![]() The current observations section at the top is full of little touches of personality. She now uses native UI elements to make her fit in great with other iOS apps - while still retaining the same personality that has made her so popular. New LookĬARROT’s new design is brighter, cleaner, and easier to navigate. Also, old people tend to check the weather more frequently than the rest of us and many are also on fixed incomes.CARROT Weather v5.0 is here! It's a major redesign with many new features, the culmination of everything CARROT and I have learned about building weather apps over the past six years. Hopefully I will be called meatbag again soon. ![]() keep all of the bundled apps up to date and/or provide access to all premium features for a monthly subscription fee of say $2.99 that covers them all).Įither way, for now I will get by without Weatherbot and hope that the model changes. Keep both the upfront cost of purchasing the apps, but much like bundling the upfront cost is done in the app store for four of the Carrot apps, do the same with the monthly subscription (e.g. ![]() Pursue subscriptions in the same way Microsoft does with its Office suite, allowing for individuals to pay an upfront cost for the app only in its current configuration at the time with no updates, then offer others a monthly subscription fee that they can pay continue receiving all of the updated features uninterrupted.Remove either the upfront cost of purchasing the apps and charge a monthly subscription, using the “freemium” model.To seek greater expansion, I think the business model for selling Carrot apps would do well to follow one of the following options: If Grailr LLC is serious about major expansion, the Carrot Weather app is unique enough and offers enough entertaining features that it could expand its market to crush the other available weather apps, which leave much to be desired in my experience. Some people will definitely pay for a monthly subscription to get the “premium features.” However, there’s probably a very low number who are doing that. So I either had to offer a subscription or not make an Apple Watch app at all! (For comparison’s sake, a user who doesn’t have a complication installed typically uses only 1 or 2 update requests per day.) Without charging extra for the subscription, in just 1 year it would cost me more to supply you the weather data than you paid for the app. Unfortunately, my weather data provider charges a small amount for each weather data request - and this quickly adds up when the Apple Watch complication is requesting 48 updates per day. The subscription has nothing to do with greed! The reason the subscription is necessary is because the Apple Watch complication updates automatically in the background every 30 minutes. I was unaware of this and it’s too bad that there’s no open data sets that could be used because that would significantly reduce costs associated with the Apple Watch complication, but alas such is life. This adds up to more than the upfront cost of the app within a year. I stand corrected! CARROT responded to my review immediately and explained that the Apple Watch complication updates every 30 seconds and the supplier of weather data charges a small amount for each weather data request. This may seem like a small first world problem, but I feel it is greedy and its current business model will prevent the further expansion of the Carrot apps beyond where they are now. Instead, it gives me what the temperature is in one measure during the day with the expected high and low. The most annoying thing I’m lacking is without the monthly subscription, I cannot use the feed to update the current temperature on my Apple Watch face. However, a couple of weeks after purchasing the app, I realized there were premium features that require a $2.99/month subscription. I purchased the mobile version recently, thinking it was worthwhile for the amount of work that went into making a quality product. The Carrot Weather app is $16.99 CDN for the Mac edition, which I cannot justify, and it is $6.99 CDN for the iPhone/iPad app, which I paid already. However, while I love this app and wish I’d developed it, there is one thing that’s preventing me from continuing to use it. That all of these apps appear to have the same look and feel, UX and UI is highly admirable. There are several other Carrot apps, including a nutrition tracker, fitness coach, task reminder, and a game. ![]() Who else could boast creating a weather app that is actually entertaining and engaging? It is published by Grailr LLC, which is essentially one guy who learned to code and publishes his own apps without the help of anyone (except his wife for sarcastic commentary). The Carrot Weather app is one of the most beautifully-designed apps that I have ever used.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |