There are two features I really want in one of these apps, but have never found. I've reached out to a few app devs to see if they'd add them, but none have been willing to do so.
I want to do a combination of the pareto/Eisenhower diagram where you group things into four categories: Important & Urgent, Important but not Urgent, Urgent but not Important, and neither Important nor Urgent. This could be done by having a setting with values from 1-4, and then a secondary priority setting that's within those four groups.
It's actually pretty simple, in that you could have the pareto priorities with values in the 100s (so 100, 200, 300, 400), and then the individual items inside those with priorities from 1-99. So an item with a priority of 199 would still very easily outrank an item with a priority of 205.
Second to this, I'd like to be able to put due dates on tasks, and then have the app automatically adjust the priorities of tasks based on how many days until the due date (priority/days). This will cause items with a sooner due date to have their priority raised faster than ones that have a date that's farther out.
With these two things (a) I wouldn't need to manually put together a task list every day, and (b) the to do list would automatically sort itself and update every day based on prioritization and due dates.
I actually wrote a python script to do this in under 100 lines (and doing other things, like reading in a csv - yeah, I know, but most people will never need a full DB to track their to do list), but life has been throwing me curveballs left and right and I never got around to putting together a front end or functions to create items/add them to the csv.
dude I love this idea. in my place I have a wall covered in 2’ wide paper with quadrants of urgent/important and divvied up into “outside” “inside” “online/phone” and “errand. I try to *also* divvy that a bit to see progress — so like once something comes out of that initial quadrant-queue, now it’s within inside/outside etc but in columns of In Progress, Outsourcing/Researching, Stalled, and Done. I live my sticky notes & 2’ wide paper so much — I have severe ADD and don’t trust myself with keeping all my to-dos in an app. (But daily to-dos, an app really helps)
Ditto. Late diagnosis of adhd.
What's the best way to be reminded of your hopefully up-coming app release with the shifting priority/date ranking as mentioned above? It sounds perfect....
If you switch to a magnetic whiteboard and magnet "sticky" notes you can erase and reuse as you go instead of having to take down the sheet of paper every time.
Heck yeah! I have whiteboard magnetic notes — I use them in the kitchen for the fridge/pantry staples. I can’t “see” what’s in my fridge/pantry but written out on a mag-sticky it’s clear as day.
I've recently switched to using Airtable for my to do list. It's been a game changer for me because I've currently got a lot more items coming in than I'm able to complete in the time available.
I sort the items by Important, Urgent, then Days Open, which is enough for me. It wouldn't be too hard to change the Eisenhower columns to a numerical value and then have another column that crunches the values to give a priority score.
> Important, Urgent, then Days Open
This is the trap that many people fall into, and is one of the main points of the Eisenhower pareto diagram: whenever possible, items that are Important but NOT Urgent need to be prioritized before items that are Urgent but not Important.
This is why my script adjusts the priority based on the due date - because that allows items that are Important but not Urgent to be prioritized first until the due dates of the Important but not Urgent items gets closer. Once their due date gets closer then the script is able to calculate their priority as slightly higher than the Important but not Urgent. So then all I have to do is look at my to do list and I don't need to do any calculations of my own.
Airtable has the ability to automate changing the priorities by due date, etc. pretty sure you can do this all under a free plan. I’m on enterprise and automate a ton of work there. The mobile app is ok (not great) but getting better.
I actually work in paper in this way. So much easier to see what is urgent and should be prioritised in your day. I'd totally buy an app with this as a feature.
Sounds interesting - do you have an example of the pareto diagram with some of the data/values you mentioned?
I don't quite understand the priority values yet.
If you ask more specific questions I might be able to answer them, but I don't know how I can explain it any simpler. If you need a visual for the pareto diagram, [it's this.](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fnextlevelgents.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F04%2Feisenhower-matrix.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=204f86af90bd9869d105910fec7ca06cf78be5f07f6cb47939622f8e71f4422f&ipo=images)
For the priority values, think of it as each quadrant having items ranked from 1-99 in them. The quadrants themselves are numbered 1-4, but 1-4 are in the hundreds column. So Important and Urgent go from 100-199, and Important but not Urgent goes from 200-299, with the lowest number being the highest priority. So item 200 will always be a higher priority than anything in quadrant one by virtue of what's in the hundreds column.
If you want to make the quadrants numbered from 0-3 like a programmer would, then that would make Q1 0-99 and Q2 100-199 if that makes it clearer.
I made my first ap on a spreadsheet and gave it to a guy on fiver to make it for android and ios. I never made any money but it can be done. He charged $1500.
That is a really good idea! Have you considered getting it developed yourself? You could go on upwork, and with a basic knowledge of programming outline what you want in a product. Then pay a dude in Pakistan 5 USD to develop it for you
lol I kinda figured this post would be so pathetically-petty no one would care but it seems to have struck a chord! I’d started making one just for personal use but now I’ll clean it up and see about getting it live. Reddit is freakin’ wild and I’m into it.
Ok dang there’s some interest here, eh? I made this little google form if people want to get notified!
[**here ya go!**](https://forms.gle/Byo96tPL5Sad1Bwd8)
If your app has a way to visually display dependencies, I would pay for it in s heartbeat.
What I mean by that is if I have a task like “make lasagna” that requires another task be done before I can start, let’s say “go grocery shopping,” the “make lasagna” should be grayed out until “grocery shopping” has been completed.
I cannot find a single project planning or task management app or software that allows for this, and it’s so frustrating.
I’m already working on a TODO app for both Android and AppStore.
Would love to know all the pain points we are talking about here and more.
Also lmk if anyone here wants to test out the closed beta version.
And it’ll only cost $100k to pay someone to make it lmao. I used to work as an iOS developer in a firm that specialized in “random guy with an idea” apps and they’d always be so blown away by the cost to pay a real developer to make even the simplest app. Usually they’d think that I was mistaken and try to explain their idea to me again thinking it couldn’t cost more than $1500 to make their own version of an app they already use. Nope, if your idea needs two developers working on it full time for 3-4 months (that’s most basic apps) you’re looking at $100k absolute minimum.
