Jeffrey Roberts

Lindy, on 05 May 2012 - 09:48 PM, said:

I'm not saying that I expect Invision to absorb the costs.  I would be happy to pay a renewal license to use the mobile app.  What I'm saying is that I don't think the cost for the app should be passed down to our members and visitors.

I appreciate that the white label offering will be close to that model.

Thanks for your thoughts.

We actually have very good sources of revenue that provides free access to everyone.  Free is key to us.  Something, as essential as an app, should be free to everyone.  I don't want to have to use a white label version.  I want to minimize the amount of administering to keep our community active while I focus primarily on content.  I've been relying on Invison to keep up their end of it to provide robust solutions.  In my humble opinion, this solution adds a barrier and it just doesn't make sense to me.

Please don't tell me again that if I don't want to use or pay for the app, then don't.  I have no problem personally paying for an app. I appreciate the effort it takes to design and develop applications.  I am speaking for my visitors and members whom I don't believe should have to pay for direct access to my forums via an app.

Just like "video killed the radio star" so has the App (and tablet) killed the web and browser as we know it.  I suggested in the other thread that I'm sure many of you have followed about Forums and Invision being toast in 5 years, that it isn't because of Facebook, rather it's because of the App that our forums will be dead in 5 years.  I believe a robust, freely accessible App (not just a mobile skin) is essential and we should ALL be pushing it on our forum members and visitors as quickly as possible in order to keep our forums competitive and active.

wmarcy, on 05 May 2012 - 03:38 PM, said:

I have 50,000 users on one forum and 5,000 on another and despite everything that I've read here, I still think charging a fee for this app is not good business.

We are asking our forum members if they would be willing to pay for the app.

I had been waiting for a long while for this app.  Now, I am quite disappointed that there is a cost associated with it.

I believe Invision should just suck up the cost for development and support given that we are all paying semi-annual fees for each of our IP.Boards.  It's the cost of doing business for Invison in this new app world.  Personally, it feels like a money grab.  Also, since we are bringing all of our users to the App store to buy this app,  I'm further disturbed that Invison planned no revenue share for us.  It's a hell of a lot more than just $1.99.  If 10,000 of my members buy this app that's $19,900 to Invision --- a heck of a lot more than I've ever paid to Invison.

I worked for an operating system software vendor back in the 80's and 90's. Our biggest mistake was that we charged a fee for our development environment.  That fee became a huge barrier for any developers to create applications that ran on our OS.  I believe Invision just made the same mistake charging a fee for something that is so basic.

If you want to play in the big leagues you need to get your app out there.  Plain and simple.  I urge Invision to take another look at this.

In a test environment, how can you test some of the features that require a Licence Key, if you are already using the License Key in your production environment?