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MobileChat 3.1 Update Released!
- Thread starter TheSpaz
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I have to say I'm surprised by the number of people that have purchased Beejive. 16 bucks for an instant message application, are you kidding me?!?
That's just crazy.
That's just crazy.
I have to say I'm surprised by the number of people that have purchased Beejive. 16 bucks for an instant message application, are you kidding me?!?
That's just crazy.
I'm surprised people would pay more than a nickle still for MC since it doesn't work at all.
How much do you pay for SMS per month? When you think about it that way it doesn't seem so expensive anymore. Beejive is a one time fee that seems expensive because most other apps are so cheap.
Why are so many people trying to justify price gauging in the app store? Beejive seems expensive because it IS expensive. I mean, seriously. The instant messaging protocols it interfaces with are FREE services. Sure it adds a few bells and whistles here and there, but NOT $16 worth. There are high quality games that are much more complex than Beejive that are well under its price.
You can try to compare it to whatever you want, but the bottom line is, it's overpriced at its current price point.
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I couldn't disagree with you more and it's obvious you don't know what you are talking about.
elbirth said:
I couldn't disagree with you more and it's obvious you don't know what you are talking about.
I'll take a stab at refuting this one...
Firstly the development effort required to write the server side code to interface with all the IM protocols that Beejive supports is quite substantial especially when you have to write software that is going to scale to thousands of concurrent users.
Then there is the development effort to develop the Beejive iPhone application that interfaces with Beejive's servers, which you can't discount as most Beejive users say it is by far the most polished iPhone application they have!
Then there is the cost of the server infrastructure to handle connections from thousands of users concurrently 24/7 and good quality server hosting is rather expensive, just go take a look at Rackspace.com and you will see what I mean, Beejive's servers aren't exactly going to work on a shared Dreamhost account or the like!
Then there is the ongoing cost of support and maintenance, there is at least two staff that are very active in their support forum and there is most likely a separate development team as well.
So tell me again why isn't it worth $16?
Remember MobileChat lost most of it's business and I'm sure all but the most hardcore fans have moved on to greener pastures so there is no telling how their servers will react if users somehow flock back to them.
Honestly, even if tons of people came on here and said "MobileChat works perfectly now!," I would still not use it. The developers left such a bad impression, and I just don't trust them or their app to work in the long term. Plus, I just don't think anything of theirs should ever be supported, after such a horrible launch, and their subsequent poor attitude, unprofessional responses, attempted "fixes" that never worked, lies about not being able to put a warning on their app page for so long while letting unsuspecting customers continue to buy their app when they knew it didn't work, and everything else....
There's so many things they could have done differently that would change my attitude about them, but for the most part they did way too much wrong. I can't in good conscience ever use their app. I would much rather continue using Palringo, or eventually getting Beejive some day.
There's so many things they could have done differently that would change my attitude about them, but for the most part they did way too much wrong. I can't in good conscience ever use their app. I would much rather continue using Palringo, or eventually getting Beejive some day.
I pay $14.00 a day to park my car, about $10.00 a day for breakfast and lunch, $50.00 a week for gas (if I'm lucky) & who knows how much a day on diapers for my kids.
A one time fee of $16.00 is not expensive when it provides the convenience and ease of use that the app does. I have it opened for half of my day Monday-Friday. Its worth every penny.
One of those bells and whistles (having their own server) probably cost them hundreds of dollars a month.
You try running a server that not only supports the iPhone/iPod touch BeeJive application users but also supports the free web app users,when your application is free or $2.99.
And that's why MobileChat got a bad rep in the first place. Their server funding was a lot cheaper than BeeJive's and evidently crashed when it first came out in App Store.
If you simply want an interface, then by all means get IM+. No extra features...they don't even have a server of their own (which is why you can't send SMS).
The real worth of BeeJive comes from the fact that I can tap the home button and know that whatever messages I receive will come instantly in my Mail application. Even Palringo can't compete (in terms of what I'm looking for) since one hour isn't long enough.
Of course once MobileChat goes back up I'm gonna be upset since I like it better (icon, app name on home screen, looks, etc.).
I just tried MobileChat and MSN works perfectly now. Even the buddy list is extremely accurate now! It never worked for me, except for two very rare occasions.
Oh well, I've moved on to Beejive and I'm extremely happy with them. Don't think my default IM app will ever be MobileChat unless they blow all of the competition away with great updates.
Too bad Apple never replied to my refund request. Has been about a month now
Oh well, I've moved on to Beejive and I'm extremely happy with them. Don't think my default IM app will ever be MobileChat unless they blow all of the competition away with great updates.
Too bad Apple never replied to my refund request. Has been about a month now
Hah, MSN finally working for me. Too bad I already purchased beejive. Even mobilechat push email notifications seem to be working. Aside for some weird stuff going on with the GUI , MC is OK now and usable (at least after a few minutes of usage...).
Hopefully beejive will update their app and become more competitive...
Hopefully beejive will update their app and become more competitive...
Yeah, right now it's a horrible product. I think they're going to make a come back within this next month. I hope I'm right.... But yeah, I can't trust the developers. They've lied time and time again. Seems like they're getting their act together though and are actually making things work now. I'm sure it'll be a great product for people that don't want to buy the expensive beejive app. It does pretty much the same thing (or should at least) for a fraction of the price of beejive.
So yeah, I'm confident that in the next few months it'll be reliable, or so I hope for the developers.
Ok, you do have a good point about the monthly server cost that they're encountering in order to provide the extra functionality, and if their support staff is as good as you say, then sure, they deserve to be compensated. However, the argument about development time is still irrelevant, since every single app in the app store (except maybe a few of the incredibly stupid ones that don't really do anything or have much point) require time for development and they are offering their software at much lower prices. Sure, it's complex code... but I'm quite certain that so is the code for a lot of the more complex puzzle games and the like.
So I can more easily see the high price when it comes down to them having to pay for the server, but not at all in terms of the actual development. Even still, they could lower the price and offer a donation button on their homepage and the people like yourselves that see $16 as a bargain would very likely happily give them more than $16 and they'd come out even better.
And as for this...
That's again, totally irrelevant. If you rely on IM this much in your every day life, then you've already got something else that you use for it, so this is not a necessity. Instant Messaging is far from the same thing as things that are *actually* required in one's daily life such as gas for your car, food, and other stuff.
So just how much code have you written in your life? Have you coded a game or an IM client with server architecture? You seem to have no idea what is involved with writing scalable code to handle the kind of load Beejive's servers must be under!
Your argument about it should be cheaper because other apps are cheaper just doesn't fly, just like the comparisons to other costs in life people have been quoting, it is like comparing apples to oranges!
The thing is the majority of the software on the app store are either developed by hobbyists so it is something they do for fun and any income they earn is a bonus or are developed by large corporations who can afford to price their application lower, plus for the most part the larger corporations just port their existing games over. The minority seems to be the smaller development houses and if you look at the pricing of apps from the likes of The Omni Group, Cultured Code & Appigo then you start seeing apps priced based upon the effort expended by them and what they need to make a profit as a company.