For those who don’t know, Boxcar was actually acquired by another company earlier this summer. They plan to keep Boxcar running but who knows if this will change: http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/26/kwaga-acquires-boxcar-to-use-push-notifications-in-attention-management/

had issues with boxcar months ago and deleted everything: first the push-service, then the app itself. three months later people sending me emails receive a

cannot be delivered-reply

from boxcar.

to hell!

Fine. I”ll check twitter.

Nope.. their twitter account seems to go dark as soon as they start having problems again. They are like bad waiters. When the kitchen is backed up they hide from their tables rather then explain whats going on..

They are in desperate need of a “server status’ page. If you visit their twitter feed now, you will see that they have been purchased by… somebody.. I don’t know.. and to be honest. I don’t care.

too little… too late.

Press. Hold. Delete.

Ok,

First, the App Store was created, and generally I believe it’s true, to provide a forum for
Developers to sell their product and have an opportunity at success without having to sign
over all their work to a ‘company’. Clearly, over time, Apple has gone out of its
way to protect the App Store as exactly that. When the realities of the App Store are that over
95% of Developers can’t earn a living on the App Store, there is a problem; which by the way
we all saw reflected in Apple’s last quarterly results. There are many reasons App Store sales are
down, and sinking further, and they are similar to why most Developers can’t earn a living.
This is what I meant by the App Store “failing”, I’m not suggesting Apple is going under, I’m
suggesting the App Store is not living up to the Developer side of its’ mission.

Free Apps are only Free because the money is coming from somewhere else. The big cash for
Developers here is not Ads or in-Apps, it’s getting 10 million Users, securing VC or Angel
cash to start a ‘company’ from which you pay yourself a salary until the cash runs out, then
blame ‘the board’ for interfering with the development process and move on.

My disgust is sincere, not caused by too much caffeine. You stated that $4.00 is too much to
pay for a piece of software that preforms a function that you obviously feel is important.

Now, I’m going WAY out of my way to avoid getting into remarks about your “capitalism”
comments; why go there? I really don’t want to get into politics. But come on, this function
must be important to you, or why write the article? If you’re not willing to give such a tiny
sum of money to purchase a product that you need, how can you expect people to
build that product and manage to eat every day?

If your answer is, hey, Apps should be free, and earn money using the ‘free model’ outlined
above, well, then my question is, why is the App suffering from such an obvious and tragic flaw?
Please don’t say the Developers are lazy; why circle back to the political/incentive issue?

There’s obviously no money in their fixing the problem. They either never got the VC cash, or it
ran out, or they were a cheap paid App, failed, and are giving it away now trying to hold on
to a dream that will never come. They might fix it eventually, but it’s just not urgent.

The App Store will succeed when Apple pulls 90% of the trash Apps and supports charging a
fair price for quality software. Let the pirates on that ‘other mobile os’ sell their trash over there.

Here’s a good article along these lines: http://www.macrumors.com/2012/08/31/ios-developer-david-barnard-trying-to-make-the-boxed-software-model-work-at-99¢-is-a-fool’s-errand/

I was unware of the impending failure of the App Store – unless you’re referring to disagreeing with its design (which is a separate argument of capitalism).

Boxcar is a free app and rarely stinks – but when it does become unstable, it is a disaster. Given that low cost, it’d be interesting to know whether the dev is having the posh lifestyle you suggest.

I do have a forum to review, complain, and celebrate those apps that deserve it – as do you and any other nice guy. . And unless someone (maybe you since you could sacrifice one latte?) is willing to gift a competing app for comparison (see our About page), it’s up to me, my pocketbook, and my choice in focus as to whether to seek an alternative (sounds like capitalism once more).

And be careful, It sounds as if there was plenty of caffeine already in your system.

1) Someone makes an app with a cute logo, pays for tons of good PR, gets some feature help from the Geniuses at Apple, and bam, fame and fortune.

2) Oh my, who’d have thought, the App stinks?!? Gee, how could that be?

3) A guy suggests in public that what amounts to historic, pure ineptitude on the part of the App Developer, who by now is driving a fancy car and getting laid more than wall-to-wall shag in the ’70’s, maybe, almost, maybe, might cause him to remove the App from his iPhone; truly more historic than, for example, a failed moon landing.

4) Some nice persons kindly suggest a lessor known App, one not generally spoken of in the Bar at the W before a hook-up, but that, wait for it, ACTUALLY WORKS!

5) Guy responds that, well, frankly, a quality functioning piece of labor intensive software ISN’T WORTH 4 DOLLARS!

(Sorry, I had more to say, but I’m at Starbucks and my $5.00 Double Latte is ready.)

Thanks, but it’s hard for me to justify the $4 price tag.