App Update Ethics

[Hrhnick]

So this is something I'm not sure why I feel so passionately about.

Short Story: Revamping App and marketing it with no intention of future support.

Slightly Less Short Story: A popular independent App Store developer received an offer to work for the UX Team at Apple. Great, congrats, he/she deserved it. Due to the IP agreements with Apple, he/she can no longer produce outside work independent of Apple, i.e., anything produced going forward is owned by Apple. So at the last minute, with iOS 7, they update some icons to look fresh, do a little in app improvement and market it as this glorious update. That said, they announced on Twitter that they can't and will not update these apps anymore.

My view: If they know can't update the app any further, state that in the App's description or make it free, instead of suckering in people to buy an App with no future down the road.


Opinions? I kind of want to share that feedback with the developer but not come of nasty or whiny. Unless thats what I'm being ha.

 

[CylonGlitch]

I do agree with your points; if you are, for any reason, not going to be updating your application anymore, not offering support / bug fixes, the price should be $0.00. I know, you put time into developing it the first time; but people do assume some level of support when paying for something.

That being said, I have often worked with these "requirements" by companies. And very often, all you have to do is talk to them before signing on, and document the work that you've previously done. They can't claim rights to it and will often continue to let you work on it as long as it is not of conflict with your work at the company. Writing an app of iOS that tracks the location of your car, my be different enough than the app for the company you're hiring into. Just disclose the work up front and normally they will make an exception. Normally, but there are times where they won't, especially if there is a potential for crossover. Such as Apple may at one time want to integrate finding your car into their OS; thus they can't have you also developing an app to do the same thing.