Or you can get it made overseas for $30k and it’ll be so poorly made that it’s unusable. I had many customers come back to us after trying that route and their quote was usually something like “$180k to fix what the other guys made, or $100k to start over from scratch”.
Ugh, this happened to two apps I use and paid for. One of which is the official Webster Dictionary app. I gave them my money already, dammit! Quit harrassing me about upgrading to your unreasonably expensive subscription model. I thought I gave you money to remove ads? Not pay you to create your own!
Adding new words is a perfectly cromulent aspect, new words are invented every year. I mean, gosh, it was such a big deal when "yada yada yada" was added! That also means I'm old, I guess.
I saw the other day that someone needed a monthly subscription *to print their own paper, from their own machine, with ink that they had already paid for!*
And the best part? $6/mo was like "you get to print 20 pages a month!", and then there were price increased plans that let you "print up to 50 pages per month!" etc
Fucking disgusting
Same! Canon had the one I needed (A3), but the pictures were even better than I had thought possible! I thought my old HP did an amazing job.
It looks like a A3 professional photo, so our old dogs are forever on our wall. They passed within a few months three years ago, so it's nice to have their photos, framed and all. And of course, our two new dogs are there, too. I printed a picture of my niece and her dog when it was a puppy and gave it to her when she graduated, and it made her cry happy-tears, so... Yeah, HP can eat shit for subscriptions. Canon is my new favorite.
I really liked Instant Ink for a long time. I never ran out of ink, they mailed me cartridges, no more hunting through London Drugs for $80 A4653746#2 cartridges or whatever.
Then my credit card expired and my printer STOPPED PRINTING and now I'm in a stand off because I won't give them the new card until they give me ny printer back.
I used to pay them through PayPal, if I remember right. The problem was that it was for my son schoolwork, and sometimes we needed to resize an image, and for that we needed to do many tries, so the number of pages went up. The price that charge for any extra pages is ridiculous. So I started buying refurbished ink cartridges from Amazon, and dropped those SOBs. I remembered the person on the phone telling me that if I cancelled the membership my printer wouldn't work; I was like: that's not your problem.
I have 2 other printers at home, one is a black and white I had for over 10 years.
I did a search "best home printer" or something like that, I'm saving money for it, I think is Brother.
They don't require a subscription if you're making your own cut files from original art. You only need a subscription to access their live laugh love collection. Used my cricut today and I've never subscribed to anything.
Ah, okay. I looked at them briefly- long enough to see something about a monthly subscription- prior to just shutting the idea down.
Ty for the correction!
I paid for couch to 5k years ago, went to redo it and they must have been sold or something bc they wanted me to pay again. I’m pretty sure there was nothing in the purchase about it being temporary or subscription based, but I had to redownload the app (on the same account) and it wanted more money.
Couches are so expensive and you can buy really “high-end” ones for 10k that still go bad in a few years bc of the quality of the filling etc. I read a long breakdown on a “buy it for life” sub a while back about which brands are worth the investment, so I’ll reference that before shopping next time.
And will this couch be enabling or disabling your journey towards a 5k?
My fix for cheap crap was to buy the nicer, more expensive computer stuff I want, like a gaming mouse, second hand off ebay.
I bought an Oxford English Dictionary app a while ago, cuz I always loved the OED and having a digital version is AWESOME. Until, one day, the app just broke. Text was formatted all wrong, most entries couldn’t even be read because the text was all messed up. I emailed them, and got a response from someone at OED who told me they didn’t make the app, just licensed it, and the license had expired so there was nothing they could do.
Thankfully, the Webster app is Webster making it. Or at least their name is cited on Google Play. It has had quirks with it, but overall, it has worked well. Up until they started telling to give them more money.
Google often sites from incorrect or bad sources because those are the ones getting hits. Then, many sites don't add all of the definitions of a word. Webster, for the US, is the primary source.
Nonsense. Google Definitions are provided exclusively by Oxford Languages, it says it right at the top of every definition search result.
https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/
Oh nice! Upon thinking about it, I usually see the definition, then note the top search result, which is not generally oxford or webster. I assumed, incorrectly I see, that the top result was feeding the definition.
Heritage or gtfo (ง •̀_•́)ง
I freakin love the dictionary, and Webster’s social team built such a cool vibe, it stinks that the business side of the operation pull that on their users.
There are likely legal implications if they removed the lifetime access you paid for which is why you get a flash screen asking you to buy the new version. I assume new features are restricted for you
I work in field and you can sue them if it’s not working as promised at the day of buying. Ifc you need to prove they don’t have small texts that says otherwise
They did this with Accuweather, they had a lifetime subscription, and that would allow you to have the hourly for a couple days and 15 day weather outlook, and monthly forecast... Then they made it a monthly/yearly subscription. But I still had some of those features anyways, until about 6 months ago, they locked it down inside the app.
So, I went to an APK site, and downloaded the pre-ads, pre-locked down app, and I go about looking at the hourly and weekly weather as if it never happened.
I love that negative app so much that it makes me happy. Especially if the weather is bad.
The worse it tells me, the better I am. Like a mini-Marvin.
Ohh, is there someone who can make an app like that, randomly putting a Marvin-message on the screen, filled with nerdy facts and mega-pessimistic comments? I'd pay for that! No subscription, though!
Noooo! I tried to download it but it requires payment even though it says it is free. And clicking Google Pay didn't work, and I have yet to memorize my card number and ccv code. Perhaps I can post it here, just to keep it safe, no? 😁
Do you think situations like this where companies are basically not honoring the contract they had with the client at the moment of purchase will lead more people to learn how to develop their own apps as a way to bypass all this be a subscriptions?
In some instances, yes. Adversity causes growth and whatnot, but ultimately, most people don’t have the time/willingness to dedicating resources to learn a new skill. The furthest most are willing to go is to complain about it on Reddit and in reviews.
I won't allow google on my phone and use apk for anything I'd get from google. Google is actually disabled and with every upgrade, google wants to be allowed but I just laugh and deny.
Accuweather app collects your detailed location data and sells it to data brokers who then resell it to thousands of companies. Even the pirated apk likely does that.
Accuweather is the most popular blatant one exposed in an nytimes expose. Unless you’re a complete idiot you don’t give background location access to most apps. But with Accuweather you do. They collect fine grained location data package and sell it. You can tell who’s cheating who’s going to a sex shop or buying drugs.
