I was OK with this until I realised that they were enforcing the subscription for existing users. I paid for both iOS and OSX apps last year. Effectively that was a lot of money for a little over 1 year of use.
Complete rip off and I may complain to Apple over this as I believe this is not fair treatment of customers to remove all functionality. I call it blackmail.
Exported all my Ulysses content as .md docs today into iCloud folders. Installed MacDown (free) Deleted Ulysses One star review.
I was OK with this until I realised that they were enforcing the subscription for existing users. I paid for both iOS and OSX apps last year. Effectively that was a lot of money for a little over 1 year of use.
Complete rip off and I may complain to Apple over this as I believe this is not fair treatment of customers to remove all functionality. I call it blackmail.
Exported all my Ulysses content as .md docs today into iCloud folders. Installed MacDown (free) Deleted Ulysses One star review.
I understand subscription model as a continuous flow of cash for the developers.
Previously, Ulyses cost: for Mac $44.99, for iPhone and iPad $24.99.
Now it cost $39.99 if you pay year upfront.
That means that the non-subscription price is worth for 11 months of the new deal.
In other words, what was eternal becomes yearly!
OK, take into account that iOS changes every year and the software can work for 3 years (or the device you are using lives that time).
Then, the developer is doing a 300% increase in price.
That's what bothers me.
Taking again the non-sub-price of $44.99 divided by 3 years and 12 months will give $1.25-
Monthly subscription is $4.99 so 4.99/1.25=3.99… 400%
Of course I like a 300/400% increase in my revenues!
But I still think this is unfair.
As a creative, and wanting to go indie some day, this is troubling. These subscription based plans are taking over the creative software industry. Eventually only the big shots are going to be able to afford all these subscriptions. I'll need a subscription to CC, Fusion360, sketchbook pro, ProCreate, Astropad, my web hosting, file transfer etc, etc, etc. this crap adds up. Quick. As another poster pointed out, I don't see how this is going to be a viable strategy long term.
I have never been a fan os subscription model, but your use case might actually benefit from it IMO. How much will you have to pay upfront for all those software before you can even start creating and earning money, if subscription is not an option?
Apple needs to provide another new model. You buy an app, it gets updates for x number of months when that time expires you can continue to use the app, but do not get updates. If you want up dates for another x number of months you pay a fee
This allows users to keep an app and not have to pay for updates if they do not want them
Well IF I was using this software that I paid for, and they did this move, I'd drop the software and move to something else. There is NO FREEKEN WAY I'm going to fork out money monthly for such a app, for pretty much years down the road. Why? So they can get money from me every month or every year? What do I get out of it? Everyone thinks they can just switch to this way in doing things so that they can make MORE MONEY!!! Because really, you can't do anything MAJOR with the software to get people to buy it anymore. Minor changes and bug fixes don't get people to buy your software again. So instead you play this subscription game. No way in HELL would I ever do it. I would drop them and never look back. It's not worth it.
I don't have a problem BUYING the software, but everyone trying to do what Microsoft did as they had the same problem, both with Windows and Office. What is there left to do, in Major changes to get people to upgrade? Not a whole lot. I get the move. While we pay for the 360 service at work, at home I don't use it. I moved to Open Office which is FREE and works great. Or you can use Google's stuff for free.
I don't mind paying, but not forever. EVERYONE wants to forever Nickle and Dime you. I for one am not going to keep putting up with it. I may like your software, but you forced me away. All these things are adding up. Ya, it's only $2 a month or $5 a month or $10 a month. You start adding them all up, and you're paying that every month, or more yearly for your lifetime. F them all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I guess they ran out of new subscribers. Because they aren't going to get many this way, especially as this signals the slowdown and that the developers have moved from growth and innovation to stagnation and milking mode.
Paid for both and liked them. But I have not even received the features I have paid for originally, like reliable syncing. Deleted it from all Macs and my iPad. Byword and Marked do most of the stuff I need for far less without monthly money for nothing. Added to the gravesite of apps I have used for very long times (TextExpander, 1Password, NovaMind, Dreamweaver, Illustrator) and now do just fine without them.
What did you replace 1Password with? I've bounced back and forth between Typinator and Textexpander for years but when TE went subscription I laughed...then deleted it and upgraded to Typinator 7 which does everything that TE does. Replacing 1P would be more difficult for me. I hear Dashlane is good but I haven't checked it out.
