Why Are Apps Free on Phones, Not on Desktops?

[dualstow]

Maybe it's just a case of giving something away on the phone with the hope that people will buy the same thing on a PC?

I once paid a great deal of $ for Dragon Naturally Speaking dictation software. It was a CD-ROM for a Windows desktop. Now, my Samsung Galaxy s3 phone comes with really good dictation built in.

Autodesk's Pixlr photo-editing software is free at the google play store, but I think you have to buy it after a free trial on the Mac. So if I want to make a collage, I beam photos from the desktop to the phone and edit on the phone. It works, but it feels backwards. I usually like to do projects on the desktop with its full keyboard and large screen.

Any thoughts?

#softwarequestion

[madbean]

Windows 8 has a lot of free Apps and I use them all the time.

[Pointedstick]

Different culture, I think. Free phone/tablet apps are usually plastered with ads. You pay to remove the ads or unlock "premium" features. Increasingly, I've noticed desktop apps from smaller publishers moving in the same direction. Ironically, this is where we started many years ago with "shareware" that was feature-limited unless you paid to register it. Guess it was a pretty good model.

[MachineGhost]

There's only about a handful of apps that I use that are commercial.  The rest are all freeware.  There's very little need to pay for anything unless it is exceptionally exceptional.  Software nowadays is very much marketing fiction and about pleasing Wall Street's quarterly earnigns expectations.

I'm a Windows user though, so I don't know about the Mac ecosystem.

[dualstow]

Thanks, guys.

[Benko]

On the itouch I use, or on the iphone, the best organizers, even several of the better simple ones (I like Things) cost money.  Things costs $50 and is well worth it.  There are lots of free outliners, etc. which could also be used.


"I once paid a great deal of $ for Dragon Naturally"

Speech recognition software (which I use at work all day long, so I know something about it) is complex stuff, and is still evolving.  Allso the hardware requirements were non-trivial back awhile.  Like everything else, costs are much lower now than previously.

[MachineGhost]

I know you have mentioned both Quicken and TurboTax in other posts. Are there no freeware versions of these that fit your needs? I hate Intuit, but have been using Quicken [and Quickbooks, to a lesser extent] due to lack of better options.

Nope, welcome to the misery monopoly!  It probably requires too much paid labor to keep up with the endless regulatory changes coming out of Congress/IRS.

I suppose if you didn't need the Investment or Home & Business editions of Quicken and didn't mind lack of online statement downloading support, you could use some of the freeware personal financial programs.  But, they're all pretty pathetic.

I really like how Quicken has a two or three year built in obsolence now.  I refuse to pay to upgrade just so they meet their earnings target for one or two useless features each year insted of fixing the incremental sloth, so use your imagination.

Does Quicken ever go on fire sale like TurboTax?

[MachineGhost]

I used to do the gun-to-your-head upgrades to Quicken every 3 years when I used to download brokerage info directly into the program back in the days before PP when I used to do a fair amount of trading and the 1099-Bs were pathetic. Since the IRS now requires brokers to track cost basis and most of the better brokers provide decent 1099s, I no longer have a need to download data, so there is zero reason to upgrade. I am currently using Quicken Deluxe 2010 and don't plan to upgrade in the foreseeable future. I can actually do all of my bookkeeping for the corporation on this [hard to believe, but true] by simply using a free program once a year [Wave Accounting] to generate a Balance Sheet that includes Equity for my CPA.

I've read a little bit about that change.  Other than option trades no longer being a tax avoidance scheme , are you saying brokers will now track your individual cost basis and just tell you at the end of the year?  From what I remember, brokers just give you a lump sum cost basis for your entire account on the 1099-B, not each individual trade.  You still have to list all trades on Schedule D.  So how does this new reporting on 1099-B help? 

IMO, Quicken 2010 was among the best.  That's the version I switched to a couple of years after Microsoft Money gave up the ghost and after I got sick of updating Excel by hand.  Did you know the later versions 2013+ actually have support for downloading electronic 1099's from the banks/brokers?  I don't believe in that, but its a noteworthy expansion.

[Kbg]

I use IB and last year I downloaded all my trades in tax file format and sucked em into TurboTax and badda bing. I've heard depending on your broker the level of quality may not be as good and certain types of trades have been added over the years (all part of a big gubment plan), but basically by the end of this year (I think) pretty much any trade/instrument you do is off to the IRS databases now. Accordingly, the brokerages have to track your trades accurately now. I still plan on doing a good QC/percentage spot check until I have more confidence. I believe at IB they have a feature where they will take all of your shares and figure out which accounting method is best...I can't imagine this would end well over time unless you really enjoy keeping track of all this crap.

I'm not all that keen on flat income taxes, but I would love to see a simplified flat trading profit/loss tax with zero relationship to time held. You buy it, you sell it and that share had or did not have a profit, pay your taxes and be done with it. Pretty sure it would put too many lawyers and accountants out of business so it will never happen.