I use Playbeat loads on my iPad and was buzzing when I saw 3 had been released but not so happy abou5 having to repurchase. Will there be a upgrad3 option in the app stor3 soon?
Hello Span, I hope you’re doing well and safe.
Thanks for reaching out to us here on our new forum. We completely understand why you would be confused by the fact that Playbeat 3 is distributed as a new app.
Here @ Audiomodern we’re really proud for working on updates coming in almost every month for all of our apps and we make sure to make user experience better and better. No extra payments. No paywalls. Just plain awesome functionality.
We’ve always delivered new features for free since our inception in 2017 and if you are already a user of any of our Software then it is very likely that you are already using many of the features that are added much later on each App for free.
Playbeat 3 is a totally different concept. When version 1.0 was updated to version 2.0 (for free) back in 2019, we didn’t choose to upload it as a different build, instead we uploaded the new version 2.0 directly into the existing app. This way, everyone could enjoy the new changes in a single installable download. This resulted in users completely losing their projects and sounds because version 2.0 would completely overwrite version 1.0.
Although we clearly indicated this to our newsletter when announcing the free update, very few iOS users actually got our newsletter because App Store does not provide any option for us to contact users outside of the App Store platform. So, if a user had ‘automatic updates’ turned on, their Playbeat projects where automatically gone too.
IAP wasn’t able to provide that option too as this is a totally new build, a totally ‘different’ app.
A Bundle Upgrade still wouldn’t work as the review guidelines don’t allow that. No app can be replaced with another on the very same bundle, so we would need to keep the older Playbeat version in the same bundle too, which will obviously result in a higher price of the Bundle.
The only solution we could think of without having to alter any of the user’s projects, was to simply release as a new App. Our upgrade path system on our website allows customers to choose how to best upgrade, but this too is not an option on the App Store.
Still, given that Playbeat 3 comes with so many new features we believe that a price of $9.99 as an ‘upgrade’ is really fair considering the amount of time that is invested for the development to an upgrade like this, not to mention the customized Packs (which is a new format) and we aim to release various collections (that also include sounds) frequently.
Also, we do prepare a bundle which will act as an upgrade option for previous users offering a discount but that is currently under review by Apple and we can not provide an ETA as to when this will be available. Fro our experience App Bundles take much more time to be approved for sale by the App Store team.
Therefore i invite you to grab the trial from our site and take it for a spin:
Be sure to check for our upcoming Packs here as well:
There is really nothing worse for us than having a dissatisfied user and i hope this explanation clears up any confusion.
Max