If you’re fond of the Weather Timeline app and its material design and award-winning features, you’ll be glad that you’ve already installed it in your smartphone. But if you didn’t, you’re probably going to regret it now. That’s because the developer has pulled the app out of the Google Play Store, pointing out that “apps don’t last forever”. He cited several reasons why but basically it’s due to ongoing costs of API access and not enough new users purchasing the app to continually sustain it.
Since the app was launched back in 2014, the developer, Sam Ruston, has not increased its price of $1.49 and so users have been paying for it for “half the price of a cup of coffee”. And of course, Google takes 30% of that, so in the long run, this But of course over the years, downloads have slowed down but the cost of API access is still ongoing. It has come to the point where he just decided to unpublish it instead of having to bring an in-app subscription model which would have upset customers.
This means that if you’ve previously bought and downloaded the app, you will still be able to access it. It will continue to function as you’ve been enjoying it. It will also probably receive future updates so that it will still be compatible with Android updates. Users who previously downloaded it can still access it in the My Apps section of Google Play
This is the only way that Ruston believes he can still be fair to users who already purchased the app and at the same time, for him to be able to focus on developing other apps, like the new one that he just recently launched, Bouncer, which aims to augment privacy concerns for those sometimes “aggressive” app permissions. Another app, Flamingo, was also previously pulled for the same reasons.
Do you think this was the right decision for the developer? Or would a subscription model work better and not face that much of a backlash from users?
SOURCE: Weather Timeline
VIA: Android Police