As for Ulysses. I like it but there are indeed more options out there. I'll probably upgrade to Scrivener 3 when it comes out for writing. For Markdown i'm going to likely use the next major version of BBEdit and perhaps Brett Terpstra's Marked which I love for previews. I'm also a fan if IA Writer.
I'll pay a sub if you're very unique but if there are too many good options that don't come with subs that's where i'm headed. I may pay for Day One because it's 2 bucks a month and they keep it updated. I'm not sure yet.
I'm guessing you've replaced Illustrator with Affinity Designer?
I understand subscription model as a continuous flow of cash for the developers.
Previously, Ulyses cost: for Mac $44.99, for iPhone and iPad $24.99.
Now it cost $39.99 if you pay year upfront.
That means that the non-subscription price is worth for 11 months of the new deal.
In other words, what was eternal becomes yearly!
OK, take into account that iOS changes every year and the software can work for 3 years (or the device you are using lives that time).
Then, the developer is doing a 300% increase in price.
That's what bothers me.
Taking again the non-sub-price of $44.99 divided by 3 years and 12 months will give $1.25-
Monthly subscription is $4.99 so 4.99/1.25=3.99… 400%
Of course I like a 300/400% increase in my revenues!
But I still think this is unfair.
As a creative, and wanting to go indie some day, this is troubling. These subscription based plans are taking over the creative software industry. Eventually only the big shots are going to be able to afford all these subscriptions. I'll need a subscription to CC, Fusion360, sketchbook pro, ProCreate, Astropad, my web hosting, file transfer etc, etc, etc. this crap adds up. Quick. As another poster pointed out, I don't see how this is going to be a viable strategy long term.
The Ulysses developer/co-founder explains the decision here:
It was done in order to sustain the company long-term and focus their development better. Businesses have ongoing costs: rent, employees, services and a single lifetime payment eventually runs out. This is affecting multiple creative industries including music, games and video content. Video is subscription with Netflix, Hulu etc, which helps them compete with the cable companies who make money on selling the connection service. The high revenue games are mostly online (Overwatch, League of Legends) with subscription or microtransactions or mobile with IAPs (Candy Crush - still making $1.5b after 5 years). Music is going subscription based. People can listen to music for a lifetime and $0.99 for life is too little.
As the article explains, the problem with software is partly to do with the change in how it is delivered and the new expectations that come with it. People don't expect to have to pay for a digital update. When software was shipped as a product, people expected to pay again because it was another complete product. When developers like Parallels try to charge again for every major digital update, it goes against expectations, especially when there's no major features added.
There's the issue of multi-platform licenses, with a unified subscription developers can activate every copy.
They mention student discounts. If they sold a product to a student, there's nothing stopping them using the student version forever. A subscription can change once they stop being a student.
Ulysses have at least 12 members of staff so they will likely have over $400k costs every year with office rates etc. After a point release, if they sold 100,000 copies at $30 average, they'd have $3m revenue minus 45% tax in Germany = $1.65m. That gives them just over 4 years of operating costs. If they don't get new users paying or existing ones paying again, the company has to shut down. This has been happening with creative companies all over the world, it nearly bankrupted Avid who are now pushing subscription and upgrade plans.
Depending on the number of users they get, Ulysses may be able to get away with lower subscriptions. If they got 100k subscribers at $5/month, they'd make ~$3m profit after tax every year. With that many users, they could go down to $1/month and still be able to maintain the company with a healthy profit. They need to start higher to see how many users they can get though. One of their competitors Scrivener sold 200,000 copies in 7 years at ~$25-45 (development history here - https://medium.com/@timetolose/my-interview-with-keith-blount-a49c7764f26f ). They have under 10 staff, some revenue figures are here:
That says they have assets of £3.8m. They have managed to keep taking on new users and grow their cash assets. The team is small enough and they have enough assets that even if the new users stop coming, they can still last a while. They use the paid upgrade model so they make a major release and charge again and charge separately per platform.
A company makes roughly the same if they charge $1/month or $25 upfront in the first 2 years but $1 to start using the software is easier to get from a user than $25, especially on mobile. Subscriptions to software can work just fine if they price them right. $1/month is reasonable for a useful utility app, $5/month may be a bit much. Both payment models have their advantages and developers will choose the model that works best for their business. Different businesses have different plans for future growth.
