![]() ![]() When it's done well, it works out better for everyone. The developer has the incentive to keep service excellent and new features coming, otherwise subscriptions will drop off. Rather than having to save big ideas for major version releases, new features can be rolled out gradually and incrementally as service improvements, instead of dangling them as enticements to get people to spend money on upgrades. Without a discount, you're going to spend $60 a year on TextExpander, a utility whose previous release cost $35, once. That helps to predictably support current and future development efforts, instead of having to plan development cycles on the expectation of a big windfall whenever there's a major new release. A subscription model offers a regular flow of income, and stops the developer from having to run on what Smile CEO (/e?link=https%3A%2F%2F"the upgrade treadmill." Devil's advocateĪs hard as it may be to shift perspective, consider the developer's point. There are plenty of other productivity apps and suites besides Microsoft Office. Likewise, some designers still hold out with their Adobe Creative Suite 6 software or have migrated to other non-Adobe products all together. Smile's move is likely to spur at least some of those developers to redouble their efforts to win hearts and minds away from Smile. Other text expansion and shortcut utilities for Mac and iOS are available. Software as a Service certainly doesn't work for everyone, and Smile is bound to lose some customers as it makes this migration. Our subscribers pay a flat monthly fee and in turn, we back up their computers to our data center.) (In the interest of full disclosure: I work for one of those companies I'm talking about: - we sell cloud-based backup services for Mac and Windows users. Family plans, added iCloud space and optional services like Apple Music have many of us tithing to Cupertino faithfully every month. iCloud is free, unless you need more space. If you want to use Apple Music, that's another $10 per month. Buying an iPhone or a Mac is just the start. Office 365 users got the earliest look at Office for Mac 2016 when it made its debut last year.Įven Apple's gotten into the act. Microsoft has done the same with Office, and while Office 2016 is also available with a perpetual license, Microsoft gives users plenty of incentive to subscribe to Office 365 instead, with more flexibility and better features. ![]() An ever-growing constellation of new apps and services continue to give creative professionals reasons to subscribe to Creative Cloud products. ![]() The company went all in on the service model a few years ago by focusing development of their creative apps as the Creative Cloud. Smile joins some big players at it seeks to reinvent TextExpander as a service instead of as an app you pay for once until the next major upgrade. Adobe Creative Cloud on Mac (Image credit: iMore) ![]()
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