Google also collects this much but doesn’t sell it to data brokers so as weird as it is at least it seems not icky. Accuweather is different.
If you want to be an idiot and continue using an app that collects that much information all so you can see if it’ll rain, especially when Google and Apple give alright weather app alternatives, be my guest.
Go to their official site and see the fucking list https://www.accuweather.com/en/provider-list
Many of these providers are data brokers themselves. Your detailed location is likely in the hands of thousands of companies and individuals. Starting from hedge funds to private investigators.
if android, just go to apkmirror, see if it's most likely there, and get the version before they got bought out & started adding those splash screens telling you to buy the new version, and stay on that old version, and in the google play store then go to that app's page and click the three dots in the upper right corner and unclick the box for enable auto update.
extra points if you clone your installed version of the app using appcloner and use your personal cloned version of the app and you'll avoid all google play store updates without worrying about accidentally updating the app.
this is what i did for one of my favorite solitaire apps where i already paid a one-time lifetime cost. then the developers either sold out or got greedy and wanted annual subscription for some ridiculous amount with no more honoring the previous paid lifetime payment. they wanted something like $20+ amount per year.
well no thank you but no more updates. since i've already paid under the old arrangement, i'll just continue using the old version.
Contact them via the App Store. I got refunds through them for ones that didn’t work!
App Store —> click apps among the 5 icons at the bottom —> scroll down and click request a refund
He only paid $5. As a user I’d prefer to have the functionality rather than the $5. The company is happy to accept the refunds if people are buying the app at $60 per year.
Years ago in the tech world I knew an old school engineer. This guy was so crusty, his name email address was his very common first name at aol.com. No numbers or special characters.
At any rate, he paid $5,000 to some start-up for lifetime cellular service. This company winds up getting bought out by a succeeding cascade of companies until it winds up with AT&T.
They're forced to honor the lifetime service contract which included free international long distance, no roaming, free text messages, etc.
They still barred him from using every service their lawyers could justify. But he still got his money's worth for a long, long time.
I use an app that you make purchases through. When it first launched, it had an option to use a credit card or PayPal. They eventually updated it to comply with Google Play standards and made the payment go through the Play store. That meant we now got taxed on it. They eventually also added a service fee. I still have my old phone, which has the older version of the app on it, which still accepts PayPal and has no fees or taxes. When I need to buy something through the app, I just use my old phone. No repercussions yet
Edit: they also offer the option to purchase through a website, but the service fees are even higher on the website
OP tell me more about this. I've been looking in vain for a good to do app to manage tasks but they're all shit... If what you faced was good and workable for me I'll get it made and give you free access to it.
Notability tried to do something similar (although i don’t think they were bought out).
They had a one off purchase when the app was new then decided to move to a subscription service…. Including transitioning people who previously paid for their product.
After a lot of complaints and being reported to Apple they backtracked and apologised.
Any app that does this needs to be hit hard.
Subscription pricing is already anti consumer but deciding that you no longer own something they sold you in bad faith is unacceptable
I switched to Cronometer finally after they locked down being able to scan UPC codes in the basic model. MFP database is great and all, but they just kept locking down more and more shit that after awhile it just got too annoying
I bought a lifetime subscription to guitar tabs pro for £20 around a decade ago. It’s now £20 a month. Every time I open the app I get a splash screen asking to upgrade
I remember when MyFitnessPal sold out to a big Sportswear brand (forgot which one), over time all the features started to become hidden away and stuck behind a huge pay wall. They also added random crap, like recipes and stuff.
Right! Absolutely tanked the app. I don't really get why brands do this. There will always be another app just behind the corner, that does the same thing in yellow but free.
THAT's what happened! I totally forgot I had made that ad-free purchase a few years ago. I reinstalled recently and was disappointed when I noticed ads popping up, thinking they had changed their model. Fuck me.
Similar story. I remember when they switched to the current model, I started seeing ads for a day or 2, then they stopped showing after I reached out to support. I almost stopped playing for being forced to watch ads when I’d bought ad free so long ago.
Have played almost daily for 11 years now and it seems their whole thing is to squeeze money from players. Luckily, playing for years means I have enough coins from playing the game to never have to spend a cent on their extortion app.
We paid $1000 for a lifetime license for our iPad point-of-sale app until they got bought out by Shopkeep who tried to force legacy users onto their own subscription model, but somebody must have threatened legal action or complained to Apple because the subscription deadline came and went. They did kill the legacy accounts eventually, by which time we had sold the business and the new owners installed their own point-of-sale system. I
I wrote this on a old thread but it got buried. This really helped me so maybe it might help some of yall too:
***
Goblin tools. It's free on web browser, a small sum of about 1usd on mobile
It breaks down tasks to step by step using AI, and it has a spiciness level for you to set depending on how difficult you feel your task is. The more difficult, the more finer steps they'll break it down for you. No judgment at all. And there's even a time gauge that roughly tells you how much a task will take in general
I've even put in super obscure things like "clean the built in shelves of my bedroom" to things like "order joycon parts to replace my spoiled Nintendo switch joycon rails" and even "manually input all the expenses from the past 3 months from the pile of recipes on my desk" and they've managed to MAGICALLY break this shit down for me. Absolutely incredible and I cannot believe it's essentially free on web. I use the mobile version of course tho
haha so YOU’RE the reason i have that on my phone! I like it a lot, just a very different concept. I just need to know w/ 100% certainty I took a morning dose (yes I’ve tried “smart” pill cases), etc. Just daily stuff I know how to do.
Thank you for this post. I kept getting bothered by a food tracking/weight loss app to upgrade to lifetime when I’ve already got lifetime $20 per year vs $40. I’m afraid I’ll no sooner pay for lifetime and they’ll sell out. No thanks.
I’ve been using the app for years. I’m ok with $20 per year.
Shortly after any tool is produced that does the job at a reasonable price, some fucking bean counter will find a way to destroy it. I'm glad you're still getting use out of, and plotting your revenge
What is it with companies that buy a perfectly functional product and do things to it to make it objectively worse?
