Yeah, you can’t expect devs to actively work on an app indefinitely just because you gave them a few bucks that one time. It makes no sense financially if the app isn’t exceptionally successful.
IIRC app stores downrank apps that are not regularly updated too, hence the vague “bug-fixes and improvements” updates in many apps. But seriously, how much could a developer update in a calculator, habit/medicine tracker, sky map, or any other app that is a complete feature?
Even if the app is relatively simple and feature-complete, you need to go back to it at least once a year to make sure it complies with the latest guidelines/restrictions, replace deprecated APIs, and check dependencies for security issues.
Simple enough for a calculator, but if the app needs to do stuff in the background, communicate with web services, play multimedia content, or use the camera, it can become very time consuming.
It may make sense on Macs where users accept making a $10 or $20 one-time payment, but very few mobile users accept paying for apps at all, let alone $5 or $10. In that case, you need a lot of buyers or you’ll end up maintaining it out of pocket.
Which would also prevent sales from dropping and not solely benefit the user. But in a case like this, i’d argue it’s reasonable to give people who bought v1 a long time ago no free access to v2.
Yeah, you can’t expect devs to actively work on an app indefinitely just because you gave them a few bucks that one time. It makes no sense financially if the app isn’t exceptionally successful.
IIRC app stores downrank apps that are not regularly updated too, hence the vague “bug-fixes and improvements” updates in many apps. But seriously, how much could a developer update in a calculator, habit/medicine tracker, sky map, or any other app that is a complete feature?
Even if the app is relatively simple and feature-complete, you need to go back to it at least once a year to make sure it complies with the latest guidelines/restrictions, replace deprecated APIs, and check dependencies for security issues.
Simple enough for a calculator, but if the app needs to do stuff in the background, communicate with web services, play multimedia content, or use the camera, it can become very time consuming.
It may make sense on Macs where users accept making a $10 or $20 one-time payment, but very few mobile users accept paying for apps at all, let alone $5 or $10. In that case, you need a lot of buyers or you’ll end up maintaining it out of pocket.
It could be updated to follow the newest design guidelinestm
Which would also prevent sales from dropping and not solely benefit the user. But in a case like this, i’d argue it’s reasonable to give people who bought v1 a long time ago no free access to v2.