In the last several months, there has been a number of highly promoted Mac application giveaways and such. There was My Dream App, MacHeist, MacAppADay, and the iClip 4 / Disco promotions. While most of these promotions have been run by different people, they all seem to have a common theme. They generated a ton of hype then disappeared, leaving followers of the events wondering what happened.
Let’s take My Dream App for example. The site began as a voting platform for your favorite future Mac shareware application. After the voting was over, My Dream App was supposed to stay active with constant updates on the development process. Well, guess what? That didn’t happen. Since the contest ended, we’ve only seen a few minor updates, and still no applications.
Then we have MacHeist, another promotion run by the My Dream App crew. The site was created to have participants solve mysteries in exchange for free applications. After the six heists were completed, a bundle would go on sale offering great software at a cheap price. Can you guess what went wrong? They only got to five heists instead of six, and promised that the sixth heist would run parallel with the bundle. Then they promised shortly after the bundle, then during Macworld, and now in the next few weeks. Don’t forget, there are still a number of participants who had transaction troubles and were promised an application in exchange. That still has yet to happen. Seems like the real heist is the way the creators are handling it.
Don’t forget about MacAppADay, a site which promised a free application everyday during the month of December. Remember what happened? The site never was able to offer an application everyday, and the grand finale was a flop. While the users technically never lost anything, the site still turned out to be a waste of time.
Finally, we can’t let two highly promoted application get away. iClip 4, which has been in development for over a year, still has not been released. To be fair, the application will be released on Monday, but that doesn’t make up for the months of broken promises.
Then we have Disco. Disco had promised a beta version before Christmas with the release of the final version before the end of the year. Then they promised the final version out sometime after New Year’s. Now they’re claiming it won’t be until February 11th. Kind of annoying considering people have payed for the application.
I don’t know about you, but with all these failures, I find it really hard to trust these promotions anymore. Sure, the hype always looks good, but when the dust settles the results aren’t. I just wish the people running these promotions would be more upfront with their audience. Let us know when things go wrong. Let us know when something takes longer than expected. We’re an understanding group, you just have to tell us what the problem is and we’ll settle down.
8 Comments
Before the Mac vs PC wars kick in, this is the business world. Look at Vista. When should of that been released? Delays happen, promises made, promised forgotten. Granted you did give quite a list of things forgotten. Paying for software is one thing, but the life of the product does also come hand-in-hand with the amount who bought it. If three people bought it, then it won’t be developed. Perhaps allowing others to join on the development team would be beneficial. Or at least a regularly updated blog of what the heck is actually happening!
I think it’s unfair to say that My Dream App failed, they have been quiet lately, but we all knew that there would be a lull while the apps were developed.
I do agree with Disco and iClip though. Secrecy is great if you can deliver things frequently, but after a while people get fed up and frustrated.
That argument doesn’t completely hold in this case. Look at My Dream App. The whole point of that was to create high-demand applications that people will pay for because they’re the ones who picked them. That has tons of potential to make the developers some nice dough, so why aren’t they pursuing it?
It seems more like MacHeist has played a part in all of this. The creators made out well. They’re probably set for the rest of this year now in terms of finances. Why do they need more money? Remember, the creator of iClip 4 has been a part of MacHeist. He’s been selling pre-orders like mad and has already made a good amount before he even releases the thing. Why hurry a release when you’re already rolling around in dough?
I guess what frustrates me is real money is at stake. People have bought things from these guys in hope that certain promises will be fulfilled. That hasn’t happen because the creators are happy on their end of the deal. They aren’t going to get anything more out of it, so they figure why even try.
Actually, they were supposed to be completely open during the development. Part of the fun was going to be seeing the applications development progress.
I have been really disappointed in the Shareware community as a whole. I have purchased so much software over the past few months, even with the good bargains, I have found that there is a ton of freeware or open source software to match or beat my bargains. Not to say that there isn’t some good shareware, but I have seen a ton of good freeware to match it.
So do you think this is a Mac problem or platform independent? Go to kde-apps.org and look at all of the abandonware there. The My Drea, App does seem like a great idea, and I do look forward for more news. I am hoping for the cookbook myself, but again there are so many websites out there for it with similar features. The syncing tool I really don’t have a need for. The weather tool seems neat but again, so are the websites out there.
Now I didn’t really examine each and everyone of the features, I’m sure they are all great, and I am sure if all three were released I probably would consider buying one or two of them. Though I would love to see it in another MacHeist!
I have been extremely disappointed with Mac shareware in general. I have found that there are some amazing apps, but a lot of programs that you spend 20$ on have a free alternate. Not to self promote, but I wrote an article earlier tonight about free alternates to Mac share wear: http://tech.zamwi.com
I will be sure to link to this article as well.
People only care when there’s something worth visiting for, in this case, it was free software.
Nobody cares now, and considering the enormous amounts of money a couple 14 year olds made off of this marketing gimmick, it’s a good thing.