RE: OmniGraffle-Users Digest, Vol 75, Issue 1

My concerns about price, but from a different direction. I've held off on the latest upgrade due to price. Do I buy the iPad version and skip the Mac version? Decisions!

-original message-
Subject: OmniGraffle-Users Digest, Vol 75, Issue 1
From: [email protected]
Date: 04/02/2010 14:00

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Today's Topics:

   1. ipad (Nic Olinsky)
   2. Re: ipad (Nic Olinsky)
   3. Re: ipad (Nic Olinsky)
   4. Re: ipad (Nic Olinsky)
   5. Re: ipad (Nic Olinsky)
   6. Re: ipad (Macdonald, Clint)
   7. Re: ipad (Thom Brooks)
   8. OmniGraffle and OmniGraphSketcher are now available for iPad
      (Ken Case)
   9. Clam up and pay the 50 Clams..... (Michael Styles Verruto)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Thu, 01 Apr 2010 12:45:36 -0700
From: Nic Olinsky <[email protected]>
Subject: ipad
To: Omnigraffle Support <[email protected]>
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

wow, $50. any customer loyalty discount?


------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Thu, 01 Apr 2010 15:14:00 -0700
From: Nic Olinsky <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: ipad
To: Omnigraffle Support <[email protected]>
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

yes, available now. worth twice the price as far as I am concerned, just had a little sticker shock. It will officially be the most expensive purchase I will make from the iTunes App Store.

On Apr 1, 2010, at 3:10 PM, Scott wrote:

> $50 for what? iPad verson of omnigraffle ?
> 
> On Apr 1, 2010, at 12:45 PM, Nic Olinsky wrote:
> 
>> wow, $50. any customer loyalty discount?
>> _______________________________________________
>> OmniGraffle-Users mailing list
>> [email protected]
>> http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/omnigraffle-users
> 



------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Thu, 01 Apr 2010 15:29:55 -0700
From: Nic Olinsky <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: ipad
To: Omnigraffle Support <[email protected]>
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Search for "ipad" in App Store for a listing of all iPad apps available. I'm waiting for a 3G model also, but couldn't help buying the iWorks suite already! OmniGraffle will be next.

On Apr 1, 2010, at 3:26 PM, Scott wrote:

> Wow, Thanks for the notice. I will definitely buy it as well although I will not receive my iPad until late April since I ordered the WiFi+3G model. Where did you see the pricing? I haven't seen anything come out mentioning it other than your email message.
> 
> Thanks,
> Scott
> 
> On Apr 1, 2010, at 3:14 PM, Nic Olinsky wrote:
> 
>> yes, available now. worth twice the price as far as I am concerned, just had a little sticker shock. It will officially be the most expensive purchase I will make from the iTunes App Store.
>> 
>> On Apr 1, 2010, at 3:10 PM, Scott wrote:
>> 
>>> $50 for what? iPad verson of omnigraffle ?
>>> 
>>> On Apr 1, 2010, at 12:45 PM, Nic Olinsky wrote:
>>> 
>>>> wow, $50. any customer loyalty discount?
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> OmniGraffle-Users mailing list
>>>> [email protected]
>>>> http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/omnigraffle-users
>>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> OmniGraffle-Users mailing list
>> [email protected]
>> http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/omnigraffle-users
> 



------------------------------

Message: 4
Date: Thu, 01 Apr 2010 16:19:54 -0700
From: Nic Olinsky <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: ipad
To: Omnigraffle Support <[email protected]>
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

It's a tough call. I don't know what it costs to port an application from Mac OS X to the iPhone/iPad platform, but I know the OmniGroup's resources aren't those of larger developers, so I am willing to pay the price and hope the functionality equals its OS X cousin.

On Apr 1, 2010, at 3:55 PM, Stephen Thomas wrote:

