One of the issues that occurred to me as far as the MacHeist debate is concerned is the issue of new paradigms.

As a developer, if you are asking users to embrace a totally new working paradigm it is possible that you will have to give away a lot of licenses, and maybe sell a lot of them cheap to convince people that your product has validity. I’m thinking about apps like Ulysses, Z-Write, Scrivener, iGTD, and others that really introduce new paradigms. Now I am a writer, so I am mentioning word processors, but any other kinds of apps are probably echoed as well. It also may very much help a startup generate some revenue at the very beginning of the product life.

I do agree that anyone with an established product is probably shooting themselves in the foot.

Thanx,

Ross Winn rpg.net columnist & freelance geek

As a fairly recent Mac-switcher (May/June of 2006) I never would have heard of and certainly never would have paid full price for most of the applications included in this bundle. However, as a 100%, completely content purchaser of this bundle I can say that I am surprised by how many of these apps have invaded my daily workflow.

Awaken gets me up (on time) each day. CoverSutra has changed how I listen to my iTunes. Snapz X Pro is an awesome tool that I’ve been using almost every day. AppZapper is a godsend. I intitially bought this package for CSSEdit and Pixelmator, but I use them much less than the aforementioned.

Will I continue to buy from MacHeist, MUPromo, MacZOT, etc? Yes! But, I will also pay for future upgrades, check out additional products from these developers and potentially buy them as well.

On a final note, I’m still using Tiger. After I bought the bundle I found that the bundle version of CoverSutra was Leopard only. I thought I’d risk shooting an email off to the dev to see if they could provide me with a Tiger serial. I was prepared for either a) no response, or b) a polite refusal stating that I had gotten what I paid for and if I wanted this version I’d have to upgrade. Imagine my surprise when less than an hour later I have an email from the dev providing me with the serial! You can’t get that kind of service from anyone in the Windows world. Color me satisfied.

As a developer in the bundle this year I can say that the experience has been priceless. The huge increase in customer interaction is very valuable and I love it. Since Awaken 4.0 was launched on MacHeist we’ve done 7 updates to Awaken to include feature requests from customers.

I don’t see customer interaction as lost profits… That’s as bare bones as you can get (bad pun - sorry - it’s very early here).

I have to say that all of the interaction I’ve had with people here on the MacHeist forums has been exceptional. The majority of which is within this 10 page thread: http://www.macheist.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=6670&p=10

Hopefully Phill and John will be on MacBreak Weekly next week to clear things up. It’s a shame that this misinformation was released on the last day of MacHeist.

Or, for that matter, actually become regular users of an application in a bundle? I bought the MacHeist II bundle and have only contacted one of the developers with a problem I was having (and received a quick, courteous and helpful reply). Only a small percentage of those who purchased bundles will contact developers for help.

Right now there have been 35,000 bundle sales. Rich’s suggestion that the moment one of the buyers contacts the developer for support it blows any money they made on that customer and beyond is absurd because he’s assuming all a good number of those 35,000 people contact the developer.

For every one person that contacts the developer for support there are 500-1000 who don’t. Even at a paltry $3.00 per bundle sold going to the developer, they are coming out ahead. They gain thousands of customers, word of mouth, exposure, name awareness, etc. The incredible support costs that Rich would have us believe is the bane of the MacHeist bundle is covered by the thousands of users who DON’T CONTACT support.

This doesn’t even take into consideration the number of users who buy the bundle and don’t use all the apps. The developer of that unused app got paid and will never have to offer support, ever.

MacHeist challenges the “way its always been done”… it has presented a new way of getting great software from great developers. And that scares a lot of people, especially those unwilling to embrace new things.

… even if you buy the apps at full price you are still supporting MacHeist and are supporting their “sophmoric hijinks”. Honestly, they did that and they were caught and it is over.

Even if they did do some immature and irresponsible things, that does not take away from the fact that these applications are priceless and well developed. I don’t think people should be kept from getting these great apps just because they feel they are supporting MacHeist in an unwanted way. Being a college student, getting apps for a large discount like this strongly curves my urge to pirate apps that are VERY expensive (yes i understand the moral/ethical/legal details that it involves), since affording to purchase all of these apps seperately would be much more difficult.

By purchasing apps from MacHeist, whether at full price or not, I feel I am supporting the time spent creating these applications, and would strongly take into consideration paying a firm price for upgrades/etc since the apps are so good. I feel that my financial support is to further development and upgrades for the future. Whether or not they make an immature decision or two along the way, that is for them to decide, but I do not feel I am directly supporting those immature decisions just because I decide to pay for software (and get a good deal if they offer it!)

