14 DAY TRIAL // When I say indie developers, I really mean small companies with only a few employees that have just one or two apps and they are dedicated to make those better. Some of them forget to treat their customers right, so when a developer is doing something great, it often goes unnoticed.
The App Store made it easier for everyone to publish their apps and for customers to get what they need and install them with a peace of mind. The developers know their website is not going to crash and they do not have to make it secure for customers to use their credit cards. A small picture with the message "Available in the Mac App Store" and a link will direct the buyer to the simplest way to buy software.
Working to keep that customer may prove difficult at times for the developers. I understand that some of them are just geeks working 18 hours per day behind a computer screen and being polite to customers is not one of their strong points. A small company or even a one-man company cannot afford a PR officer to take care of those requests.
Talking about the kind of good things that sometimes comes from indie developers and often goes unnoticed, I want to tell you a story about my experience with a great little company named Smile (they used to be known as "Smile on My Mac"). They are the company behind some really good apps for Mac and iOS, like PDF Pen, DiscLabel, and the very useful TextExpander.
I don't know how many copies of TextExpander they sold so far, but I would imagine the numbers must be in the hundreds of thousands, judging by how popular the app is in the Mac and iOS community.
For those of you not knowing what I'm talking about, TextExpander is an app that you can install on your Mac and run in the Menu Bar. Basically, you set up snippets of text and invoke them through just a few key presses. For example, you could be writing "ddate" and TextExpander will replace that with the current date, or write "ssig" and get your full name, phone number, and address to use at the end of an email.
I have been a TextExpander user for a few years now. Since I last reinstalled my OS (probably about 6 months ago) this app saved me 474,478 characters and almost 20 hours of typing. I believe that is well worth the price of admission of $34.95 (€26.04).
I use TextExpander to create snippets of frequently used text like email replies, email greetings, and blog comments with similar answers. You can also subscribe to AutoCorrect Groups, Computer Info, and Common Miscapitalizations.
One of the house rules at Softpedia is to have all app prices in US Dollars and Euros. Sure, it's not that difficult to go online, check the current USD – EURO conversion rate, and then write down the equivalent amount.
But I am a hacker and it feels awkward to take all those steps in 2014 when the computers can help you achieve the same result much faster. I'd rather find a solution, work on it for some time, and then enjoy the pleasures of getting a quick response every time I need that. My solution for writing the amount in Euro had 3 steps:
1. Copy the amount in USD and paste it in an Alfred window
2. Use an Alfred Workflow to convert the USD in Euro
3. Use TextExpander to paste the result in Brackets after the amount in USD.
Easy enough, but my steps have a little friction. That's when I thought I should share my TextExpander Snippet with the TextExpander team via Twitter and find a better solution to automate the conversion.
Two days later, I got a reply via email. They found a solution involving AppleScript and they were ready to share it with the world. And it is simply awesome!
Basically, you need to subscribe to an online service that provides exchange rates for most of the currencies. Then you copy the AppleScript into TextExpander and set the snippet.
See how that works following TextExpander's team blog post.
Now this is what I call Customer Support that goes above and beyond. Sometimes it is the little things and sometimes it's how a developer goes out of his way to make a customer happy.