> As a longtime fan and heavy user of OmniGraffle Pro, I have to admit that the $50 price tag means I'm going to pass on the iPad version. And I say that even though I expect to end up using the iPad as my primary personal computer (replacing an iBook G4). I do know how useful OmniGraffle Pro can be, and I prefer using it on my current computer, but to be honest, most of my diagramming needs can be met just fine with the latest version of Keynote. Sure, about 50% of the time OG would be more convenient, and probably about 10% of the time what I want to do just won't be possible in Keynote, but for $50 I'll live with the inconvenience and a few frustrated artistic aspirations. Apple is probably setting an unreasonable pricing expectation with their $10 iWork apps (the Apple brand will help them make it up in volume; plus they're really using apps to drive hardware sales). Still, no more than about $20 seems right for an iPad version of OG. Wolfram Alpha's recent capitulation may be instructive here (though, in their case no more than $5 seems reasonable; interesting that they've gone all the way to $2). Of course, I'm still a big fan of the Omni Group (I own OmniGraffle, OmniPlan, OmniOutliner, and OmniGraphSketcher), and I hope they continue to be successful. At least for now, though, they'll have to do it without me on the iPad.
> 
> Stephen
> 
> 
> On 2010 April 1, at 3:45 PM, Nic Olinsky wrote:
> 
>> wow, $50. any customer loyalty discount?
>> _______________________________________________
>> OmniGraffle-Users mailing list
>> [email protected]
>> http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/omnigraffle-users
> 



------------------------------

Message: 5
Date: Thu, 01 Apr 2010 16:45:29 -0700
From: Nic Olinsky <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: ipad
To: Omnigraffle Support <[email protected]>
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

I have about 3 weeks before my iPad arrives, so I have some time to see how things shake out.
On Apr 1, 2010, at 4:37 PM, Stephen Thomas wrote:

> I'm pretty sure that they've done a whole lot more than just port from Mac to the iPad. At least I hope so. The iPad is an entirely new way to interact with a computer, and the UX part of an app probably needs to be re-thought from scratch. In fact, that's one of the reasons I'm holding off on spending money on iPad apps. It's going to take developers a while to figure out how to make the best use of the platform. There may be a land grab at first, but I think the more satisfying apps will be from those developers who take the time to live with the iPad for awhile and really learn how users interact with it. Kudos to the Omni Group for meeting the launch deadline. I'm sure their iPad apps are as high a quality as the desktop versions. But I'm also sure that we'll all learn a lot about the iPad in the next 6 months or so, and I expect OG to have much improved versions within that time. The developers that are racing just to get an app out quickly, with no intention of making significant improvements later; those are the developers I'd stay away from . (And, sad to say, from the looks of the iTunes store right now, just about all the apps seem to be in danger of falling into that category.) The obvious exception is Apple. Presumably, the iWork team has had a significant chance to work with the iPad, and I expect their apps will be much more finely tuned to the uniqueness of the iPad experience.
> 
> So my plan is to pick up the iWork apps as soon as I have an iPad. I'll also try out some free apps (NY Times looks interesting) and any iPhone apps that I own that have iPad versions (Sketches 2 and Instaviz). But otherwise I'll hold onto my cash for a few months to see what really develops in the market.
> 
> 
> On 2010 April 1, at 7:19 PM, Nic Olinsky wrote:
> 
>> I don't know what it costs to port an application from Mac OS X to the iPhone/iPad platform
> 



------------------------------

Message: 6
Date: Thu, 1 Apr 2010 21:15:52 -0500
From: "Macdonald, Clint" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: ipad
To: "[email protected]"
	<[email protected]>
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252"

Friends:

At the risk of sounding like a whiney cry-baby, I think I am aligned with Messrs. Olinsky and Thomas. US$50 seems like an astonishingly high price for OmniGraffle.iPad. Here is my reasoning:

I do not know too much about marketing (and this is where the OmniGroup folks could call me out), but I know that application pricing is an art and a science. Ideally, one wants to price an application at a high enough price that *some* fraction of the potential audience will wince � otherwise, the company is leaving money on the table. I do not know what that fraction is, but let us say it is 20% of the potential market. Finding that exact price is, I am sure, tricky.

I also know that one does not want to price the app so high that too much of the market passes on the sale. If, say, 80% of the potential market passes on the sale, the company is leaving a *lot* of money on the table. I wonder if the price of $50 is leaving too much of the market behind.

Has Omni hit that "sweet" spot at $50? I cannot say for sure. If this were a shareware application, I could test the app for a few weeks and determine whether OmniGraffle.iPad fit into my workflow. Under those circumstances, I might find it cheap at $50, but I cannot test that possibility.

Andy Ihnatko gave a magnificent on-air review of the iPad yesterday on MacBreak Weekly. On the show, when Alex Lindsay asked about OmniGraffle, Ihnatko admitted it was too pricey for his blood:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty6Hjs0NpDs>

Taking myself as another example, I am OmniGraffle's ideal market: affluent, design-minded, early adopter, a heavy user of OmniGraffle.app, the whole bag. One of the apps I was most excited about was OmniGraffle.iPad� until I heard that it was priced at $50. I can buy all three Apple iWork apps for that and still have money left over to buy dinner.

