Beejive submitted to the App store

[Niiro13]

Facebook IM support would seriously rock. You think there's any chance they could make it work better than Facebook chat online? (Which sucks)

We can all dream...

Too bad it still has to go through the facebook servers (for those 98% of people who don't have iPhones) which is the problem .

I can't believe they haven't fixed it yet.

 

[kwjohns]

$16? Hah! For all I care, Beejive is dead to me now.

 

[aluren]

what would be the difference between beejive and im+?

 

[diesel]

i'm okay with $16, it's not a whole lot of money. besides, if that higher price point will make the app more exclusive and keep out the masses from affecting the stability and performance of the app, i'm all for it. not to mention, i've been using beejive's web app for well over a year now, for free, so i don't mind paying that price to give a little back to the devs

 

[opticalserenity]

I paid well over $16 for a ONE YEAR LICENSE to Beejive for Blackberry. And this is better. Come on folks, you beg for decent software then are too cheap to get it?

 

[TopToffee]

I paid well over $16 for a ONE YEAR LICENSE to Beejive for Blackberry. And this is better. Come on folks, you beg for decent software then are too cheap to get it?

it's not anything to do with being cheap mate. I may or may not buy Beejive, but pricing your product at around 500% the price of your most expensive competitor is faintly ridiculous.

 

[diesel]

it's not anything to do with being cheap mate. I may or may not buy Beejive, but pricing your product at around 500% the price of your most expensive competitor is faintly ridiculous.

Not so ridiculous when that competitior's app doesn't even WORK (I assume that you are referring to MC)?

 

[Rojo]

it's not anything to do with being cheap mate. I may or may not buy Beejive, but pricing your product at around 500% the price of your most expensive competitor is faintly ridiculous.

The problem is, that competitor you're referring to is MobileChat, which simply doesn't work at all. Yes, there are free ones that DO work, but they have limitations and drawbacks too. I agree it's expensive for just an IM client, and I expect it to drop down in price at some point. But if it works as intended, and is as robust and reliable as their Blackberry app has been, then they should absolutely charge a higher price for it.

 

[TopToffee]

Not so ridiculous when that competitior's app doesn't even WORK (I assume that you are referring to MC)?

I was referring to MC, simply because it is (afaik) the most expensive IM client until Beejive hits.

Correct, MC doesn't work at the moment, and god knows whether it will or not in the future. But when you DISCOUNT MC, the pricing of Beejive looks like an even STRANGER decision, since the likes of Palringo and IM+ do the VAST majority of what Beejive will do, and they do it for free.

Then one step on from there, let's assume for a moment that MC actually get their act together at some point in the future.... is Beejive going to be 500% better than MC? I doubt it.

I actually really like the Beejive web app, and would love for the appstore Beejive to become the "standard" IM client for the iPhone, but I just can't see it happening at that price point. It just seems like a weird business decision. With all the MC trouble, if they'd put their app up at around the same price, or even around the $5 mark, I really think they would have got a lock on the IM market for the iPhone. People would drop the $5 or so without too much thought.

At $16? I'm not so sure... I think a lot of people will hang around and see what happens with the next MC Update, and Beejive will have given a competitor a "second chance" at grabbing a piece of their market share.

 

[markgamber]

I paid well over $16 for a ONE YEAR LICENSE to Beejive for Blackberry. And this is better. Come on folks, you beg for decent software then are too cheap to get it?

Sounds about right. IM+ is free, they can use that.

 

[moloukhya]

Sure we've all heard that BeeJive is great, but charging $16 is ridiculous.

Using the fact that it works well is not a justification, other free apps have worked fine for me (Palringo for example). I'm not cheap, I was ready to pay for this, and I've gladly paid for many apps that have proven their value. At this price however, I'll keep what I have, and I'm sure many will do the same. With a centralized AppStore, it's very easy for people to vote with their wallets and push overpriced apps out of the market. BeeJive should re-think their marketing strategy.

