Seven 9s and 10s

High-res Alright. This has been bugging me for a few weeks now. Frankly, I don’t use either of these pieces of software so I don’t really have a horse in the race, I’m just extremely confused. I’m not a programmer/software engineer, but I can’t imagine that the same amount of work went into writing the code for iA Writer than did the code for Pages. I know. I know. It’s not fair to compare them. Oranges and Apples. Different resources, vastly different sales volume & demand, etc. Completely different playing fields. But seriously? $20 for an app that is basically a scaled down version of TextEdit vs $20 for an app that is a genuinely good word processor and page layout tool? Can anyone explain to me how that makes any sense? I’m sure the iA Writer people are talented and great at what they do and deserve every penny that they are charging, and I admit, I’m a cheap-ass son of a bitch… but… seriously? $20? All I’d be able to think about while enjoying it’s distraction-free writing environment is how I just paid $20 for something that does 1/1,000 of an app that comes pre-installed on my system. I’d be so distracted by the $20 hole in my iTunes account that I’d never even get a chance to see that fancy blur-out-your-last-sentence effect. Anyway. Ignore me. I’m a bang-for-the-buck kind of guy. I just don’t get software pricing. 

Alright. This has been bugging me for a few weeks now. Frankly, I don’t use either of these pieces of software so I don’t really have a horse in the race, I’m just extremely confused.

I’m not a programmer/software engineer, but I can’t imagine that the same amount of work went into writing the code for iA Writer than did the code for Pages. I know. I know. It’s not fair to compare them. Oranges and Apples. Different resources, vastly different sales volume & demand, etc. Completely different playing fields.

But seriously? $20 for an app that is basically a scaled down version of TextEdit vs $20 for an app that is a genuinely good word processor and page layout tool? Can anyone explain to me how that makes any sense?

I’m sure the iA Writer people are talented and great at what they do and deserve every penny that they are charging, and I admit, I’m a cheap-ass son of a bitch… but… seriously? $20?

All I’d be able to think about while enjoying it’s distraction-free writing environment is how I just paid $20 for something that does 1/1,000 of an app that comes pre-installed on my system. I’d be so distracted by the $20 hole in my iTunes account that I’d never even get a chance to see that fancy blur-out-your-last-sentence effect.

Anyway. Ignore me. I’m a bang-for-the-buck kind of guy. I just don’t get software pricing. 

Clarification

I understand it’s a brand new feature.  I know this is a free service.  I know it takes time to rollout this kind of new feature.

What bothers me is the way Tumblr seems to rollout these features before they are truly ready for primetime.  Pretty much no one saw this coming, so how would it have hurt them to delay it a few more days/weeks and let some users (namely: theme designers) beta test it and/or get the necessary code into their themes?  Instead, they let their entire user-base act as beta testers, and subsequently frustrate thousands of their users.

Not everyone who uses Tumblr can code CSS, let alone even understand what any of this Pages stuff means, but if Jane Doe sees a new feature being touted and she wants to enable it on her Tumblr, she should not be expected to understand CSS to make it work.  I’m not a web-programmer by any stretch of the imagination (one look at my 10+ year old design at FMGreen.net will make it abundantly clear how horrible my skills are) and I’m just upset that I can’t take advantage of this.

I’m not trying to be ungrateful; I love Tumblr and I love everything they’re doing to make it better and more functional and I’m excitedly looking forward to the day when I can implement them on my own.

It’s kind of like opening an awesome birthday present and then realizing you can’t play with it because you don’t have the right size batteries.

So. Lame. I hate 99% of all the Tumblr themes I’ve ever seen, but apparently I’m going to have to settle for something shittier than what I’m already using (which is pretty damn shitty) if I want to use Pages.

So. Lame.

I hate 99% of all the Tumblr themes I’ve ever seen, but apparently I’m going to have to settle for something shittier than what I’m already using (which is pretty damn shitty) if I want to use Pages.