arlomedia

thekrew said:

So you released an app to Apple and the public with no price info in the description. You want Apple to distribute and advertise it for free and you expect your new customers to be okay with the cost being a surprise? Uh, no. That amounts to false advertising and I can’t say I’m terribly surprised that Apple have decided not to play. 

Apple's rules say that if developers don't use Apple's payment system, they are not allowed to provide any pricing info or a link to their website in the app description or the app itself. My app takes this approach and it subjects me to routine criticism about false advertising, bait and switch, etc. The pricing is clearly presented on my website, but if I put it in the app description, the app would be rejected. I wish users understood this so they would stop blaming the developers.

I have suggested solutions to Apple through their developer feedback tool -- for example, allow developers to hide an app from the store search so only established customers will install it -- but have never received a response.

Last I checked, Apple doesn't require charging the same amount for subscriptions purchased inside the app versus on the developer's own website. So if the cost is an issue, Basecamp could simply add 30% to the prices shown in the app.

For myself, it's not just the cost but the increased difficulty in implementing and especially supporting purchases that go through the app store. It's so much easier to support customers whose transactions go through my own system than Apple's completely opaque system. This also gives me flexibility to offer discounts, free accounts to VIPs, give someone a free month to make up for some problem they experienced, etc.

Since I use a case (like everyone I know), these minor external design tweaks are meaningless to me. I never used to use a case until I got an iPhone X, but that thing was so darn expensive and so slippery that I put it in an Otterbox and never looked back. With the full-screen design and the back and sides totally hidden, the software interface is now the only thing I see. The original conception of the iPhone touch screen making the device a blank slate really has come true.

jSnively said:

People who are upset about the scrolling -- are you mostly upset because of how it feels on desktop & ipad or do you also hate the behavior on phones? 

I don't like it on the phone, either. The "slide up" doesn't feel as noticeable, but the "fade in" basically affects a whole screen full of content at once and creates a lag time before it can be read. So instead of scroll/read/scroll/read, the workflow is scroll/wait/read/scroll/wait/read.

One thing that's better about the phone interface, in portrait orientation, is that I can see 5-6 article headlines at once. On the desktop, in the window size I typically use (around 1100x800), I can only see 2-3 article headlines at once. It seems like the design was optimized for a portrait oriented phone screen and simply scaled up, so it doesn't use the space on a landscape oriented desktop window very well.

Here's another vote against the article blocks "sliding" up as I scroll down the front page.

Also, the way the horizontal menu bar snaps together or splits apart when scrolling, making the page content jump up or down an inch or so, is really annoying. This has become common on websites, but what were they thinking? It's hard to read content when it jumps away from the spot where my eyes are looking, or jumps up behind the menu bar. In general, I'd rather just have the top menu scroll out of view when I scroll down, and I can return to the top of the page if needed. Keeping it visible at all times isn't worth the space it uses or the wonky content jumping effect it often creates.

And making everything larger just increases the need for scrolling, which in turn emphasizes these two problems.