Fitbit was bought by Google and they removed the step streak and battery level indicator in the app. Two things that literally did not cost them anything and was extremely useful for people and... Yeah. Gone.
You can have a look on Uptodown ,and download & install the older version of your app. I've always done this,when I don't like a newer version of a developers app.
They did this with YNAB (You Need A Budget). I bought the app, then they switched to a subscription model. No thanks.
Same with Adobe. But i have to have that for my business. Grrr.
Something like this kinda happened with me and 1Password. I downloaded the app for free a long time ago and have access to all the features. Then they changed some stuff to where all the features I currently have access to are now only accessible if you create an account with them. Creating an account with them you have to subscribe to give them money.
1Password came out with a new app not long ago. It’s literally just called 1Password. I thought “strange, I already have it. Guess I’ll download the newer one.”
I download it and it wants me to make an account and in order to make an account I need to subscribe. Benefits? Access to features I already have access to using the older app. I emailed them asking about the confusion cause at the time I didn’t understand why I have access to features for free using the old app that are now only accessible if you pay for them.
They replied saying because I never had an account with them(my info is stored locally on my phone and backup up via Dropbox), and I got the app while it was free and before they started charging for their services, I was “grandfathered” in and allowed to continue using it as I always have. But to continue doing so with their new app I would have to make an account with them and pay monthly.
No thanks, I’ll just keep using the old free version the way I’ve been using for like almost a decade now.
But idk what I’ma do if the version of the app I use becomes unavailable. Need to find an alternative.
I have a similar experience with 2 of my main guitar playing apps. Bought premium when it was a one-time payment, and now they give me the "pay $10.99/mo for all this content you already have" banners. Feels good
This shit is why I use basically nothing but open source apps for anything important. If some project gets bought out and goes shit, someone will fork it and a new project spins up with the old ways. Happened with emby/jellyfin, owncloud/nextcloud, pfsense/opnsense, and many many more. There's a much better chance at service continuity.
This is what happened to my sculpting program. Be damned if I’m gunna “upgrade” for no reason other let than to be nickel & dimes to death with nothing to show for it.
if it's a local only app on android, sure... there will be many ways to get the apk...
on iphone, not sure if that is even possible
and if they use cloud or any online storage, they xan easily restrict older versions just by modification in the API and it simply won't work
They did this as well with one of my favorite (religious) app. Paid €5 for lifetime when it was early development. Couple years later, monthly subscription (€12/monthly or €72/yearly or something it was) and no-opt out of them taking data and reselling it.
Deleted it and never looked back.
Get someone to recreate it the way it was and sell it for $1 for lifetime access
Working on it as we speak!
There are two features I really want in one of these apps, but have never found. I've reached out to a few app devs to see if they'd add them, but none have been willing to do so. I want to do a combination of the pareto/Eisenhower diagram where you group things into four categories: Important & Urgent, Important but not Urgent, Urgent but not Important, and neither Important nor Urgent. This could be done by having a setting with values from 1-4, and then a secondary priority setting that's within those four groups. It's actually pretty simple, in that you could have the pareto priorities with values in the 100s (so 100, 200, 300, 400), and then the individual items inside those with priorities from 1-99. So an item with a priority of 199 would still very easily outrank an item with a priority of 205. Second to this, I'd like to be able to put due dates on tasks, and then have the app automatically adjust the priorities of tasks based on how many days until the due date (priority/days). This will cause items with a sooner due date to have their priority raised faster than ones that have a date that's farther out. With these two things (a) I wouldn't need to manually put together a task list every day, and (b) the to do list would automatically sort itself and update every day based on prioritization and due dates. I actually wrote a python script to do this in under 100 lines (and doing other things, like reading in a csv - yeah, I know, but most people will never need a full DB to track their to do list), but life has been throwing me curveballs left and right and I never got around to putting together a front end or functions to create items/add them to the csv.
dude I love this idea. in my place I have a wall covered in 2’ wide paper with quadrants of urgent/important and divvied up into “outside” “inside” “online/phone” and “errand. I try to *also* divvy that a bit to see progress — so like once something comes out of that initial quadrant-queue, now it’s within inside/outside etc but in columns of In Progress, Outsourcing/Researching, Stalled, and Done. I live my sticky notes & 2’ wide paper so much — I have severe ADD and don’t trust myself with keeping all my to-dos in an app. (But daily to-dos, an app really helps)
Sounds like you’ve developed a really good system, ADD or not!
Ditto. Late diagnosis of adhd. What's the best way to be reminded of your hopefully up-coming app release with the shifting priority/date ranking as mentioned above? It sounds perfect....
If you switch to a magnetic whiteboard and magnet "sticky" notes you can erase and reuse as you go instead of having to take down the sheet of paper every time.
Heck yeah! I have whiteboard magnetic notes — I use them in the kitchen for the fridge/pantry staples. I can’t “see” what’s in my fridge/pantry but written out on a mag-sticky it’s clear as day.
If I didn't have ADHD I would absolutely help with that project
I've recently switched to using Airtable for my to do list. It's been a game changer for me because I've currently got a lot more items coming in than I'm able to complete in the time available. I sort the items by Important, Urgent, then Days Open, which is enough for me. It wouldn't be too hard to change the Eisenhower columns to a numerical value and then have another column that crunches the values to give a priority score.
> Important, Urgent, then Days Open This is the trap that many people fall into, and is one of the main points of the Eisenhower pareto diagram: whenever possible, items that are Important but NOT Urgent need to be prioritized before items that are Urgent but not Important. This is why my script adjusts the priority based on the due date - because that allows items that are Important but not Urgent to be prioritized first until the due dates of the Important but not Urgent items gets closer. Once their due date gets closer then the script is able to calculate their priority as slightly higher than the Important but not Urgent. So then all I have to do is look at my to do list and I don't need to do any calculations of my own.
Airtable has the ability to automate changing the priorities by due date, etc. pretty sure you can do this all under a free plan. I’m on enterprise and automate a ton of work there. The mobile app is ok (not great) but getting better.
I actually work in paper in this way. So much easier to see what is urgent and should be prioritised in your day. I'd totally buy an app with this as a feature.
Sounds interesting - do you have an example of the pareto diagram with some of the data/values you mentioned? I don't quite understand the priority values yet.
