Quick note + some good news!
Just a quick note on why iFlash Touch is taking so long. It isn’t because of any particular show stopping issues with iFlash Touch or iFlash itself. Rather, it’s because I’m a full-time college student who has to place my studies as priority number 1.
I can’t emphasize enough how much it hurts me to think about how long iFlash Touch has taken. I recently dropped a class just to find some time to work on it, and am now hoping to submit version 1.0 to the App Store in the next 3 weeks.
I’ll end this note with some good news: iFlash Touch is going to be 100% free when it’s released in the App Store! It’ll require iFlash for the Mac, naturally, but if you already own iFlash then you’ll be able to export to your iPhone/iPod touch for free.
Thanks again everyone for your patience. I’ll update again once iFlash Touch has been submitted to the App Store.
- Davey
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Right Davey, “full-time college student” until the next time you decide to take a semester off to go work at Panic or Apple :)
Please hurry!
Really looking forward to this!
Also this might be an unpopular opinion, but I honestly think you should charge money for this. I know I would be willing to pay $2 – $4 for it, especially since even though iFlash for OSX was so cheap, I’ve definitely gotten my money’s worth out of it.
I second that. I too think you should take some money for it. iFlash IS a pretty good deal itself and as a full time student you probably can use the money. If not, you could still spend it for a charity project.
Just some thoughts.
Best,
Tim
PS.: Cheers for the second beta.
Can’t be said enough times, charge us for it. I have purchased 3 licenses for iFlash for OSX and I was completely willing to pay $9.99 in the App Store.
My only request is…will you keep us updated over the next 3-5 weeks?
Yeah, dude, I’d pay something too. Iflash is the best I’ve found.
Is there any possibility of us non-mac users getting some love? I’d be happy to use an emulator or whatever, if anyone could provide a suggestion? Thanks very much
Please charge a few dollars. You need to rewarded for your work and we need to give you incentive to keep developing iflash ;)
That’s mighty generous of you, but I also think you should charge for it. You’re not going to be a full-time student forever, and we want you to be motivated to develop all kinds of cool stuff for us when you’re done.
I really can’t wait — any way to still get into the beta program? ;-)
Yeah, charge something for it.
You ever seen so many people saying “let me pay for it?” (-:
I can see why you might not want to charge for it, if you need iFlash on the Mac for it to be fully operational. If that’s the case, then it does make sense to make it free, which will bring people’s attention to iFlash. If, on the other hand, it has the potential to operate on its own, then I’d fully support the others and say that you should charge for it, as in incentive to yourself to keep developing it.
Waited for long!!
A far fan from Hong Kong :-)
Thanks for the update. You should have a donation box instead,
but I do agree with your reason of not making it a paid app.
Tons of people would donate if you did, and you still get the
free ads on apple saying free app.
BTW, are you using the new SDK?
Thank you so much!!!! Yes charge for it please
I understand people with the trial for OSX could only use it for 15 days so then you will get money from that who will want to buy iFlash for OS X, buttttt like everyone else I would be willing to pay even $15 for it. Even $.99 would help you out.
You are awesome! Thanks again
Also I was wondering if you are using any of the new APIs from the new SDK and if so which ones?
I just want to say Thank You for your continued support of iFlash. It is a wonderful software program, and something I use every day. Keep up the good work!! I’m sure the iPhone app will be awesome.
3 weeks before submission to apple?!?! I guess I can wait a little longer. ;-)
Hey, sounds like you’ve got some sound marketing judgement. New adapters would be pretty upset if they had to pay twice to get thing working. For all those who want to send some extra cash, just work a bit harder getting your friends to purchase iFlash and all will be right for Davey’s efforts.
Wow, thank you for this update, sincerely wish you the best of luck in your studies
Thanks for giving me the best news today!
Good luck on your study. =)
Branding iflash as a platform and offering two programs for the price of one is better than trying to jack up your per customer revenue as high as it could conceivably go.
A two tiered pricing system (especially where the 1st tier is as expensive as iflash is and there are open source options) would be the sort of thing that would discourage people from even trying it.
