| ▲ | numpad0 2 days ago |
| Not that it's okay, but App Store/Play Store do the same. They don't refund for apps that have become unavailable. |
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| ▲ | c0wb0yc0d3r 2 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| This is different though, isn’t it? Amazon still exists. The whole platform is shutting down. Individual devs aren’t taking down their apps. |
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| ▲ | syntheticnature 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I had a Google Play app whose dev died. It was just a simple local app -- no network server usage. When I last upgraded my phone (due to imminent failure of the previous one) it refused to copy the app over -- and the app was no longer in the Play store. | | |
| ▲ | fencepost 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I still have the APK for one called "Backitude" and have kept migrating it for years since the disappearance of the developer. It's nothing special, just a location tracker that logs to a file every so often based on time and/or distance moved (could also ping a URL with encoded location info instead). Basically the underlying data for location history without relying on Google. Its notable feature years ago was that it would do location 'steals' - instead of just triggering a then-expensive location check, it would grab the most current available location info as triggered by some other application and only force an update if that information was too old. | |
| ▲ | genewitch a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | a more distant example is VLC on apple devices. I don't remember what happened anymore and any guesses would be speculation, but at one point on iphones you could not get VLC unless you had already gotten VLC. | |
| ▲ | kyleee 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | More evidence of the sad state of general purpose computing |
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| ▲ | numpad0 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | The Amazon store will remain open for Fire tablets if I'm reading right, and those are AOSP-based. So it's kind of similar. Again, not that I'm fine with it, but that I think it's technically not unprecedented. | | |
| ▲ | bbarnett 2 days ago | parent [-] | | It's not even remotely similar. The app store vanishes from your phone, with no recourse. Don't make excuses for Amazon, please. |
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| ▲ | Arnt 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| I thought most apps sell per-year subscriptions that then expire. Isn't that correct? |
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| ▲ | echoangle 2 days ago | parent [-] | | I don't know if it's "most" but there are (still) a lot of apps with one-time purchase. You never saw that in an Appstore? | | |
| ▲ | numpad0 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | THE top paid app in iOS App Store where I am (which isn't US nor EU) was an ad blocker built by one guy, for past two straight years. I think it's an unspoken open secret that App Store has been dead for a while, with apps that use App Store as mere payment processor e.g. freemium lootbox and subscription apps, notwithstanding. | |
| ▲ | Arnt 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | I bought quite a few around 2012, sure, but it tapered off. I don't think I've bought any apps as one-time purchases in the past five years, it's all yearly subscriptions now. All the ones I see on my main phone screen right now are subscription-based or free. What are some well-known apps sold as one-time purchases now? | | |
| ▲ | fencepost 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Looking in the Play Store at "Top Paid" seems like a bunch of one-time purchases listed. I think a lot of it may be a difference between Android and iOS - Apple software seems to have a lot more subscriptions, but that's just an anecdata 'feel'. | | |
| ▲ | Arnt a day ago | parent [-] | | My 100% subscriptions in the past years is on Android, actually. What I've heard is that one-time purchases lead to a lack of income after three years, when people expect upgrades. That's not a problem for app developers who don't plan to do any upgrades, of course. | | |
| ▲ | fencepost 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | I'm pretty sure that both Android and iOS stores continue to lack a good "paid upgrades" mechanism and it's been a developer complaint for well over a decade. I've used a few apps that came out with upgrades/rewrites and offered either a free upgrade (if the old version was still installed) or possibly a temporary discount, but there are just as many that simply get abandoned because it's not feasible to get a constant stream of new purchasers to remain viable. Notably I'll throw in a few things like PocketCasts, Nova Launcher, Gentle Alarm by Mobitobi, a variety of camera and gallery apps. Some of those shifted to subscriptions (PocketCasts after being sold twice), others just got shuttered. |
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| ▲ | genewitch a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | i dunno well known but Symfonium, a subsonic client for android is a one time purchase of $5 or so. Some games by decent developers are a single purchase, but i can't recall any offhand. Most games are freemium and there's a really bad discovery process, so i just don't play games on my phone. i'm not in the habit of buying apps anymore. I did drop a lot of money on the wolfram alpha iOS app when it first launched (it was over $50 at the time iirc, but to hedge i'll say "adjusted for inflation") |
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