://blogs.adobe.com/designandweb/2010/04/adobe_ideas.html http://blogs.adobe.com/designandweb/2010/04/adobe_ideas.html

joshkaufman 16y ago

I really don't get the backlash about the price. If a customer uses 37signals services and gets a ton of value from the app, how is $9.99 unreasonable?

qwzybug 16y ago
Sure, that's true as far as it goes, but it gets a little strained when you see the similarly-priced competition. Pricing isn't a function of absolute utility and value, it's also a function of economic environment. Take Apple display adapter dongles. Do I get a ton of use out of them? Do they make my MacBook better? Sure, but $30 is still a cruel fucking joke. My wine key feels great in my hand, never breaks, and has given me loads of value and joy over the last decade but I would still be a fool to pay more than $5 for it. I've carried a plastic Japanese fan in my bag for more than ten years that has saved my sweaty ass in many social circumstances, and is indispensable for my personal well-being between July and September; it's covered in ads and I got it for zero yen and I wouldn't have paid much more than that for it. All that said, the correct price of a thing is whatever people will pay for it, and 37signals has certainly demonstrated an uncanny ability to find their market.
- DougBTX 16y ago
  Sure, but $9.99 still isn't expensive.
  - qwzybug 16y ago
    That's the thing, though, it really depends. $9.99 is a good price for a display adapter, a pretty spendy price for a wine key, and an absoludicrous price for a crappy Japanese hand fan. Among iPad apps, $9.99 is top-shelf.
    - singer 16y ago
      iPad apps are underpriced. There really isn't much profit left after you consider development time, product updates, support, etc. How often does your existing display adapter get updated with new features?
    - loewenskind 16y ago
      >Among iPad apps, $9.99 is top-shelf. You think that because that's what the fine Apple iWork apps cost, but keep in mind that they normally sell that as a package, and now each application costs $9.99. So the total price for many people will actually be $29.97, 38% of the cost of the Mac OSX version. Now that the "iFart" craze is over, expect to start seeing more specialized apps selling at higher prices. "Things" is already about $20 and they are a top grossing app.
- shasta 16y ago
  > I got it for zero yen Sounds cheap, but what is that in USD?
jsankey 16y ago
It seems like it's just the culture that has been established around iPhone, and now iPad apps. There are so many $2 apps out there it's no wonder you need a big hit to make decent money from a single app (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1451496 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1451496). I'm generally neutral on 37signals, but I actually think the $10 price point is a great choice in this case. It's almost deliberately against the grain, which makes sense if you don't think the current pricing of apps is sustainable.
- joshkaufman 16y ago
  One of my clients charged $10 for his first iPhone app against competitors who charged $1-2. He had just as many downloads, and much higher profits. Having a higher price signaled higher quality, so he got more business.

dpatru 16y ago

Adobe's Ideas has an 8 minute "user guide" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nILS13_b2p8&feature=player_embedded http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nILS13_b2p8&feature=playe...). 37Signals's Draft presumably doesn't require a user guide. If all you want to do is what Draft offers, then the extra "features" of Ideas just get in the way. It's worthwhile for some people to pay $10 for a tool that works very well rather than make do with a free, but less-than-ideal alternative. The two products are a great example of how one can profit by selling a product with fewer features. The key is to understand the product from the user's point of view. Draft was meant to replace a sharpie and a paper notebook. Ideas is MS Paint for the iPhone. Although the two apps have an overlapping feature set, they don't present the same value to the user.

qwzybug 16y ago
Have you used Adobe Ideas? Its featureset is much closer to Draft than MSPaint. Your "features" scarequotes make it sound like you have no idea what you're talking about. It has two more colors and you can change the marker size. Oh, and you can pinch-zoom, which really shouldn't need a user guide on the iPad. Some of the buttons on the drawing screen in Draft are on the documents screen in Ideas. Ideas' simplicity rocks, and Draft looks good too, though I'm not in love with the white-on-black scheme. One thing I would like to know: if 37 signals only makes apps they use to get their work done, and the only work they get done is to make their apps... have we discovered a perpetual motion machine?

LargeWu 16y ago

$10? Big deal, I spent that on lunch today and I didn't think twice about it. One of the main features is that Draft is integrated with Campfire, which indicates that it's probably targeted at businesses and other organizations who pay to use Campfire. Does Ideas do that? If you're a Campfire user, that feature alone is probably worth $10. furthermore, 37 signals always talks about selling your byproducts. If this is something they were using anyway, why not polish it up a bit and make a bit of money? And what would they gain by giving this away for free?