The iphone is a huge platform; and lots of people use flashcards but aren’t so serious that they need to blow that kind of money.
Honestly you might do better to pull it down to the point where it was seen as an incidental purchase ($5?).
If 1 US student in 10000 in the got the program…
Just thinking out loud.
I’m totally looking forward for it. Also would like to give an opinion here, if the app should be free or not. I’m agree you should make money out of it. But from the marketing perspective.. the App should be free and increase the price for iFlash.
I’m a fan of your product from Germany. Used it for learning mathematics (memorizing definitions) as well as languages (both Asian and European). I think iFlash is one of the “killer apps” for the mac platform, in a league, if less complex, with textmate, omnioutliner, et al. It is a good marketing move, as someone already remarked above, to keep the deal as simple as the interface is clean and put it up on the appstore for free. I agree that a donation box somewhere would get filled by grateful users. If you don’t need extra money, the times are such that someone else will. See it as a facilitating mechanism to transfer money benevolently. You as facilitator increase your karma ;-) To be honest, your app was the main reason I held out for getting an iPhone. My memory is pretty bad and I could use this to fill up the time on public transport usefully. Now I’m going to wait some more since the new iteration is coming up but hey, if that doesn’t say you’ve got one devoted fan in Germany, what does? Keep up the good works, and best of luck in your studies. It’s nice to see someone who can do good work and still keep his priorities straight and not be seduced by the mighty fast buck.
Hey Davey,
Thats great news! Thanks for that!
I think its a good idea to make it free initially to boost the number of people knowing about it and using it. You can still charge for later versions of it.
And I think there is still a lot of room for improvement (if you want to continue to develop iFlash): better algorithms for memorizing/statistics etc…. (something in the way of vokker.net see the principle explained here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashcard ). In short: the idea is to memorize not only the binary status known/not-known but to put every card in a specific “box” and keep track of when it has been asked about last and how many times it was known and not.
box1 = not known at all: ask it every time you train.
box2 = known once -> ask about it every 2nd day.
box3 = known ok -> ask about it every week….
etc….
thus periodically all cards are checked. you know it -> it moves up one box, you don’t it moves down one box….
anyway: just a proposition :-)
Keep up the good work!
Mat
Hey Mat,
You can set up iFlash for spaced repetition already. Look in the study options dialog. You can customize the duration between each interval and how far back the card goes if answered incorrectly.
I’d personally like to see some basic RTF formatting in a future version.
I would definitely pay for this…
just got a iphone today and am eagerly awaiting iflash for it. i use iflash on a daily basis and have for years, sitting on the subway on my way to work to learn spanish and this would be, to say the least, invaluable for me to have. and please DO charge for the app. it is only natural to charge for something which you have worked hard on for free thus far and for which there is such eager demand.
Thanks for putting out such a great app…taking time from a busy schedule. College, work, and life leave little time for coding. I agree with the majority of people. You should receive some sort of payment, at least from the people willing to pay. I support your business model of free iPhone app requiring paid desktop version. I think you will draw more customers this way. I do think you should include a donation option for longtime fans of your software.
It’s great! Waiting for a long long time. Thanks for that.
I can’t wait for this. Let me know if you need a beta tester!
I was about to second the others in encouraging you to charge for it, but I think that’s only a good idea if you have the proper time to support and update the app in future.
Thanks everyone for the words of encouragement :).
One of the main reasons I am going to make it free is because it will (initially) require iFlash on the Mac to work. If I ever make it into an app that can stand on its own, I’ll charge for it then :).
More than happy to pay for it! Good luck with finding time to work on it.
Hurrah! At last the reason to buy an iPod Touch.
I too would pay for it. I’d pay $10 (or 5 pounds) without thinking as an add-on to the desktop application.
I’d see the payment as acknowledgement for your efforts to date on software I use a lot and encouragement for you to keep on developing and improving it.
If you are going to potentially abandon it, I’d hope you would open source it to allow a group to continue it.