I'll need a subscription to CC, Fusion360, sketchbook pro, ProCreate, Astropad, my web hosting, file transfer etc, etc, etc. this crap adds up. Quick. As another poster pointed out, I don't see how this is going to be a viable strategy long term.
Exactly my thoughts about software and entertainment You could have written on a different topic...
I'll need a subscription to NetFlix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Spotify, Apple music, Disney, Broadband etc, etc, etc. this crap adds up.
How many $4.99, $5.99, $9.99, $19.99 or even $179 (Altova Mission Kit (I was a software developer)) can your income justify?
We don't have bottomless wallets. We are being squeezed for cash on many fronts yet still more and more products are going to the monthly sucking of money from your bank model. Something has to break somewhere. For me, I subscribe to CC and my Broadband/phone and that's it. Even there, I've cut my BB speeds and saved $90/year. YMMV
And my income isn't moving up as fast as I was led to believe it would as a college student. How about you?
Thank god my town has about the fastest fiber in the country and I don't have to haggle with Comcast every 6-12mo to get my bill back to a reasonable rate. Oh and also T-Mobile. My head almost explodes when I hear how much some of my friends are paying on sprint & Verizon. Yeah I'm still rocking CS5 at home, but I know I'll have to cave to CC at some point. if Astropad starts forcing users into a subscription I'll be pretty pissed.
I understand subscription model as a continuous flow of cash for the developers.
Previously, Ulyses cost: for Mac $44.99, for iPhone and iPad $24.99.
Now it cost $39.99 if you pay year upfront.
That means that the non-subscription price is worth for 11 months of the new deal.
In other words, what was eternal becomes yearly!
OK, take into account that iOS changes every year and the software can work for 3 years (or the device you are using lives that time).
Then, the developer is doing a 300% increase in price.
That's what bothers me.
Taking again the non-sub-price of $44.99 divided by 3 years and 12 months will give $1.25-
Monthly subscription is $4.99 so 4.99/1.25=3.99… 400%
Of course I like a 300/400% increase in my revenues!
But I still think this is unfair.
As a creative, and wanting to go indie some day, this is troubling. These subscription based plans are taking over the creative software industry. Eventually only the big shots are going to be able to afford all these subscriptions. I'll need a subscription to CC, Fusion360, sketchbook pro, ProCreate, Astropad, my web hosting, file transfer etc, etc, etc. this crap adds up. Quick. As another poster pointed out, I don't see how this is going to be a viable strategy long term.
I have never been a fan os subscription model, but your use case might actually benefit from it IMO. How much will you have to pay upfront for all those software before you can even start creating and earning money, if subscription is not an option?
You buy it here & there as you go. You build. You get a job. You make do with what you've got. You take that money & invest it in hardware and/or software that will help you make more money faster. It's a one time purchase which will work pretty much indefinitely. I've been a creative professional for over a decade and I've bought quite a bit of hardware & software. I know how these things work. Like I said, once you're a hotshot & can charge 10 or 20K for a project, these subscriptions become less of a factor. For smaller fish, a few months of these subscription withdrawals from the old bank account and a little dry spell of clients can start to get a little dicey.
I guess you can always go monthly, then cancel, then start back up when you get another job. However, besides it being more expensive and time consuming, as a creative it's always nice to have all your tools available to you to work on side projects that you're not necessarily getting paid for, but keeps you fresh and might turn into something later. Subscriptions kinda ruin that flow. Subscriptions are just a shitty deal for creatives.
$1/month is reasonable for a useful utility app, $5/month may be a bit much. Both payment models have their advantages and developers will choose the model that works best for their business. Different businesses have different plans for future growth.
Thoughtful post. I get these guys are just trying to make it like the rest of us. I guess the market will eventually decide. All I know is right now I can't afford a dozen subscriptions just for my freelance software on top of all my other bills! I'm just getting slightly worried that soon everything is going to be a subscription I can't afford before I can make enough cash on my own & I'll be stuck working for corporate douchenozzles forever!
It doesn't take 12 people to make a markdown app. They better have 2 or 3 more new apps coming if they have this headcount.
When a developer tells me that they can't sustain an app that's already complete and functional it tells me their contract work is either too heavy or too light.
On one hand you have teams like the Devon Think guys that I'm patiently awaiting DT Pro Office 3 so that I can give them money. Panic took 7 years to ask for more money for Transmit.