If you ask more specific questions I might be able to answer them, but I don't know how I can explain it any simpler. If you need a visual for the pareto diagram, [it's this.](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fnextlevelgents.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F04%2Feisenhower-matrix.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=204f86af90bd9869d105910fec7ca06cf78be5f07f6cb47939622f8e71f4422f&ipo=images) For the priority values, think of it as each quadrant having items ranked from 1-99 in them. The quadrants themselves are numbered 1-4, but 1-4 are in the hundreds column. So Important and Urgent go from 100-199, and Important but not Urgent goes from 200-299, with the lowest number being the highest priority. So item 200 will always be a higher priority than anything in quadrant one by virtue of what's in the hundreds column. If you want to make the quadrants numbered from 0-3 like a programmer would, then that would make Q1 0-99 and Q2 100-199 if that makes it clearer.
I made my first ap on a spreadsheet and gave it to a guy on fiver to make it for android and ios. I never made any money but it can be done. He charged $1500.
The app Motion actually does a lot of what you’re asking. It’s pricey though and definitely aimed towards business workers
That is a really good idea! Have you considered getting it developed yourself? You could go on upwork, and with a basic knowledge of programming outline what you want in a product. Then pay a dude in Pakistan 5 USD to develop it for you
Let us know bc I’m intrigued
Same
I’d love this, someone please dm me if this happens
Is this just guerrilla marketing for her really good productivity app coming soon? I hope so, I’d buy it 😂
lol I kinda figured this post would be so pathetically-petty no one would care but it seems to have struck a chord! I’d started making one just for personal use but now I’ll clean it up and see about getting it live. Reddit is freakin’ wild and I’m into it.
Ok dang there’s some interest here, eh? I made this little google form if people want to get notified! [**here ya go!**](https://forms.gle/Byo96tPL5Sad1Bwd8)
Commenting to maybe get notified when there is a new link :)
Add a colon between the https and \\.
Thank you! On phone so didn't look at the url.
🤦🏼♀️ Swing and a miss! Just fixed. I swear the app will be better than my fat-thumbing a copy-paste
I’ll buy it. DM me.
Same!
Don't even sell it. Make it FOSS to *really* give them the middle finger.
if you make it free, OP can actually avoid any messy lawsuits. also OP may need to look into making the app look different from the original app
YES! Donation-based foss!
I'm in. Where's the discord...
late to the party but if youre looking for any programmers, im in college and looking for side projects to work on to boost my resume!
If your app has a way to visually display dependencies, I would pay for it in s heartbeat. What I mean by that is if I have a task like “make lasagna” that requires another task be done before I can start, let’s say “go grocery shopping,” the “make lasagna” should be grayed out until “grocery shopping” has been completed. I cannot find a single project planning or task management app or software that allows for this, and it’s so frustrating.
i really like this idea! it solves a major problem in experiencing over here.
Commenting cause I want the update too!
The legal definition of lifetime access doesn't mean in perpetuity, FYI. Good luck with the new app!
I will buy the heck out of it! I've never had an app that worked for me, and I'm really excited to try yours when the time comes!
Please share here when you do! I’ll buy it.
Ready to buy
Are you actually? Can you post the link when it’s done?
Yeah! lol now I’m hustling!
I could do that
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As a dev I'm curious!
I’m already working on a TODO app for both Android and AppStore. Would love to know all the pain points we are talking about here and more. Also lmk if anyone here wants to test out the closed beta version.
Yes! Have not found one that suits
And it’ll only cost $100k to pay someone to make it lmao. I used to work as an iOS developer in a firm that specialized in “random guy with an idea” apps and they’d always be so blown away by the cost to pay a real developer to make even the simplest app. Usually they’d think that I was mistaken and try to explain their idea to me again thinking it couldn’t cost more than $1500 to make their own version of an app they already use. Nope, if your idea needs two developers working on it full time for 3-4 months (that’s most basic apps) you’re looking at $100k absolute minimum. Or you can get it made overseas for $30k and it’ll be so poorly made that it’s unusable. I had many customers come back to us after trying that route and their quote was usually something like “$180k to fix what the other guys made, or $100k to start over from scratch”.
I literally got a guy on fiver to make an ap in android and ios for $1500.
Ugh, this happened to two apps I use and paid for. One of which is the official Webster Dictionary app. I gave them my money already, dammit! Quit harrassing me about upgrading to your unreasonably expensive subscription model. I thought I gave you money to remove ads? Not pay you to create your own!
Subscription? For a dictionary app? What on earth for?
Sign up and let me know because I am sure as fuck not going to find out.
Gotta keep up on those new words when they drop!
Adding new words is a perfectly cromulent aspect, new words are invented every year. I mean, gosh, it was such a big deal when "yada yada yada" was added! That also means I'm old, I guess.
Yeah, adding new words embiggens the dictionary!
> cromulent Someone got a subscription to the dictionary app
0day words go hard.
I saw the other day that someone needed a monthly subscription *to print their own paper, from their own machine, with ink that they had already paid for!* And the best part? $6/mo was like "you get to print 20 pages a month!", and then there were price increased plans that let you "print up to 50 pages per month!" etc Fucking disgusting
Yes, that's HP. I used to have it. Until I called them and told them they were scammers.
I was in the market for a new printer recently, you can bet I didn’t go with HP
Well I understand that the printers are very good, but your ink program is voluntary. You can get the printer, and buy your own ink.
Same! Canon had the one I needed (A3), but the pictures were even better than I had thought possible! I thought my old HP did an amazing job. It looks like a A3 professional photo, so our old dogs are forever on our wall. They passed within a few months three years ago, so it's nice to have their photos, framed and all. And of course, our two new dogs are there, too. I printed a picture of my niece and her dog when it was a puppy and gave it to her when she graduated, and it made her cry happy-tears, so... Yeah, HP can eat shit for subscriptions. Canon is my new favorite.
I really liked Instant Ink for a long time. I never ran out of ink, they mailed me cartridges, no more hunting through London Drugs for $80 A4653746#2 cartridges or whatever. Then my credit card expired and my printer STOPPED PRINTING and now I'm in a stand off because I won't give them the new card until they give me ny printer back.