These negative Mac Heist critiques are always made off of lack of imperial data with a lot of added assumptions. And when you assume you make a ass out of you and me!

A) Reporters & Programs must stop with this SF/Geek/Startup centric mindset. Most people have not normally heard of most of these programs, most people do not normally buy all these programs, the prices of many of these programs are very expensive when compared to a normal cost of living. Do not underestimate the value of getting your product know, getting a user base and product pricing.

B) The argument about the cost of supporting the product killing profits made from the Heist is flawed. Most companies support their product with no proof of purchase and support during the trial period. Companies are all ready spending time and money supporting unpurchased product. People can use support services if they buy a product or not and much of that support is going to be during the unpaid trial period when the customer first starts using the program.

C) Most people don’t use support or fix there own problems using FAQs or forums.

D) Most of the software in these bundles really will not get much use and some of it is just Mac eye candy that in really is fairly weak in real world useage cough Cha-Ching cough

E) Stop acting like all the items in the bundle are equal. I am sure they do not get paid equally so the argument that the customer is only feels like they are paying 2 dollars for your software is moot. We know we are getting a good deal on this software and that Wingnuts 2 is less valuable then VectorDesigner.

F) Software is over priced. How many small $20-$40 programs do software publishers think people need buy or will pay upgrade annually? We are not all like Leo Laport and can afford or want to to shell out $20-$40 for this weeks program de jure. Much of this stuff goes useless in less then a year or is replaced by something better or more useful.

Its like going into Target and buying 20-30 one use counter top devices that cost $20-$40 apiece then each year they break or demand a upgrade fee, in the mean time someone else also comes along and keeps making a better different version to compete with the company you just purchased from.

Some of these Mac software developers really sound like the RIAA. They overvalue their product, expect a life time of fees from the consumer, then complain when someone does something innovate or different. EX MacHeist, newsgator going free.

I was pleased and surprised to hear to talk about Unison. A funny coincidence is that I just said this morning to Benjamin Pierce (the lead developer) that I was seeing increased interest in Unison recently. Even though there are some rough edges, it’s a cornerstone of my synchronization strategy between my 3 macs (along with other programs such as SyncTogether). I’ve been tempted several times by .Mac but I feel that it’s still a bit too expensive.

If you feel it’s too much advertising, you can remove the following ;-) People interested in checking Unison out can go to its main page, I host binaries compiled for OS X on my Unison page.

For those who think MacHeist is a scam, is wrong, etc….there are (at this posting) about 36,500 people who disagree with you. Over $400,000 has been raised for some great charities. There is an excellent lead-in to the bundle by doing multiple “heists”, which are puzzles which we get together and collaborate on to come to a final solution, for which we get prizes in the form of loot (shareware apps) and discount coupons. In my instance, I did each mission and had $10 worth of discounts. Therefore, the bundle of apps worth right at $500 cost me $39. Only using 1 or 2 apps more than pays for it. If you add in the cost of the ‘loot’ we received, the value goes up to around $800…..unbelievable. That’s why so many people think there’s a catch. But there’s not. It’s to promote indie Mac shareware and support various charities. Plus, we have a heck of a lot of fun doing the heists.

The forums are fantastic.
The level of involvement of the developers, especially Jerry Brace with Awaken, has been tremendous. I assure you, he has a lifelong fan base because of his attentiveness to detail. People have ripped Cha-Ching a lot, but the new version 2.0 is being released soon, and I think it will convert a whole lot of skeptics. Juan with Cha-Ching has been quite involved with us as well. So have Sophia with CoverSutra and Dave with 1Password. There are others, but those stick in my head as being the most active on our message boards.

When I initially purchased the bundle, I thought there were 3 or 4 apps that I would use regularly. Surprisingly, I’m not using those as much, but using several of the others multiple times a day. Reading the forums shows I am not in the minority. I’ve found that I couldn’t make it without Awaken, 1Password, and Notebook (a referral app) — incidentally, those are not the apps I bought the bundle for.

Someone commented about these not being full versions. The apps in the bundle are full versions, and the devs told us at the launch party that we would have free upgrades thru the next major verions (and we even got exclusive access to some releases). The apps that are not full versions are the ones that were in the loot (rewards for solving the puzzles). Regarding the two referral apps…I’m not sure about LaunchBar, but Notebook will be a paid ($19.95) upgrade when they go to version 3.0. However, that’s still a heck of a lot better than $69.95!

