Locale is $10??!

[messenger13]

I think he's wondering where you pulled the 10%/50% user base figures from. Common sense is one thing, but that's a pretty specific claim to just come up with out of the blue.

It's a proven fact that, 63.786% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

 

[UncleMike]

Well think about it. Locale was said to be one of the amazing apps that could never work on the iPhone because of all the access to the phone it requires. It was basically one of the flagship apps to show off just what android can do. To go, without any prior provocation, and start charging a very high price for an app, is obscene. And the numbers aren't completely out of the blue. They are based off the fact that the original free app has 50,000 - 250,000 downloads, while the $10 app has less than 500. I will err on the side of caution, and guess that the Original app has somewhere close to 100k downloads, and that IS thousands of times more than however many people will ever pay $10 for the app.

My math may be rusty (it's not), but if the paid app has 100-500 downloads already, and the free app has 100,000 (as you say), then enough copies of the paid app have been sold that it has already exceeded the point where 100,000 is "thousands of times more".

So, maybe when you're done teaching Marketing 101 (or 50), you may want to consider attending Math 101.

Seriously though, I believe your initial claim is correct in that more copies will sell at a lower price, and I also believe that $10 is not the "sweet spot" that will maximize revenue.

 

[AndroidConservative]

I do believe Locale to be a useless application. There is no reason anyone should be paying for it. It might be worth it if it were free, but the simple fact that anyone has to pay for it, even if it was just 99 cents, makes it not worth it, at least in my opinion.

 

[pavirotten]

I've had mixed experiences with Locale:

At school, where I have it based by location, it mutes my ringtone and other notifications when I arrive on campus perfectly. It fails though to set my phone back to the default until I've stepped off campus for at least 5 minutes. By that time, I can by half way home.

At work, where I have it based by time since I can be located deep inside the basement at any time in the day, the app trails the time set by approx 5 - 10 minutes in setting and removing the Situation. (Same problem for when I'm at home where I have the phone set to go silent between midnight and seven.)

 

[BSmith]

Well, they only have to sell 1 app @ $10 instead of like 12 @ $1 to make the same money. (They would get charged a fee for every app sold I assume, that makes it more than 10xs)

Then, they get to deal with 10 times the headaches from the consumer who is asking for help because they didn't read the directions. Or, let's pretend that @ $1 it sells a hundred thousand times. Just what they want, more headaches.

Me thinks those MIT guys are smarter than we think.

 

[PiggyGirl]

Coming from a Centro and PalmOS apps, $10 seems about average, if not cheap (I was averaging that with coupons/sales), but now, I've grown used to seeing $1-3 apps, and the higher cost of apps for WebOS helped stir me toward Android. I definitely don't mind paying for an app I really, really like and/or use regulalry, but I hope this isn't the start of a new pricing trend. I've been using Ringtone Scheduler but I was considering trying Locale, but I think I'll just stick with what I have.

 

[mrthundercleese]

Well, they only have to sell 1 app @ $10 instead of like 12 @ $1 to make the same money. (They would get charged a fee for every app sold I assume, that makes it more than 10xs)

Then, they get to deal with 10 times the headaches from the consumer who is asking for help because they didn't read the directions. Or, let's pretend that @ $1 it sells a hundred thousand times. Just what they want, more headaches.

Me thinks those MIT guys are smarter than we think.

Me thinks those MIT guys are money grubbing gold diggers . Unfortunatly for them, the people who pay $10 are the exact ones that will not read the manual. I give you this proposition because they obviusly didn't do their research before paying a massive amount for an app thats just frankly not worth that price.

Also, that is a terrible reason for charging more for a product. I can understand if you think your work is godly and want to charge a mint for it, but charging a high price to "avoid complaints" is just wrong.

 

[gizbug]

What a rip off.

 

[mykeh]

I am disappointed by this, I am a new android user and saw many upon many recommendations for Locale, when I searched it up in the market I was disheartened to see such a high price tag, I would much rather do it manually than spend $10

 

[rhyno]

The worst part may not even be that they are charging 10 bucks for the app. They are also charging for add ons.

 

[Hegemony]

Does anyone know if the final version actually works well on the Droid? I tried it a while back and it sort of sucked. I seem to recall it working better on the Hero. It's neat, but after my phone (despite having a work situation set up) magically turned its ringer back on and rang in the middle of a meeting, I uninstalled it.

 

[Carl C]

Sorry Dev but their is no way I would pay like $9.99 for locale

 

[gizbug]

Sorry Dev but their is no way I would pay like $9.99 for locale

Make sure you email him and let him know. I sent him an email, and he replied basically that its a shame....hinting towards more emails might bring price down.