Though it pains me to wait a bit longer for the Touch version, I’m glad you’ve got the priorities in correct order: school comes first! I also agree that you should charge something for the product–hey you may need to pay for grad school, right? All of the price points mentioned here are reasonable–don’t go too lowball. Think about how much time (=money) people spend studying. Would anyone who is beating their brains out 1-4 hours a day studying begrudge spending $10-20 on an app which would make life easier. Keep in mind that for iphone users any app purchase is completely invisible compared to the opex of the iphone. Code baby code!
Thanks for the update Davey. Can’t wait to see it in the Application Store soon!!
Really great news!! Glad to hear that you’re now a college student!
I’m a fan from Sweden, and I’ve used iFlash for Mac to study Japanese, English, Grammar, etc. I just love it, and am looking forward to the iPhone version. Would be great to study on the bus, train, lunch breaks, etc! Wold gladly pay for it, and as I’m a University student myself, I know you’re going to want and need the money! ^_^
Keep up the good work, and good luck to the College studies!
As I put some intensive time into iFlash (It’s Finals time!) I decided to pop over and see if there was an update, and I’m thrilled that the app is on it’s way!
As for pricing, you’re paying the developer fees to be part of the App store, you might as well at least try to recover that. You could take a page out of Apple’s own book and do what they do with the Keynote Remote, and charge $0.99. I can’t think of too many people that would balk at $0.99 — heck that’s cheaper than a pack of 100 paper flash cards — and it would *at least* help you recover some of your costs.
(And I’d gladly pay more, but at least charge $0.99)
I’m sooo excited!! The sooner, the better! Especially with finals!
It would be AMAZING if you could get the iPhone/touch version published before finals!
Bless you and hurry! My finals are coming and having iFlash on my phone will save my life! As soon as it is released, I know many people who will be getting it! Thanks for such a great product, and can’t wait till its mobile!
Btw, I agree with the above comments and would GLADLY pay for the app!
Yes, $0.99 would be a good price.
Also, a donation box.
I would gladly donate if you set it up. I’m really looking forward to audio flash cards on my iPod (!!). That said, I agree with an earlier comment that not charging for the app is the smart move. There will be people who’s first contact with iFlash is through the app store. And, for them, paying for an app that won’t work without buying the software might tick them off (especially if they have a PC!). otherwise, it should be a great way to pull mac users in for the free trial of the software.
Any news on this? It’s already been about 3 weeks :)
Tres: it’ll be 3 weeks exactly on Monday. Stay tuned :).
Looks like your application is going to be reviewed on this site http://foolsworkshop.com/reviews/ in the near future.
Can’t wait for iFlash Touch. I also can’t wait for iPhone/iPod 3.0 — the current version doesn’t render the Devanagari(Hindi) script correctly. I suppose I could make some image files as a potential workaround if your app will support images, but hopefully Apple will get around to supporting more languages in their update – obviating the need to do so.
YEEESSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!
I agree, I think you should charge .99 cents for it dude. No more, especially since you’re making money off the desktop program. That’s the standard price for iPhone apps and no-one will think twice about paying you for your development work.
Thanks Davey. Have had Monday marked since you posted this thread. Am glad to hear you’re still on track.
Woo! iFlash touch is coming? I can’t wait… c’mon app store. I’d pay $1.99 for the additional functionality to study on the go, free is nice though. :) Just saying, I appreciate the app and the work for it.
I am waiting to purchase this as well….
I am anxiously waiting for the iPod/IPhone client. I almost purchased a competitor, which was not exactly what I wanted but is the only other flashcard app providing OSX iPod integration, when I saw that this is almost released.
Please hurry
Time’s up!
Seriously, any chance of iFlash Touch being available this week? How long does the approval process take once the app is submitted to the App Store?
I’m glad to see I’m not the only one anxiously awaiting this :)
From what I’ve heard the approval process can take up to 3 days.
According to his Twitter it’s just been submitted to the App Store!
Some screenshots and a preview would be really nice at this point.