Don't get me wrong � OmniGroup's applications are of the very highest quality, and are worth a premium over other apps. I assume (though I cannot test) that OmniGraffle.iPad will be magnificent and will only get better as Omni becomes more familiar with the iPad's interface. But I can probably get 60% of its utility at 20% of its price by buying Keynote.iPad. With the money I save, I could probably upgrade to the next version of OmniGraffle for the Mac.

Best wishes,
Clint

On Apr 1, 2010, at 6:19 PM, Nic Olinsky wrote:

> It's a tough call. I don't know what it costs to port an application from Mac OS X to the iPhone/iPad platform, but I know the OmniGroup's resources aren't those of larger developers, so I am willing to pay the price and hope the functionality equals its OS X cousin.
> 
> On Apr 1, 2010, at 3:55 PM, Stephen Thomas wrote:
> 
>> As a longtime fan and heavy user of OmniGraffle Pro, I have to admit that the $50 price tag means I'm going to pass on the iPad version. And I say that even though I expect to end up using the iPad as my primary personal computer (replacing an iBook G4). I do know how useful OmniGraffle Pro can be, and I prefer using it on my current computer, but to be honest, most of my diagramming needs can be met just fine with the latest version of Keynote. Sure, about 50% of the time OG would be more convenient, and probably about 10% of the time what I want to do just won't be possible in Keynote, but for $50 I'll live with the inconvenience and a few frustrated artistic aspirations. Apple is probably setting an unreasonable pricing expectation with their $10 iWork apps (the Apple brand will help them make it up in volume; plus they're really using apps to drive hardware sales). Still, no more than about $20 seems right for an iPad version of OG. Wolfram Alpha's recent capitulation may be instructive here (though, in their case no more than $5 seems reasonable; interesting that they've gone all the way to $2). Of course, I'm still a big fan of the Omni Group (I own OmniGraffle, OmniPlan, OmniOutliner, and OmniGraphSketcher), and I hope they continue to be successful. At least for now, though, they'll have to do it without me on the iPad.
>> 
>> Stephen
>> 
>> 
>> On 2010 April 1, at 3:45 PM, Nic Olinsky wrote:
>> 
>>> wow, $50. any customer loyalty discount?



------------------------------

Message: 7
Date: Thu, 1 Apr 2010 23:41:24 -0500 (CDT)
From: Thom Brooks <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: ipad
To: "Macdonald, Clint" <[email protected]>
Cc: "[email protected]"
	<[email protected]>
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; format=flowed; charset=US-ASCII

On Thu, 1 Apr 2010, Macdonald, Clint wrote:
> At the risk of sounding like a whiney cry-baby,

In the forums, Ken Case said, "Wait until we actually make an announcement of 
the price and the feature set, before you pass judgement."

http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=15804


* This is _the_ app I have been waiting for on iPad. I am so glad that they 
chose this as one of the first ones to port. The potential is enormous.

* The price is never permanent. Software prices change all of the time on the 
app store. If you're not happy, wait a bit and see if it comes down.

Yes: on the one hand, I think the price is steep.

On the other hand, I have been reading phrases like,

"We're working like crazy on the apps. For example, the only time yesterday 
that one of us didn't check in code for OmniGraffle for iPad was between 4 and 
5am."

http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?p=74488


I don't know if these guys bill hourly or are salaried or what, but 
regardless, they are all making some pretty big personal sacrifices to make 
these products the best that they can. This is not a large company. I suspect 
that the people who work on the software end up reading the mailing list, 
forums, etc.

Having worked a few all-night-for-many-night software releases, I can only 
imagine that Omni are thinking of a way to recoup some of those 'midnight oil' 
costs. Or maybe they've just taken a hard look at what it costs for them to 
make software.


I'm one of those folks who will have iPad + 3G 'lag envy' this Saturday.. and 
for a few weeks after that. Despite that, I just made my decision and clicked 
'buy app.' I hope you'll do the same.


Thom Brooks
Austin, TX


------------------------------

Message: 8
Date: Fri, 2 Apr 2010 07:28:53 -0700
From: Ken Case <[email protected]>
Subject: OmniGraffle and OmniGraphSketcher are now available for iPad
To: OmniGraffle Users <[email protected]>,
	[email protected]
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

For those who aren't on our omni-press mailing list, I thought I'd forward along this morning's press release about our new iPad apps, OmniGraffle and OmniGraphSketcher.  Product videos and other information about both apps are now available on our website (http://www.omnigroup.com/).