Do I have any regrets about MacHeist? No

Will I buy the bundle again? In a heartbeat

By the way, Rich talks about the marketing of MH, and about how juvenile the heists are. First, marketing people just WISH they could sell over 36,000 units of their product in this time frame. Second, to Rich: you can say the heists are juvenile, but we call them extremely creative, and I would challenge you to try to do any of the heists on your own and see how far you get…then call it juvenile.

Hopefully, the MH guys, Phill and John, and maybe one of the devs like Jerry Brace, will be able to come on to the show to share their side of the story.

I purchased this year’s MacHeist bundle after last year watching from afar wondering why there was no such opportunity for Windows apps. Now, as a Mac user, I am very happy with the value and quality of apps I purchased through MacHeist. As a relatively new user who had heard of many of the apps and tried out several, it was almost a no brainer.

I have to admit, one of the aps in the bundle I had been using but had not yet paid for— I’m not proud of it, but now I have that app on the up-and-up and I think for many people this is a system by which they can legitimately own software that they wouldn’t normally purchase. I also think you’ll be surprised at how many will go ahead and purchase the upgrade whenever the time comes. You get used to using an app and it becomes part of your workflow, then you’re going to want to pony up and get a new version with more features.

That being said, the Malcor fiasco gave MacHeist a black eye. I think there has been some confusion in the comments- no one is pointing a accusatory finger at the puzzles and games during the heist, but instead lifting an altogether different finger in response to the fake hacking and news that came out before from sites like Macapper. That caused problems with hosting companies and their customers and that kind of marketing, effective as it may have been, was not cool.

You have a great deal, you’re helping charities, and you’re helping developers— yell it from the proverbial rooftop, but don’t stoop to the level of something akin to mooning a car full of kids.

I also agree that the MacBreak 74 was a good session. In fact, I honestly have not enjoyed MacBreak for a long long time now. It had really descended into a lot of whining about endless dissatisfaction with one aspect or another of the iPhone, or AppleTV or Leopard etc. I have been downloading the podcast in hopes that you (the MacBreak team) could bring it back from the precipice. Well, happily, you did it this time. Finally you all glommed onto the inexorable, integrated strategy that continues to roll out, piece by piece, release by release. I’m sure that you all were onto this before in one way or another, but it has constantly surprised me that you’d continue to be sucked into focusing on red herrings like: no 3rd party applications on the iPhone, no email on iPod Touch etc. All of these logical things happen, in time. And it didn’t take the squealing of the legions of mac punditry to initiate it. But be that as it may, I enjoy episodes like 74, when you’re talking about the real vision with the patented MacBreak witty style.

It seems to me that Rich Siegel conflates a number of different issues when presenting his view of MacHeist. On the one hand, he appears to object to MacHeist on the grounds that it is a bad business move. On the other hand, he seems to imply that developers that include their programs in the bundle are in some way morally suspect because 1) they are indirectly supporting a morally/ethically suspect group of individuals, or 2)because they are undervaluing software generally which is adversely affecting the well-being of all developers.

1. If participation in MacHeist is a bad move from an economic standpoint then Siegel’s reluctance to judge the actions of the participants a bit disingenuous. Either it is empirically verifiable that selling software at a price less than the market will bear will ultimately damage the revenue of these companies or it won’t. Also, his argument that individuals that participate in a limited time offer to purchase a software bundle will come to expect that all software should be equally as inexpensive seems to be an insult to the intelligence of those purchasing the bundle. I’m fairly certain that most consumers of any product can recognize the difference between getting software cheaply and cheap software.

2. At times Siegel seemed to indicate that those that supported MacHeist were directly or indirectly supporting morally suspect individuals. I am not sure whether the actions of the MacHeist crew are or have been unethical in the way they promoted MacHeist, but this is a completely separate issue as to whether the bundling of the software is ethically questionable. As a number of individuals have pointed out, the developers were not coerced into participating in the promotions and they are being compensated for their product. While the empirical question remains as to whether this is a wise business move on their part, it is hard to argue that it is morally suspect.

3. Unless I am mistaken, Siegel and the other developers are engaged in an economic endeavor and not a non-profit cooperative. If MacHeist causes a market re-adjustment when it comes to software prices (something I don’t believe will happen), then it might be against the developer’s interests to participate, but they have done nothing morally questionable.