I definitely agree that they should at least institute some promotional period with a lower price for the first week or 1000 users.

 

[opticalserenity]

If you don't like it, don't buy it. Capitalism (read this if you are confused: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism) is that simple. Take your money elsewhere if you are unhappy with the price.

If someone thinks it is worth $15.99, they'll pay it, otherwise, they won't. If not enough demand accrues, Beejive will most likely lower the price to meet demand.

It amazes me the iPhone has so many whiners when it comes to application price. When I was on BB, I gladly would pay $50 for an app that did what I wanted. Just like I will pay the $989 for Photoshop at Newegg if in fact that is the app I need to do what I want.

I sometimes think the iPhone had a better userbase when it was $499. Scratch that, I always think that.

 

[TopToffee]

If you don't like it, don't buy it. Capitalism (read this if you are confused: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism) is that simple. Take your money elsewhere if you are unhappy with the price.

If someone thinks it is worth $15.99, they'll pay it, otherwise, they won't. If not enough demand accrues, Beejive will most likely lower the price to meet demand.

It amazes me the iPhone has so many whiners when it comes to application price. When I was on BB, I gladly would pay $50 for an app that did what I wanted. Just like I will pay the $989 for Photoshop at Newegg if in fact that is the app I need to do what I want.

I sometimes think the iPhone had a better userbase when it was $499. Scratch that, I always think that.

wow. listen to you. I think you'll find I wasn't in the slightest WHINING about the price, I was just saying that I think it's a missed opportunity for the Beejive people to really dominate the iphone IM market.

And the BB argument is a completely invalid one. The Capitalism which you feel so keen to wave round as if it makes all your arguments for you has decided that the average price of applications for the BB is much higher than that at the moment, and if (as you would have to suspect they are) the Beejive developers are interesting in competing for market share with their rivals, then $15.99 seems like a strange pricing decision.

Notice, "seems like a strange pricing decision".. not "My god they should be shot, how dare they price an application that high and then hold a gun to my head and FORCE me to buy it." FYI *that* would be whining.

And as for "the iphone user base was better when it was $499"... well that sort of comment makes sense I suppose for someone who seems to want to make a big point of the fact that they've paid $50 for a BB app. Yes, you've got plenty of money, we get it, and well done you.

 

[RiGo]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5F136 Safari/525.20)

$16?!?!?!?

What a joke!

 

[domness]

Hmm... $16..

I'm thinking one of two things.. either this is a waste of money and bring on the cheaper apps..

Orr... look it's a decent specialised and good looking app worth the money due to it's features...

I guess I'll find out from web reviews of the app before I buy it (unlike with MobileChat).

But at the moment, Palringo is working perfectly.

 

[jaseone]

For all those saying "but Palringo is free" don't you think they will eventually need to monetize their service at some stage? My guess and I mean a guess is that they will eventally either move to an ad supported model for free or introduce a premium version of the app and/or a subscription model.

It is one thing to write an IM client that interfaces directly with the IM services and offering that for free as it is only your development time you have donated and a lot of people love doing said development so are happy to give away the fruits of their labor as free, hence the birth of open source software. However Beejive IM along with Palringo also maintain their own server infrastructure to manage connections to the IM services so you stay connected to them when you exit the app and wen you temporarily lose your network connection.

These servers cost money and for quality servers with quality hosts they cost a LOT of money, just look at the IM clients on the other mobile platforms, there are a host of expensive apps along with those that charge a monthly subscription!

 

[Daremo]

I sometimes think the iPhone had a better userbase when it was $499. Scratch that, I always think that.

You know, as arrogant as this sounds, I agree with this. I'm not by any means rich, far from it, but I paid over $1200 for 2 iPhones for me and the Mrs. the day the first one came out. There was a bit more pride owning something I knew I spent hard earned money on. Now, the same thing can be purchased by a kid mowing lawns in a couple weeks. A majority of the apps in the store cater to to the lawn mowing kids. I miss the higher standard that came with the higher price point. I can't help but think if the phone was still $599 and $499, you wouldn't see the garbage that plagues the store now.