Sustainability has to come from as many avenues as necessary. I hope The Soulmen continue to evolve the product and add new apps for additional revenue. To survive as an indie you have to be ruthlessly efficient
It doesn't take 12 people to make a markdown app. They better have 2 or 3 more new apps coming if they have this headcount.
When a developer tells me that they can't sustain an app that's already complete and functional it tells me their contract work is either too heavy or too light.
The Ulysses team and the Scrivener team are described here:
The code in that app is about 40k lines of code with the core functionality around 10-20k. A single developer could build that in 2 years. That's pretty much the case with Scrivener, it started as a one-man operation and went on sale within 2.5 years. The main guy is the only Mac coder and the other 2 developers port to Windows. They have a few freelancers on top for support and sales.
Ulysses has a designer and 6 developers plus 4 customer support/marketing and a creative director. There's more than just the basic markdown support, there are all the formats and APIs to integrate with, all those features can easily make the scale of the project multiple times larger and there's turnaround time to consider:
There will be differences in the salaries each company pays their staff, the Scrivener team work from home all over the world. There's an article about the development of the iOS version here:
They outsourced the development of the iOS version multiple times and the main guy ended up doing it himself and it took years. That's the main downside to such small teams - big changes take so long because there's only so much individuals can do in a given timeframe.
Both apps are at a mature stage of development so the upfront model might be able to support both teams but it depends on the number of users. Scrivener reported 500,000 users last year (including their cheaper mind map app) and the company has millions in assets. If Ulysses didn't attract enough users, their revenue might not cover their larger operation long-term. They could get rid of most of their staff and just go into maintenance mode but it's up to them what route they want to go and it's up to customers to decide if they want to support that.
Customers usually don't consider the size of the operation behind the scenes. The same thing happens with Adobe vs Serif (Affinity). Adobe has 15,000 employees, Serif has ~230. A smaller operation has lower costs but they can only handle smaller scale projects in a given timeframe. A one-man operation means the software will cease development when they do. The Scrivener and Ulysses companies might be better off working together. Scrivener's userbase along with the Ulysses team would allow them both survive easily on a $10/year subscription.
It doesn't take 12 people to make a markdown app. They better have 2 or 3 more new apps coming if they have this headcount.
When a developer tells me that they can't sustain an app that's already complete and functional it tells me their contract work is either too heavy or too light.
The Ulysses team and the Scrivener team are described here:
The code in that app is about 40k lines of code with the core functionality around 10-20k. A single developer could build that in 2 years. That's pretty much the case with Scrivener, it started as a one-man operation and went on sale within 2.5 years. The main guy is the only Mac coder and the other 2 developers port to Windows. They have a few freelancers on top for support and sales.
Ulysses has a designer and 6 developers plus 4 customer support/marketing and a creative director. There's more than just the basic markdown support, there are all the formats and APIs to integrate with, all those features can easily make the scale of the project multiple times larger and there's turnaround time to consider:
There will be differences in the salaries each company pays their staff, the Scrivener team work from home all over the world. There's an article about the development of the iOS version here:
They outsourced the development of the iOS version multiple times and the main guy ended up doing it himself and it took years. That's the main downside to such small teams - big changes take so long because there's only so much individuals can do in a given timeframe.
Both apps are at a mature stage of development so the upfront model might be able to support both teams but it depends on the number of users. Scrivener reported 500,000 users last year (including their cheaper mind map app) and the company has millions in assets. If Ulysses didn't attract enough users, their revenue might not cover their larger operation long-term. They could get rid of most of their staff and just go into maintenance mode but it's up to them what route they want to go and it's up to customers to decide if they want to support that.
Customers usually don't consider the size of the operation behind the scenes. The same thing happens with Adobe vs Serif (Affinity). Adobe has 15,000 employees, Serif has ~230. A smaller operation has lower costs but they can only handle smaller scale projects in a given timeframe. A one-man operation means the software will cease development when they do. The Scrivener and Ulysses companies might be better off working together. Scrivener's userbase along with the Ulysses team would allow them both survive easily on a $10/year subscription.
If you're going by code count or features then $70/year for Office 365 Personal makes $40/year for a single markdown app seem excessive.
A staff of 6 devs also seems excessive for even a "fully featured" markdown app.