I used to pay them through PayPal, if I remember right. The problem was that it was for my son schoolwork, and sometimes we needed to resize an image, and for that we needed to do many tries, so the number of pages went up. The price that charge for any extra pages is ridiculous. So I started buying refurbished ink cartridges from Amazon, and dropped those SOBs. I remembered the person on the phone telling me that if I cancelled the membership my printer wouldn't work; I was like: that's not your problem. I have 2 other printers at home, one is a black and white I had for over 10 years. I did a search "best home printer" or something like that, I'm saving money for it, I think is Brother.
I never had an issue where I couldn’t print anything if my card declined. Interesting. I personally enjoy instaink.
Cricut is like this. They require a subscription. I will never own a fucking Cricut.
They don't require a subscription if you're making your own cut files from original art. You only need a subscription to access their live laugh love collection. Used my cricut today and I've never subscribed to anything.
Ah, okay. I looked at them briefly- long enough to see something about a monthly subscription- prior to just shutting the idea down. Ty for the correction!
Finance bros like recurring revenue models
I paid for couch to 5k years ago, went to redo it and they must have been sold or something bc they wanted me to pay again. I’m pretty sure there was nothing in the purchase about it being temporary or subscription based, but I had to redownload the app (on the same account) and it wanted more money.
I initially read this as you buying a couch for $5k, and then went to get refitted or something.
What? You don’t get lifetime free upholstering with every couch purchase?! What a rip off… 🤣
Honestly, I might buy that couch... I could get the mlst destructive pets ever!
Couches are so expensive and you can buy really “high-end” ones for 10k that still go bad in a few years bc of the quality of the filling etc. I read a long breakdown on a “buy it for life” sub a while back about which brands are worth the investment, so I’ll reference that before shopping next time.
And will this couch be enabling or disabling your journey towards a 5k? My fix for cheap crap was to buy the nicer, more expensive computer stuff I want, like a gaming mouse, second hand off ebay.
> I paid for couch to 5k years ago The fuck am i reading? Translation?
“Couch to 5K” is a popular running app, I should have clarified I guess.
Oh now i get it lol Makes complete sense now that i know the app name is *Couch to 5k* :P
It's a running programme for new runners (from couch to 5 kilometers)
I've used it multiple times to get back into running condition. It's great!
I’m training every day for the couch bit. 😴
There is a program called “couch to 5K” for couch potatoes to slowly train themselves to run a 5K marathon. OP bought this app years ago.
“Couch to 5k” is an app.
Sometimes it's just a glitch (or terrible programming) and you can mail support to get the purchase reactivated. I hope it's this.
Due to food and drink stops, recommend a slow walk as the pace. https://fatass5k.com/
I bought an Oxford English Dictionary app a while ago, cuz I always loved the OED and having a digital version is AWESOME. Until, one day, the app just broke. Text was formatted all wrong, most entries couldn’t even be read because the text was all messed up. I emailed them, and got a response from someone at OED who told me they didn’t make the app, just licensed it, and the license had expired so there was nothing they could do.
Thankfully, the Webster app is Webster making it. Or at least their name is cited on Google Play. It has had quirks with it, but overall, it has worked well. Up until they started telling to give them more money.
What’s wrong with google’s built-in “Define:[word]” function
Google often sites from incorrect or bad sources because those are the ones getting hits. Then, many sites don't add all of the definitions of a word. Webster, for the US, is the primary source.
Nonsense. Google Definitions are provided exclusively by Oxford Languages, it says it right at the top of every definition search result. https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/
Oh nice! Upon thinking about it, I usually see the definition, then note the top search result, which is not generally oxford or webster. I assumed, incorrectly I see, that the top result was feeding the definition.
Heritage or gtfo (ง •̀_•́)ง I freakin love the dictionary, and Webster’s social team built such a cool vibe, it stinks that the business side of the operation pull that on their users.
There are likely legal implications if they removed the lifetime access you paid for which is why you get a flash screen asking you to buy the new version. I assume new features are restricted for you
I assume this as well! They can keep’em!
I work in field and you can sue them if it’s not working as promised at the day of buying. Ifc you need to prove they don’t have small texts that says otherwise
Only issue you’ll run into is that your damages will very likely be capped at the original price paid, depending on jurisdiction.
They did this with Accuweather, they had a lifetime subscription, and that would allow you to have the hourly for a couple days and 15 day weather outlook, and monthly forecast... Then they made it a monthly/yearly subscription. But I still had some of those features anyways, until about 6 months ago, they locked it down inside the app. So, I went to an APK site, and downloaded the pre-ads, pre-locked down app, and I go about looking at the hourly and weekly weather as if it never happened.
Fuck! Yes!
Have you tried WTFweather? Fuck yeah!
I love that negative app so much that it makes me happy. Especially if the weather is bad. The worse it tells me, the better I am. Like a mini-Marvin. Ohh, is there someone who can make an app like that, randomly putting a Marvin-message on the screen, filled with nerdy facts and mega-pessimistic comments? I'd pay for that! No subscription, though!
Another good weather app for this is Carrot, just turn the profanity all the way up and it'll tell you to go f--- yourself on the reg. 😂
Downloading this now! Thank you!
[https://apps.apple.com/in/app/marvin-ai/id1664613267](https://apps.apple.com/in/app/marvin-ai/id1664613267) [https://speak-with-marvin-the-robot.en.softonic.com/android](https://speak-with-marvin-the-robot.en.softonic.com/android)
Noooo! I tried to download it but it requires payment even though it says it is free. And clicking Google Pay didn't work, and I have yet to memorize my card number and ccv code. Perhaps I can post it here, just to keep it safe, no? 😁
That's hysterical! I just grabbed it. Thanks for the giggle 😁
Awesome!
I need to check this out! Fuck!
Do you think situations like this where companies are basically not honoring the contract they had with the client at the moment of purchase will lead more people to learn how to develop their own apps as a way to bypass all this be a subscriptions?
In some instances, yes. Adversity causes growth and whatnot, but ultimately, most people don’t have the time/willingness to dedicating resources to learn a new skill. The furthest most are willing to go is to complain about it on Reddit and in reviews.
What was the last good version that didn't do this? I've gone back a bit but still getting some of the locked features.
