8 Comments

Spanning Sync officially released, users cry foul at pricing

March 19, 2007 by in Apple,Stupid with 8 Comments

For the record, I was a Spanning Sync user. For those unfamiliar with the application, Spanning Sync acts as a intermediary between Google Calendar and Apple’s iCal application. Update Google Calendar, and changes would be reflected in iCal. Update iCal, and changes would be reflected online with Google Calendar.

During the initial beta period, Spanning Sync was free. Now that that utility has gone Gold, developers have imposed a pricing schema which has previous users screaming foul.

The current pricing scheme is now setup as such:

  • 15-day trial period – Free
  • 1-yr subscription – $25
  • One-time purchase – $65

Now I must say, I’ve paid for OS X software, and I’ll be damned if I had to pay $25 per year, but $65 for an outright purchase for a little utility that sits in the menu bar silently keeping calendars synced is way too much. More thoughts from users can be found in the comments on the Spanning Sync blog.


  • http://phil.electricweekend.com Phil Bowell

    I was a user of SpanningSync as well, but the price tag completely turned me away. But not just that, the complete lack of understanding from the developers is more worrying. I’ve read many well thought out and constructive points made by users and the developers just seem to be thinking totally unrealistically!

  • http://www.studentgtd.com Gideon

    Yep. I was vert excited about Spanning Sync, and came out somewhat disappointed by the beta – but still, I was actually planning on purchasing it this week.

    Not going to happen. Yojimbo, which is about 100x more valuable, cost me something like 30 bucks and I’m going to pay 65 dollars for something that syncs my calendar? It’s a bit too easy to subscribe to a GoogleCalendar in iCal and just use GoogleCal as my primary calendar (or, like I do, 30 boxes.)

    Sucks to see a company do this. I can only hope it bites them in the ass and they re-think this decision.

  • Evan

    I was ready to sign up. Then I thought about what new possibilities would be in Leopard. Even so I was ready. Then I had horrible experiences with time zone, daylight saving time, problems with recurring appointments. I gave up trying to use it and not just use gcal.

  • http://www.zeusbox.org Kuswanto

    Yes i was excited to about the one oh release. But after seeing the price tag… OMG no way i am gonna use this.

  • Justin

    Ditto Kuswanto

    I checked it week after week after week eagerly waiting for it but no freakin way am I paying that much for it.

  • Mike D

    65 dollars to much?? I really don’t get why they should have to give it away for free?

  • Olivier

    If it really is too high then the free market of supply and demand will do its thing and they will have to revise their expectations.
    It’s all about elasticity of demand. If there are 2000 people willing to pay the $65 they make $130,000. To make that same money by selling it at $20, they need 6,500 payments.

    I think they would make more money by flocking it at $15, just because people can justify an impulsive buy at that point. $65 is just way off the charts and I’ll be damned if I ever pay that price.

    But hey, it’s their product andthey are overly ambitious about it thinking they’ll sale 15,000 copie at $65 and make $1mm.
    Yeah, right

  • http://blog.musmo.com KE Liew

    Totally insane! Even Bandwagon beats this at price and ‘rich’ functionality, though two different products.

    These guys (or just one?) just wants extra cash and don’t really care for the users. heh :/

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