I hate myself for going back to Mona app and paying that damn upgrade to Ultra again!

@cyberseckyle Tell me you're fucking joking, right?

Ain't no way in hell that developer ever gets another click, view or anything else from me.

I'm a firm believer that if we allow them to do these things, they will continue to do these things and will do it again in the future to their customers.

What an absolutely shitty thing for them to do when they did this.

@cliffwade Unfortunately I wish I was.... I have tried all the other apps on iOS for mastodon and they are just crap, horrible.

I have just gotten so used to how great the Mona app is and how it works, all the other apps just don't work for me.

@cyberseckyle Wow, shocking. While I admit, the app is better than all of them out there, but there ain't no way I'm going to support someone that shits on their users like they did. Like I said, that just encourages them keep doing it and lets them know what they did wasn't "all that bad".

Again, just my personal opinion of course, though I know I share that opinion with tons of others.

@cliffwade I absolutely get that. I also took a step back and looked at it from my dev standpoint. There are two different sides to this and I understand both; this new app has AI generation features which of course requires ongoing costs. The way Apple has thier pricing system, is a little difficult. I see why the developer created a whole new app to help with these costs by setting up the sub model. But by doing that, the existing subs can’t be “transferred” to the new app.

Knowing how Apples App Store/developer stuff works gives a bit more insight.

@cyberseckyle Having worked at Nova for 9 years, I too looked at it from both sides. I get why it happens, I just feel it shouldn't.

I watched the rise and fall of Action Launcher, Nova's nearest competitor, and this sealed the deal for that app to a point where Chris stopped developing it because there was just too much backlash. That was like 5 years ago before the internet was as vocal as they are today.

Again, I get both sides, and costs are important, but there are indeed ways around this. It's just laziness on the developers end to put forth a bit of extra work to truly take care of their userbase.

@cliffwade Oh I totally agree there. Absolutely could have been a better way.

Just chalked it up to necessity at this point. Like when the utility bill changes…. LOL.

@cyberseckyle @cliffwade Mind if I butt in on this? (If not, just tell me to go away 😆)

I think it's a shitty situation that distribution in the App Store requires people to either require subscriptions or build 'new' apps that are major updated versions. And really once you go one route it's difficult, if not impossible, to switch tracks. (1/3)

I'm STILL bitter about Fantastical and how they screwed me and everyone in their switch to a subscription. I’ll never use it again. But they took existing features and gated them instead of gating NEW features. Again, IMO, with Mona it's more about the fact that purchases or IAPs were for _that_ version but not clearly communicated. I do like there's a discount for the new version (which I took advantage of) but I see how you guys are angry about how it went down. (2/3)
Really it always comes down to COMMUNICATION is EVERYTHING. (3/3)

@Aaron Fantastical? What do I have to do to win you over as a Skylight Calendar customer? ;)

Communication, or lack of, was the biggest thing for me here. There's no reason this couldn't have been communicated better. That alone has it to where I'll never use Mona again for any reason. The developer can jump off a bridge for all I care and I hate to see others supporting someone that proceeds to do shitty things like this.

@cliffwade I hear ya, man. I've done some shitty things in the past (we all have). Again, my opinion, is Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. Did he fuck up? Totally. Was it malicious? Probably not. In the end it's a freaking Mastodon app and we've got bigger issues in our day-to-day to deal with, ya know? 😉

Re: Fantastical - I _LOVED_ its language parsing for event creation. SOOO good. Jumped to Apple Calendar app and it's always ok-enough.

@Aaron Very well said. I'm just not one to forgive when someone pulls something shitty like this, especially when it could have been avoided, 100%.

It is just a Mastodon app, and we all certainly have bigger things to worry about. But it remains, that supporting shitty people encourages them to continue being shitty. 🤪

@cliffwade I agree. My hopes is when V8 comes in a few years, it'll be handled way better.
@Aaron Assuming it makes it that long. Hopefully the community stands tall and drops the app like a hot potato and everyone quits using it.
@cliffwade @Aaron Cliff, everything you said x100. The dev is a fucking moneygrubbing arsehole. I don’t buy the ongoing AI cost crap - that part could have been made optional with an IAP.

@dhry Yep, this easily could have been avoided. They just simply didn't want to do it or didn't want to do just a tad bit of extra work to make it happen.

Sucks that the app is still being supported in any way and it appears the community is just going to let them do it to them and not stand up for how things should really be.

@Aaron

@cliffwade @Aaron he correctly assumed that his users would eventually just gobble it right down to the sack after bitching and moaning for a day or two. Five stages of grief, I think it’s called? Pfft.

I will *never* stop with the memes on it.

@dhry Very well said! And this is exactly why companies or individuals keep doing shitty things because their users or their community allow it and approve it by throwing even more money at them.

Yet people wonder why things are so expensive or why companies do the shitty things they do. It's truly a very sad situation.

@Aaron

@dhry @cliffwade @Aaron What are y’all using on iOS?
@Ronnie @dhry @cliffwade Mona. While there's disagreements about the dev, IMO it's the best app out there, especially with its customizations. I'd say Ivory is #2 for me, but I haven't used that in a couple years.
@Aaron @Ronnie @dhry @cliffwade maybe not as customizable but IceCubes really is such a stellar app. I have my nitpicks for sure but overall it’s well built and offers decent customization.

@64bithero Definitely not near as customizable, but also not that great of an app in my opinion. Ivory is better than IceCubes, and I'm not really a fan of Ivory at all.

@Aaron @Ronnie @dhry

@cliffwade @Aaron @Ronnie @dhry didn’t find anything remarkable about Mona I guess to each their own ..
@64bithero @cliffwade @Aaron @Ronnie The dev's attitude towards his paid users is fairly remarkable. https://mastodon.social/@dhry/115832333348415059
@dhry @64bithero @cliffwade @Ronnie Again, I think the lack of a “major version upgrade” system through Apple is what perpetuates this. Every single desktop piece of software I’ve bought always requires a paid upgrade to a new major version. Yes, poor communication by the dev, but I don’t see how a major version goes free without a subscription to cover those costs or doing what he did. And he’s FAR from the first to do the “new app is a new version” thing. Tapbots did it with TweetBot.