And, wow, thank you everyone!  OmniGraffle for iPad is already off to a strong start on the App Store:  it's currently the top grossing third-party iPad app, right behind Apple's iWork apps.

				Ken

Begin forwarded message:

> From: [email protected]
> Date: April 2, 2010 6:10:47 AM PDT
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: [PR] The Omni Group Announces Two Apps for iPad 
> 
> For Immediate Release
> 
> 
>         The Omni Group Announces Two Apps for iPad
> 
>     OmniGraffle and OmniGraphSketcher bring hands-on
>     productivity, diagramming and graph-drawing tools
>                          to iPad
> 
> SEATTLE, Washington -- April 2, 2010 -- The Omni Group today announced the availability of its OmniGraffle and OmniGraphSketcher Apps for iPad on the App Store. OmniGraffle is a popular diagramming and concept visualization program, while OmniGraphSketcher is a tool for fast, simple graph drawing and data plotting. Originally available exclusively for Mac, OmniGraffle and OmniGraphSketcher have been redesigned to take full advantage of the advanced capabilities of iPad.
> 
> "We think iPad has amazing potential as a productivity tool, and we wanted to make sure our apps really leveraged its strengths rather than simply copying the features we'd built in our Mac apps," says Ken Case, founder and CEO of the Omni Group. "Everything's designed with iPad in mind; tools stay out of your way until you need them, and you interact directly with the elements in your document. It's a very focused, superior mobile experience."
> 
> OmniGraphSketcher combines the quantitative power of data plotting with the ease of touchscreen drawing. OmniGraphSketcher helps people make elegant and precise graphs in seconds, whether from specific data to report or a concept to explain. It lets users create lines and data points, draw curves, and shade in important areas as easily as though they were using a basic drawing program, and they can add new data or change existing information simply by touching their graph.
> 
> OmniGraffle makes quick work of creating a diagram, process chart, page layout, website wireframe, or graphic design. Use simple Multi-Touch gestures and OmniGraffle to draw shapes, drag in objects, and style everything until it's just right. OmniGraffle keeps lines connected to shapes even when they're moved, and includes smart guides, automatic layout, and a full set of built-in stencils, with the ability to download thousands more.
> 
> Both apps are compatible with the Mac desktop versions, and include the ability to send and receive documents through email or share documents via PDF export.
> 
> "As a company, we're very excited about iPad," says Case. "We believe Multi-Touch is the future of computing, and we plan to bring all of our productivity applications to the iPad."
> 
> The OmniGraphSketcher App for iPad is available for $14.99, and the OmniGraffle App for iPad is available for $49.99 from the App Store on iPad or at www.itunes.com.
> 
> About the Omni Group:
> One of the first companies to develop software for the Mac OS X platform, the Omni Group is today a leading developer for Apple products and has designed several productivity applications for Mac OS X, iPhone, and now iPad. Founded in 1993, the Omni Group is located in Seattle, Washington.
> 
>                            ####
> Press Contact:
> 
> Naomi Pearce, Pearce Communications
> [email protected]
> omnigroup.com/pr



------------------------------

Message: 9
Date: Fri, 2 Apr 2010 11:43:33 -0400
From: Michael Styles Verruto <[email protected]>
Subject: Clam up and pay the 50 Clams.....
To: OmniGraffle Users <[email protected]>
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset=us-ascii

Ahhh, I'm buyin it. They deserve the support. Everyone quit whining and cough it up. It's piddling catchup for such overly reasonable app prices we've all enjoyed over these many years from Omni for INCREDIBLE software they OFTEN update to our collective hearts desires..... So they deserve a little "pop" once in a while form the throbbing horde.... Now OMNI if you could PLEASE give us a REAL 3d charting app for data Numbers that lays the text in dimension and perspective accurate - information relative relative "plane" :) I'll pay$100 for THAT.  And buy all 10 of my employees a copy and an iPad and just to run it on!!!!!

:)

Thanks, really you guys (and gals) at OMNI for continuing great software service to all of us!

Michael

Sent from my iPhone

"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody."

Bill Cosby

On Apr 1, 2010, at 10:26 PM, "Macdonald, Clint"<[email protected]> wrote:

> Friends:
> 
> At the risk of sounding like a whiney cry-baby, I think I am aligned with Messrs. Olinsky and Thomas. US$50 seems like an astonishingly high price for OmniGraffle.iPad. Here is my reasoning:......[yeadda yadda yadda]






------------------------------

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End of OmniGraffle-Users Digest, Vol 75, Issue 1
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