4. Finally, I think Siegel is mistaken when he says individuals that receive this bundle will not pay for upgrades, or will simply tap the resources of the developers. I think that in most instances those that buy the bundle are simply taking advantage of a great deal, and they would most likely have not bought the software at all. If they had really felt the need to purchase the software, then they would have already purchased it. I suspect that there are individuals like myself that agonize over every software purchase (including the $15-$20 applications). As someone previously noted, we can’t all afford (particularly poor college professors) to buy every interesting application like Leo and others may have the luxury of doing. I suspect that it is more likely to be the case that those that get an app that they wouldn’t normally have purchased at full-price, and suddenly find indispensable, are more likely to pay for the next upgrade (I suppose that I am subscribing to the ‘first dose is free’ approach to software marketing - an approach that resulted in my purchasing the non-beta version of OmniFocus).

Anyway, that’s my two cents on the matter.

By the way, 74 was a GREAT show.

Hey I love a deal! There are a lot of programs that I have paid for only to have them sit on my hard drive unused and forgotten. I never asked for my money back, but sure wish there was a way to try it for awhile. 15 days is seldom enough really understand a program.

MacHeist lets me try programs for a reasonable price. I know, its a deal, but it really is an opportunity to get a program in front of me, a consumer, and let me give it a real test drive.

I don’t expect to get, say Photoshop, in MacHeist. I did get two programs I was going to try. One will make it to my hard drive the other will not. But there are two others that show promise, so I hope to have a new program to try. If I like it, I am likely to be tempted to try the next offering from the developer or Company.

Hey, that’s marketing. Let people try something, if they like it they come back, if they don’t, hopefully, they recognize that the product they tried had value, and there is a positive event for everyone.

It’s really not about competing on price, its making your product known.

I’m just guessing, who is most upset with MacHeist, the big developers or the new or little developers who get a chance to showcase their work?

TheGreyhairgeek

Microsoft Commissioned a study to see how many professional photographers are using Mac over PC last year. The reason they did this was they were expanding the photo management of vista. What was funny is the number of Mac users was over 60%. I was taken back by that I was expecting maybe 20%.

The reason I mention this is I have been using Macs for years. I have used them mainly for photo and graphics editing. I recently became an independent contractor and decided I need a website and decent email system better than yahoo. So I look at different web solutions I look at one company called Live Books and they have real nice web solution for photographers but you are going to pay for it. You are looking at a $5000 set up and design fee.

I really did not have the time to start building my own site from scratch. I had iLife in my in Macs and started to pay with iWeb. I saw that I could now have a domain with .Mac so I decided to try it. I was impressed with in a day, I had my site up and running email going I could use my power book to make changes while was shooting on location. I ended up buying an iPhone and found it worked seamlessly with .Mac email. I started to use .Mac’s web gallery to show off work to clients while on location, then I start hitting the glass ceiling. .Mac does not track website stats, So I had to use a third party solution. I could not link animated gifs to a page. There iWeb is not set up for metatags. There were limitations on bandwith for uploading .Mac galleries or they would stop working for hours. .Mac support is weak at best.

I have been overall pleased with .Mac although I get some weird syncs with my iCal and Address Book. What I see is great potential for this stuff small business but it as if the Macs one button round hockey puck mouse mentality seems to creep in. I just get the sense Apple knows their is potential but has know idea which direction to go.

It was after listening to MacBreak 74, and the video interview with 1password that Merlin did. To be honest I found the idea that buying MacHeist was a mortal sin to be so stupid that I ignored it almost immediately. If I, a user and not a programmer, picks up this bundle you can not see this as anything more than a win-win scenario. Firstly, nobody buys MacHeist for all the applications offered, They buy it for one or two, and are exposed to the rest for the first time as a result. That is good for those developers, as it means a potential widening of their audience. For me, I wanted 1password, after seeing Merlin’s interview with one of it’s developers… I thought it would be worth it to me to check out Pixelmator and VextorDesigner… So, I bought the MacHeist bundle… I ended up not really finding Pixelmator or VectorDesigner that useful for me, but at least the designers got a couple of bucks from me for checking out their respective programs rather than the nothing dollars they would have gotten from me if I had only checked out a free demo. On the other hand, 1password has proven to be a really neat application for me, and I found Awaken to be a superior choice over Aurora, which I had been using earlier. My overall point I guess is that exposure for smaller developers is something of value. Now that value could be large or small according to the developer asked. If it’s too small, don’t get involved in the bundle. It’s just that simple… But don’t expect that you have the right to determine the value of participating in MacHeist for other software designers.