 

[vincentp]

I suppose I could e-mail him too, but I doubt the price is going to change if that's his attitude. Actually, if that's his attitude, I don't want to support him at all. I'm just going to back up the free version I have now and keep using that forever. Screw greedy devs.

 

[Dabrador]

Get this...

I was reading some of the most recent comments in the Market for the beta version of Locale. Some are claiming that the last beta release purposely introduced bugs so that users would be forced to buy the app at $10!

I'm losing more and more confidence with this app and this developer...

 

[balk]

I like the concept of Locale a lot, but the price sets me off. So I emailed the dev and he replied that they are not going to change the price. The price 'is less than 3 pennies per day for a year' and the convenience is 'certainly worth 3 pennies per day'.

So I was suggested to buy it now and start enjoying it.

And that is what is not going to happen. Let's see if somebody starts an Open Source alternative... Or CS at lower cost.

 

[Dabrador]

I like the concept of Locale a lot, but the price sets me off. So I emailed the dev and he replied that they are not going to change the price. The price 'is less than 3 pennies per day for a year' and the convenience is 'certainly worth 3 pennies per day'.

And this is what's wrong with the developers of Locale...to try and justify a price that's clearly out of line with the cost of 99.9% of other apps is delusional.

I've removed Locale and went with Silent Time.

 

[gizbug]

I'm sure the DEV of Locale is losing sales. What a shame.

 

[milrtime83]

I'm sure the DEV of Locale is losing sales. What a shame.

Compared to the free price of the beta, you can't really say they are "losing sales" because any amount of sales is an increase in revenue.

 

[shawn1224]

Compared to the free price of the beta, you can't really say they are "losing sales" because any amount of sales is an increase in revenue.

Exactly, one sell alone is more revenue than parceling out free Beta versions. The initial release was to get the band wagon started and they were hoping on their customer base to fall in line when the final verdict was released. It may or may not pan out but even if they sale just a minimal number of subscriptions, it's still more money than just handing out freebies.

 

[rogue994]

I don't understand why they are charging so much. I mean $10 is nuts. There are apps that do 3x as much useful stuff that are just a few bucks or free. I don't mind paying for apps, i have accually purchased quite a few, but $10 for a app that works every now and then. Come on.

 

[hrbib21]

Compared to the free price of the beta, you can't really say they are "losing sales" because any amount of sales is an increase in revenue.

True. The reason they are losing sales is because Locale flat out doesn't work, which I found out thanks to their beta (can you say "shoot yourself in the foot"). That's why I'd never buy it, regardless of price.

 

[kennyidaho]

Hypothetically in my opinion I think $10 is the high mark for this app. I would pay that price but nothing more. I do think it's a little high when considering the other apps in the market.

At this point even considering the high price I think I would buy the app if it worked. Technically in my experience the app does work but just seems to be crippled by a lack of logic. I need situation with AND logic, I also need situations which need just OR logic. However with my last experience with the program the only logic was just AND. NOT operations would be nice but with a dev team who seems to be unwilling just to implement OR operations I am afraid that would be way to much to ask.

Real world example would be:

If it's between a certain time (or a specified calendar event) say 8:00AM - 12:00PM OR I am at WORK location then the ringer needs to be silent. For all the nerds who don't understand english the pseudopod code / logic for this would be (please correct me if I am wrong):

IF ( (TIME == Defined TIME) || (LOCATION == Defined LOCATION) )
THEN ringer = silent

This caused a few problems for me. AND operations are nice for certain things but it would be even nicer if I could check a box and pick OR. I am not familiar with Java or it's use of logic but I assume it's not vastly different then most languages notably C/C++. I also can't see adding this feature to be any more difficult then just a few extra lines of code for an IF statement to check if the box is check and then overloading a function for the OR operation.

 

[mihalich]

The location based switching of profiles never worked for me. I waited long passed the 10 minutes it said its update interval was (to save battery life). It never switched based on my location.

The app has been useful enough that I have just been switching profiles manually. I also use the missed call plugin to get the repeating alarms for things like text messages and missed calls.

If there was a reason to upgrade my version, I might pay $1 or $2 for this. No way I'm paying $10.

Joe

 

[g0tr00t]

I tried the BETA version and it would work while I was outside. As soon as I entered my building, the default kicked in and my phone would ring during meetings. The location setting didn't work that well. I would love to try the paid version, but no way am I going to shell out $10 to see what I saw in Beta.

IMO...