Pixelmator, with 2 devs in 2007, had a 9 month gestation. In 2011 they had a staff of 4 but a revenue stream to match. I don't know how big they are now but the product was great when I bought it and even better years later. When their new app comes out I'm buying it, whatever the hell it is. Unless its a subscription based app...which I generally don't mind too much if it's something I'm going to use daily it's not worth paying every day for if I'm not.
The biggest thing here is that they screwed their current customers...who are pissed enough to give them enough 1 star reviews to make them 3 stars over the change and go somewhere else. Good Luck after you do something like that.
Comments
Complete rip off and I may complain to Apple over this as I believe this is not fair treatment of customers to remove all functionality. I call it blackmail.
Exported all my Ulysses content as .md docs today into iCloud folders.
Installed MacDown (free)
Deleted Ulysses
One star review.
Now what's next?
You buy an app, it gets updates for x number of months when that time expires you can continue to use the app, but do not get updates. If you want up dates for another x number of months you pay a fee
This allows users to keep an app and not have to pay for updates if they do not want them
As for Ulysses. I like it but there are indeed more options out there. I'll probably upgrade to Scrivener 3 when it comes out for writing. For Markdown i'm going to likely use the next major version of BBEdit and perhaps Brett Terpstra's Marked which I love for previews. I'm also a fan if IA Writer.
I'll pay a sub if you're very unique but if there are too many good options that don't come with subs that's where i'm headed. I may pay for Day One because it's 2 bucks a month and they keep it updated. I'm not sure yet.
I'm guessing you've replaced Illustrator with Affinity Designer?
https://medium.com/building-ulysses/why-were-switching-ulysses-to-subscription-47f80b07a9cd
It was done in order to sustain the company long-term and focus their development better. Businesses have ongoing costs: rent, employees, services and a single lifetime payment eventually runs out. This is affecting multiple creative industries including music, games and video content. Video is subscription with Netflix, Hulu etc, which helps them compete with the cable companies who make money on selling the connection service. The high revenue games are mostly online (Overwatch, League of Legends) with subscription or microtransactions or mobile with IAPs (Candy Crush - still making $1.5b after 5 years). Music is going subscription based. People can listen to music for a lifetime and $0.99 for life is too little.
As the article explains, the problem with software is partly to do with the change in how it is delivered and the new expectations that come with it. People don't expect to have to pay for a digital update. When software was shipped as a product, people expected to pay again because it was another complete product. When developers like Parallels try to charge again for every major digital update, it goes against expectations, especially when there's no major features added.
There's the issue of multi-platform licenses, with a unified subscription developers can activate every copy.
They mention student discounts. If they sold a product to a student, there's nothing stopping them using the student version forever. A subscription can change once they stop being a student.
Ulysses have at least 12 members of staff so they will likely have over $400k costs every year with office rates etc. After a point release, if they sold 100,000 copies at $30 average, they'd have $3m revenue minus 45% tax in Germany = $1.65m. That gives them just over 4 years of operating costs. If they don't get new users paying or existing ones paying again, the company has to shut down. This has been happening with creative companies all over the world, it nearly bankrupted Avid who are now pushing subscription and upgrade plans.
Depending on the number of users they get, Ulysses may be able to get away with lower subscriptions. If they got 100k subscribers at $5/month, they'd make ~$3m profit after tax every year. With that many users, they could go down to $1/month and still be able to maintain the company with a healthy profit. They need to start higher to see how many users they can get though. One of their competitors Scrivener sold 200,000 copies in 7 years at ~$25-45 (development history here - https://medium.com/@timetolose/my-interview-with-keith-blount-a49c7764f26f ). They have under 10 staff, some revenue figures are here:
https://www.endole.co.uk/company/06240207/literature-and-latte-ltd
https://www.duedil.com/company/gb/06240207/literature-and-latte-ltd
That says they have assets of £3.8m. They have managed to keep taking on new users and grow their cash assets. The team is small enough and they have enough assets that even if the new users stop coming, they can still last a while. They use the paid upgrade model so they make a major release and charge again and charge separately per platform.
A company makes roughly the same if they charge $1/month or $25 upfront in the first 2 years but $1 to start using the software is easier to get from a user than $25, especially on mobile. Subscriptions to software can work just fine if they price them right. $1/month is reasonable for a useful utility app, $5/month may be a bit much. Both payment models have their advantages and developers will choose the model that works best for their business. Different businesses have different plans for future growth.