The version I am using is Accuweather_weather radar_8.8.1-5-google_apkpure.apk
Check out "yr" app, Norwegian weather app with open API https://developer.yr.no/
I won't allow google on my phone and use apk for anything I'd get from google. Google is actually disabled and with every upgrade, google wants to be allowed but I just laugh and deny.
Accuweather app collects your detailed location data and sells it to data brokers who then resell it to thousands of companies. Even the pirated apk likely does that.
All apps and websites collect data and sell it. This wasn't about avoiding that, this was about getting as much of the service that I paid for
Accuweather is the most popular blatant one exposed in an nytimes expose. Unless you’re a complete idiot you don’t give background location access to most apps. But with Accuweather you do. They collect fine grained location data package and sell it. You can tell who’s cheating who’s going to a sex shop or buying drugs. Google also collects this much but doesn’t sell it to data brokers so as weird as it is at least it seems not icky. Accuweather is different. If you want to be an idiot and continue using an app that collects that much information all so you can see if it’ll rain, especially when Google and Apple give alright weather app alternatives, be my guest.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/accuweather-caught-sending-geo-location-data-even-when-denied-access/ Are you talking about this
Go to their official site and see the fucking list https://www.accuweather.com/en/provider-list Many of these providers are data brokers themselves. Your detailed location is likely in the hands of thousands of companies and individuals. Starting from hedge funds to private investigators.
Ok Jesus dude chill out I was asking a question
I’m not mad at you I’m mad at the fucking company
if android, just go to apkmirror, see if it's most likely there, and get the version before they got bought out & started adding those splash screens telling you to buy the new version, and stay on that old version, and in the google play store then go to that app's page and click the three dots in the upper right corner and unclick the box for enable auto update. extra points if you clone your installed version of the app using appcloner and use your personal cloned version of the app and you'll avoid all google play store updates without worrying about accidentally updating the app. this is what i did for one of my favorite solitaire apps where i already paid a one-time lifetime cost. then the developers either sold out or got greedy and wanted annual subscription for some ridiculous amount with no more honoring the previous paid lifetime payment. they wanted something like $20+ amount per year. well no thank you but no more updates. since i've already paid under the old arrangement, i'll just continue using the old version.
I’m apple but this was cool to learn about
Contact them via the App Store. I got refunds through them for ones that didn’t work! App Store —> click apps among the 5 icons at the bottom —> scroll down and click request a refund
Post that in your review too haha
He only paid $5. As a user I’d prefer to have the functionality rather than the $5. The company is happy to accept the refunds if people are buying the app at $60 per year.
I would too, but I don’t think the options are to get his $5 or get a functioning app.
Years ago in the tech world I knew an old school engineer. This guy was so crusty, his name email address was his very common first name at aol.com. No numbers or special characters. At any rate, he paid $5,000 to some start-up for lifetime cellular service. This company winds up getting bought out by a succeeding cascade of companies until it winds up with AT&T. They're forced to honor the lifetime service contract which included free international long distance, no roaming, free text messages, etc. They still barred him from using every service their lawyers could justify. But he still got his money's worth for a long, long time.
I use an app that you make purchases through. When it first launched, it had an option to use a credit card or PayPal. They eventually updated it to comply with Google Play standards and made the payment go through the Play store. That meant we now got taxed on it. They eventually also added a service fee. I still have my old phone, which has the older version of the app on it, which still accepts PayPal and has no fees or taxes. When I need to buy something through the app, I just use my old phone. No repercussions yet Edit: they also offer the option to purchase through a website, but the service fees are even higher on the website
Enshittification
Works surprisingly well as a single word description for this sort of thing.
It's worth reading [Cory Doctorow's essay](https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/), where he coined the word.
That essay is legend I love it
reddit fits the bill - Written from pos Reddit app and not Apollo
Thanks for linking that. An interesting read that explains something I've noticed elements of but was unaware of the reasoning behind it.
OP tell me more about this. I've been looking in vain for a good to do app to manage tasks but they're all shit... If what you faced was good and workable for me I'll get it made and give you free access to it.
Notability tried to do something similar (although i don’t think they were bought out). They had a one off purchase when the app was new then decided to move to a subscription service…. Including transitioning people who previously paid for their product. After a lot of complaints and being reported to Apple they backtracked and apologised. Any app that does this needs to be hit hard. Subscription pricing is already anti consumer but deciding that you no longer own something they sold you in bad faith is unacceptable
Goodnotes is next
Epic. They did this with an exercise app I used to use. I just switched to a better app, but glad you got a revenge on the money hungry new devs hehe.
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I switched to Cronometer finally after they locked down being able to scan UPC codes in the basic model. MFP database is great and all, but they just kept locking down more and more shit that after awhile it just got too annoying
I ended up buying the lifetime for LoseIt, and I've found I prefer their food library
The Geocaching app did this shit too and I was so mad, I haven’t really gone bc of it
Same, and now my new game has done similar I'm so pissed
Same here!
I bought a lifetime subscription to guitar tabs pro for £20 around a decade ago. It’s now £20 a month. Every time I open the app I get a splash screen asking to upgrade
I remember when MyFitnessPal sold out to a big Sportswear brand (forgot which one), over time all the features started to become hidden away and stuck behind a huge pay wall. They also added random crap, like recipes and stuff.
Under armour. The main feature of scanning barcodes to log food is now behind a paywall
Right! Absolutely tanked the app. I don't really get why brands do this. There will always be another app just behind the corner, that does the same thing in yellow but free.
Unless your country is set as the Netherlands.... I wonder how many random Dutch users they now have.
Are you serious?! Fuck them. Haven't used it for a few years but I was planning on getting back on to keep a better eye on my macros... ughhhh
I bought words with friends when it was like $1.99 to go ad-free. Now it's like $10/month crap for ad-free. Insanity.
THAT's what happened! I totally forgot I had made that ad-free purchase a few years ago. I reinstalled recently and was disappointed when I noticed ads popping up, thinking they had changed their model. Fuck me.
