37signals Draft for iPad: Simple sketching and sharing
37signals.com
37signals.com
Adobe Ideas is free. http://blogs.adobe.com/designandweb/2010/04/adobe_ideas.html
Take Apple display adapter dongles. Do I get a ton of use out of them? Do they make my MacBook better? Sure, but $30 is still a cruel fucking joke.
My wine key feels great in my hand, never breaks, and has given me loads of value and joy over the last decade but I would still be a fool to pay more than $5 for it.
I've carried a plastic Japanese fan in my bag for more than ten years that has saved my sweaty ass in many social circumstances, and is indispensable for my personal well-being between July and September; it's covered in ads and I got it for zero yen and I wouldn't have paid much more than that for it.
All that said, the correct price of a thing is whatever people will pay for it, and 37signals has certainly demonstrated an uncanny ability to find their market.
How often does your existing display adapter get updated with new features?
You think that because that's what the fine Apple iWork apps cost, but keep in mind that they normally sell that as a package, and now each application costs $9.99. So the total price for many people will actually be $29.97, 38% of the cost of the Mac OSX version.
Now that the "iFart" craze is over, expect to start seeing more specialized apps selling at higher prices. "Things" is already about $20 and they are a top grossing app.
Sounds cheap, but what is that in USD?
I'm generally neutral on 37signals, but I actually think the $10 price point is a great choice in this case. It's almost deliberately against the grain, which makes sense if you don't think the current pricing of apps is sustainable.
If all you want to do is what Draft offers, then the extra "features" of Ideas just get in the way. It's worthwhile for some people to pay $10 for a tool that works very well rather than make do with a free, but less-than-ideal alternative.
The two products are a great example of how one can profit by selling a product with fewer features.
The key is to understand the product from the user's point of view. Draft was meant to replace a sharpie and a paper notebook. Ideas is MS Paint for the iPhone. Although the two apps have an overlapping feature set, they don't present the same value to the user.
It has two more colors and you can change the marker size. Oh, and you can pinch-zoom, which really shouldn't need a user guide on the iPad. Some of the buttons on the drawing screen in Draft are on the documents screen in Ideas.
Ideas' simplicity rocks, and Draft looks good too, though I'm not in love with the white-on-black scheme.
One thing I would like to know: if 37 signals only makes apps they use to get their work done, and the only work they get done is to make their apps... have we discovered a perpetual motion machine?
One of the main features is that Draft is integrated with Campfire, which indicates that it's probably targeted at businesses and other organizations who pay to use Campfire. Does Ideas do that? If you're a Campfire user, that feature alone is probably worth $10.
furthermore, 37 signals always talks about selling your byproducts. If this is something they were using anyway, why not polish it up a bit and make a bit of money? And what would they gain by giving this away for free?
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/adobe-ideas-1-0-for-ipad/id36...
PS: It's _free_
Oh wait, the Trailer Park already has this functionality! http://73primenumbers.com/trailerpark.html
"There is hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price alone are that person's lawful prey." -- John Ruskin (found on a poster in my local Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop)
I don't understand why 37Signals would release such an application except for riding the iPad frenzy and testing the water.
Something I would have been impressed with is if they added the possibility to add user interactions in the draft. When I click on this drawn red button, it goes on the next screen, etc...
(Sometimes, 37Signals is a bit too extreme with Simplicity (Draft / TadaList))
That, btw, is the same motivation we've had to release every single piece of software we've ever done.
Also, tadalist is the #1 google result for "todo list". It's an incredibly loved product that has a huge user base. For tons of people that's exactly what they need. Just like Draft was exactly what we needed.
Free markets are pretty efficient, and pricing anamolies have a tough time persisting. DHH and crew are not perpetrating a crime on society with this price. They are not withholding a public good which cannot be obtained from anyone but them. They built something, and want to try and sell it for a price they set to customers they hope to win. Welcome to capitalism.
The point is - and this is especially true with software these days - there's always an option priced above free which causes someone to say "really?" But if you derive value from it, then you will pay. If not, you won't.
There's likely better ways to spend our IQ units than hating on the price of an app.
I don't have an iPad, but I would buy it. Though, for $9.99 I wonder how many people would still purchase this app if it wasn't by 37signals.
And they'll sell a bunch at $10 anyways.