Thank god my town has about the fastest fiber in the country and I don't have to haggle with Comcast every 6-12mo to get my bill back to a reasonable rate. Oh and also T-Mobile. My head almost explodes when I hear how much some of my friends are paying on sprint & Verizon. Yeah I'm still rocking CS5 at home, but I know I'll have to cave to CC at some point. if Astropad starts forcing users into a subscription I'll be pretty pissed.
I guess you can always go monthly, then cancel, then start back up when you get another job. However, besides it being more expensive and time consuming, as a creative it's always nice to have all your tools available to you to work on side projects that you're not necessarily getting paid for, but keeps you fresh and might turn into something later. Subscriptions kinda ruin that flow. Subscriptions are just a shitty deal for creatives.
Thoughtful post. I get these guys are just trying to make it like the rest of us. I guess the market will eventually decide. All I know is right now I can't afford a dozen subscriptions just for my freelance software on top of all my other bills! I'm just getting slightly worried that soon everything is going to be a subscription I can't afford before I can make enough cash on my own & I'll be stuck working for corporate douchenozzles forever!
When a developer tells me that they can't sustain an app that's already complete and functional it tells me their contract work is either
too heavy or too light.
On one hand you have teams like the Devon Think guys that I'm patiently awaiting DT Pro Office 3 so that I can give them money. Panic
took 7 years to ask for more money for Transmit.
Sustainability has to come from as many avenues as necessary. I hope The Soulmen continue to evolve the product and add new apps for
additional revenue. To survive as an indie you have to be ruthlessly efficient
https://www.ulyssesapp.com/team/
https://www.literatureandlatte.com/about.php
There's an open source markdown app here:
https://github.com/jonschlinkert/remarkable
https://github.com/jonschlinkert/remarkable/blob/master/dist/remarkable.js
https://github.com/jonschlinkert/remarkable/graphs/contributors (3 developers handled most of the project)
The code in that app is about 40k lines of code with the core functionality around 10-20k. A single developer could build that in 2 years. That's pretty much the case with Scrivener, it started as a one-man operation and went on sale within 2.5 years. The main guy is the only Mac coder and the other 2 developers port to Windows. They have a few freelancers on top for support and sales.
Ulysses has a designer and 6 developers plus 4 customer support/marketing and a creative director. There's more than just the basic markdown support, there are all the formats and APIs to integrate with, all those features can easily make the scale of the project multiple times larger and there's turnaround time to consider:
https://www.ulyssesapp.com/features/table
https://www.ulyssesapp.com/features/
There will be differences in the salaries each company pays their staff, the Scrivener team work from home all over the world. There's an article about the development of the iOS version here:
http://www.macnn.com/articles/16/01/28/the.history.and.the.future.of.software.including.the.much.awaited.ios.scrivener.132221/
They outsourced the development of the iOS version multiple times and the main guy ended up doing it himself and it took years. That's the main downside to such small teams - big changes take so long because there's only so much individuals can do in a given timeframe.
Both apps are at a mature stage of development so the upfront model might be able to support both teams but it depends on the number of users. Scrivener reported 500,000 users last year (including their cheaper mind map app) and the company has millions in assets. If Ulysses didn't attract enough users, their revenue might not cover their larger operation long-term. They could get rid of most of their staff and just go into maintenance mode but it's up to them what route they want to go and it's up to customers to decide if they want to support that.
Customers usually don't consider the size of the operation behind the scenes. The same thing happens with Adobe vs Serif (Affinity). Adobe has 15,000 employees, Serif has ~230. A smaller operation has lower costs but they can only handle smaller scale projects in a given timeframe. A one-man operation means the software will cease development when they do. The Scrivener and Ulysses companies might be better off working together. Scrivener's userbase along with the Ulysses team would allow them both survive easily on a $10/year subscription.
A staff of 6 devs also seems excessive for even a "fully featured" markdown app.
Pixelmator, with 2 devs in 2007, had a 9 month gestation. In 2011 they had a staff of 4 but a revenue stream to match. I don't know how big they are now but the product was great when I bought it and even better years later. When their new app comes out I'm buying it, whatever the hell it is. Unless its a subscription based app...which I generally don't mind too much if it's something I'm going to use daily it's not worth paying every day for if I'm not.
The biggest thing here is that they screwed their current customers...who are pissed enough to give them enough 1 star reviews to make them 3 stars over the change and go somewhere else. Good Luck after you do something like that.