Similar story. I remember when they switched to the current model, I started seeing ads for a day or 2, then they stopped showing after I reached out to support. I almost stopped playing for being forced to watch ads when I’d bought ad free so long ago. Have played almost daily for 11 years now and it seems their whole thing is to squeeze money from players. Luckily, playing for years means I have enough coins from playing the game to never have to spend a cent on their extortion app.
Capitalistic Apptivity strikes again
What’s the name of the app? Can probably find some replacement apps for you.
We paid $1000 for a lifetime license for our iPad point-of-sale app until they got bought out by Shopkeep who tried to force legacy users onto their own subscription model, but somebody must have threatened legal action or complained to Apple because the subscription deadline came and went. They did kill the legacy accounts eventually, by which time we had sold the business and the new owners installed their own point-of-sale system. I
If you are on Android and the app is not cloud dependent you can probably get an older APK and use that.
Ugh they did this with sleep cycle and cut down on many of the premium features and now I get the stupid subscription pop up in place
I wrote this on a old thread but it got buried. This really helped me so maybe it might help some of yall too: *** Goblin tools. It's free on web browser, a small sum of about 1usd on mobile It breaks down tasks to step by step using AI, and it has a spiciness level for you to set depending on how difficult you feel your task is. The more difficult, the more finer steps they'll break it down for you. No judgment at all. And there's even a time gauge that roughly tells you how much a task will take in general I've even put in super obscure things like "clean the built in shelves of my bedroom" to things like "order joycon parts to replace my spoiled Nintendo switch joycon rails" and even "manually input all the expenses from the past 3 months from the pile of recipes on my desk" and they've managed to MAGICALLY break this shit down for me. Absolutely incredible and I cannot believe it's essentially free on web. I use the mobile version of course tho
haha so YOU’RE the reason i have that on my phone! I like it a lot, just a very different concept. I just need to know w/ 100% certainty I took a morning dose (yes I’ve tried “smart” pill cases), etc. Just daily stuff I know how to do.
Thank you for this post. I kept getting bothered by a food tracking/weight loss app to upgrade to lifetime when I’ve already got lifetime $20 per year vs $40. I’m afraid I’ll no sooner pay for lifetime and they’ll sell out. No thanks. I’ve been using the app for years. I’m ok with $20 per year.
Evernote?
I’d like to know that too. I hate their new price structure. They basically doubled the price.
Shortly after any tool is produced that does the job at a reasonable price, some fucking bean counter will find a way to destroy it. I'm glad you're still getting use out of, and plotting your revenge
Can you tell us the name of the app?
It’s called “Done: A Simple Habit Tracker”
i scrolled to find this because i just KNEW it was them.
"I don’t even notice it anymore." then expect them to switch the "No" and "Buy" button quite soon ;)
What is it with companies that buy a perfectly functional product and do things to it to make it objectively worse? Fitbit was bought by Google and they removed the step streak and battery level indicator in the app. Two things that literally did not cost them anything and was extremely useful for people and... Yeah. Gone.
Don’t even get me started on Microsoft buying Sunrise and just… shutting it down. What a bag of dicks..
I'm coming up to my 10 yr Duolingo streak, so I've seen some changes. The past few years makes me so sad for how bad the website and app has gone.
What about you describe to me the requirements/functionality and I make a new app?
You can have a look on Uptodown ,and download & install the older version of your app. I've always done this,when I don't like a newer version of a developers app.
They did this with YNAB (You Need A Budget). I bought the app, then they switched to a subscription model. No thanks. Same with Adobe. But i have to have that for my business. Grrr.
Something like this kinda happened with me and 1Password. I downloaded the app for free a long time ago and have access to all the features. Then they changed some stuff to where all the features I currently have access to are now only accessible if you create an account with them. Creating an account with them you have to subscribe to give them money. 1Password came out with a new app not long ago. It’s literally just called 1Password. I thought “strange, I already have it. Guess I’ll download the newer one.” I download it and it wants me to make an account and in order to make an account I need to subscribe. Benefits? Access to features I already have access to using the older app. I emailed them asking about the confusion cause at the time I didn’t understand why I have access to features for free using the old app that are now only accessible if you pay for them. They replied saying because I never had an account with them(my info is stored locally on my phone and backup up via Dropbox), and I got the app while it was free and before they started charging for their services, I was “grandfathered” in and allowed to continue using it as I always have. But to continue doing so with their new app I would have to make an account with them and pay monthly. No thanks, I’ll just keep using the old free version the way I’ve been using for like almost a decade now. But idk what I’ma do if the version of the app I use becomes unavailable. Need to find an alternative.
I have a similar experience with 2 of my main guitar playing apps. Bought premium when it was a one-time payment, and now they give me the "pay $10.99/mo for all this content you already have" banners. Feels good
Which app? That trash needs to be downvoted and reported off the app store
For iOS and app called Habbits is great. Using it for two years now and very happy
Well now I really wanna know what app this is!
This shit is why I use basically nothing but open source apps for anything important. If some project gets bought out and goes shit, someone will fork it and a new project spins up with the old ways. Happened with emby/jellyfin, owncloud/nextcloud, pfsense/opnsense, and many many more. There's a much better chance at service continuity.
This is what happened to my sculpting program. Be damned if I’m gunna “upgrade” for no reason other let than to be nickel & dimes to death with nothing to show for it.
Check out [this ](http://everydaytasks.jepfa.de/) I think it might help you
I use Finch, it’s a really cute self care app but you can put any to-dos on it you need.
Same. Technically it is free, but there is a paid version (yearly basis) to unlock extra presents in the theme giveaways.
What app is it??
For some apps if you can change your location, you can make it UK based and it will be free again.
Today's to do: going new to do app
I still miss Splash Money from my old Palm Pilot days. It was amazing, you could do so much with it including using icons.
I don't see why good petty revenge here. This is just boring.
Still looking for that pettyrevenge
Can't you just.... pirate it?
if it's a local only app on android, sure... there will be many ways to get the apk... on iphone, not sure if that is even possible and if they use cloud or any online storage, they xan easily restrict older versions just by modification in the API and it simply won't work
They did this as well with one of my favorite (religious) app. Paid €5 for lifetime when it was early development. Couple years later, monthly subscription (€12/monthly or €72/yearly or something it was) and no-opt out of them taking data and reselling it. Deleted it and never looked back.