 

[domness]

You know, as arrogant as this sounds, I agree with this. I'm not by any means rich, far from it, but I paid over $1200 for 2 iPhones for me and the Mrs. the day the first one came out. There was a bit more pride owning something I knew I spent hard earned money on. Now, the same thing can be purchased by a kid mowing lawns in a couple weeks. A majority of the apps in the store cater to to the lawn mowing kids. I miss the higher standard that came with the higher price point. I can't help but think if the phone was still $599 and $499, you wouldn't see the garbage that plagues the store now.

I'm kind of annoyed too. From the days when the iPhone was actually a product which not many people had, where it costed "alot" but people got them anyway because they were so amazing..

I'm now annoyed that the price has fallen so much (as you say for the lawn mower kids with their stupid apps).

To be honest, after a few reviews I'd probably buy this app now.

 

[TopToffee]

These servers cost money and for quality servers with quality hosts they cost a LOT of money, just look at the IM clients on the other mobile platforms, there are a host of expensive apps along with those that charge a monthly subscription!

My point wasn't so much that they shouldn't be charging by for the app, more that they'd make MORE money by charging less.

 

[TopToffee]

I can't help but think if the phone was still $599 and $499, you wouldn't see the garbage that plagues the store now.

Not necessarily. Developers would still have had just as little experience with the SDK, so there would still be a fair bit of dross, a least relative to the total number of apps...

Looking at it from another angle, if the iphone price was still really high, fewer talented developers might well be interested in making apps for the platform, as their potential sales would be that much lower... so we MIGHT not even have the good apps we have now.

 

[bklyn bruiser]

Beejive is a Great app on my other devices... But I am willing to pay $16 AFTER Apple gets the push notification up and running..

 

[mistertomlinson]

I'm definitely stealing this one. I ain't made of money, but I ain't exactly cheap. I believe BeeJive is making a huge mistake selling the app at this price. They're being extremely greedy. We all know the success developers have had selling apps via the App Store and we all know they would make an ASSLOAD of money selling BeeJiveIM for half the price they're asking... hell, they know this, but they're asking much more and I think it's unfair. They should really take into consideration that the market is still young and it wont be long before there is an ample supply of FUNCTIONING IM clients. I would have been willing to pay $10 for this app. If you would consider the quality of app that can be purchased for $10, this isn't unreasonable. But, to hell with 'em... BeeJiveIM will be cracked within a couple of days after the release and I'll be happy to install it then... they had their chance. Money hungry jerks!

 

[slapppy]

Beejive is a Great app on my other devices... But I am willing to pay $16 AFTER Apple gets the push notification up and running..

Yep, I'm with you on this one. All these IM apps are really hobbled without Apples support for notification. I mean the T-Mobile Sidekicks are so popular with IM users because they have constant notification. Anyway, when that comes, I'll be getting this app asap.

 

[AHDuke99]

fwiw, MobileChats upgrade is supposed to release today or tomorrow.

LOL

Right, they said on their site that it should be out Wednesday or Thursday. Also, they claimed the submitted the thing like a month ago and now it's finally coming out. I don't expect to see it.

$16 is a bit steep for an IM application for sure, but there are ways to get around the price to try it before you actually decide if you want to drop $16 on it.

Personally, once PUSH comes for all apps, AIM will be all you need. I wish Google would make a Gtalk for the iPhone like their web app.

 

[Rojo]

Right, they said on their site that it should be out Wednesday or Thursday. Also, they claimed the submitted the thing like a month ago and now it's finally coming out. I don't expect to see it.

LOL - According to a recent post on their blog, MobileChat just got rejected YET AGAIN!!! How many times has this been now?? It is soooo laughable at this point.