The most significant change is that operating system upgrades are now free and they come out every year. There are a few things that took place several years ago, and it has taken developers a while to adjust to the new model. But I think they’ve made a big mistake, essentially increasing the price of this app by more than double. I really do feel bad to have to say this I think the people at Smile are great, and they make excellent software. Is it “pro” software? Or is it more like a consumer product? I tend to think of it as somewhere in between.īecause I actually use TextExpander, I find myself in a position of having to evaluate this decision to go subscription-only from two different perspectives: that of a fellow developer, and that of an actual customer of the product. Creating their own syncing service was solving a problem that I didn’t have.Īnd that’s what makes TextExpander an interesting case. Yes, I realize that Smile made their own syncing service, but I have used iCloud, Dropbox, and BitTorrent Sync, and they work fine for TextExpander. I’m not using it with a “team” and my family members probably have no interest in sharing a group of text snippets with me. There’s the rub for Smile and TextExpander: I don’t see anything that I really need in TextExpander version 6. I don’t see Smile or DayOne hiring a security team…īut is this just another case of “Users are cheap and don’t value developers’ time?” I don’t think so. I’d have said monetise the Team option with a subscription but leave individual users with current setup for now.ĭropping iCloud or Dropbox sync for your app means reinventing a strong security model. A subscription is required for any future versions and there is no committment to support of TextExpander 5 and TextExpander Touch 3, should any OS updates affect functionality. Instead of trying to entice users with the benefits or features of their new subscription service, the company has issued an ultimatum to their userbase. Smile’s approach with TextExpander, however, appears heavy handed. 1Password works exactly the same before, and after, Teams and Families were launched, though subscribers have access to a range of extra features and functionality. Smile’s new TextExpander site makes a great case for using the service for business-you could keep customer-service responses consistent and current among multiple coworkers, share snippets of code or HTML, make sure everyone has the correct spelling of a particularly tricky name, and so on.ġPassword’s approach to subscriptions is that it’s a value-added service. The Team plan adds organizational control over which snippets are shared with whom, managing team members and permissions, and so on. That’s $9.95 per month per user, or $95.52 per year per user. That should work for most people, but companies can step up to the “Team” plan. Here’s the thing that will make the new pricing model difficult to swallow for some customers – Dropbox and iCloud sync of snippet libraries, which previously didn’t cost anything extra, are being replaced with a subscription-based sync solution with a relatively high price, and if you have a large library of snippets built over many years, they will be inaccessible unless you sign up for a subscription. While both are free to download, you will need a account in order to use them. You can grab TextExpander for Mac on directly from Smile, while the new iPhone and iPad app is available now on the App Store. Share a group with someone, and it’s available on all of their devices. Add a snippet on one device, and it’s available on all your other devices. We use the same responsive features in our apps, so your changes are reflected immediately on all of your devices. We’ve built a responsive system based on Meteor, and we’re excited to host it on Galaxy. The key to making this all work is our new web application with secure, centralized storage. For powerful sharing management across a team of users set up a TextExpander Organization New sharing options let you share the wealth of knowledge stored in your snippets. TextExpander keeps your snippets current on all your devices and lets you easily share and manage snippets across whole teams. Smile, the developer of productivity applications for Mac, iPad and iPhone, has launched, the easy way to share snippets across a team, along with new app versions TextExpander 6 for Mac, TextExpander 4 for iPhone and iPad, and the new TextExpander for Windows beta.
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