Shifty Emails

MERICA IS A FUNNY PLACE

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 17:51:40 +1030

Hi from the Great Lakes of the United States. Well, not IN the Great Lakes, rather near them.

I notice you updated the already superb Pocket Casts program.It’s prettier, fancier and easier to use.

I don’t like that. Now my wife is using the program on my phone and doesn’t need to ask me how to use it and I end up with a bunch of Oprah and Doctor Drew podcasts clogging up my phone.

Please make your program ugly and more difficult to use for the sake of my marriage. You have a good head start with another inexplicable icon to represent Pocket Casts.Now make the program equally confusing.

Also,I still see that you don’t have a weather app for the US.Not sure if your aware but former vice president Al Gore invented the internet and as a result we deserve a good weather app. I tried to use the Australian app but there must be a bug because the temps were too high and it suggests we are in the summer when everyone knows it is the middle of winter. Also it is using a temperature scale I am unfamiliar with. Temps are supposed to have a suffix of F not C. Duh.Also I couldn’t find Chicago on the app. Lame.

Thanks for everything and if you can make the changes I suggested that would be great.

Sincerely,

[Name removed to avoid fanmail]

Lake in the Hills, IL USofA

P.S.

You misspelled the word “favorite” with a “u” by mistake.

Where is this USofA place? Is it the wonderland I’ve heard of where everyone is yelling “MERICA” and “FREEDOM” with flags and bald eagles everywhere? Sounds nice, except I don’t like yelling.

Now I’ve never been called a marriage counsellor before, but I’d suggest that what you have here is an opportunity to take your relationship to the next level. Your wife loves podcasts. You love podcasts. Let the love of podcasts unite you…and…well I really have no idea where I’m going with this. Perhaps for your wedding anniversary you could buy her an Android device of her very own? I heard chicks dig Samsung ones, though don’t get a ‘Galaxy Note’…you don’t want that giant thing setting her expectations too high. Next she’ll want a 150” TV, bigger oven and, well you follow my drift.

As for the weather app, we’ll consider it, but will you ever consider joining us in the metric system? It really is all sunshine and rainbows once everything is divisible by hundreds and ‘40’ is HOT.

Favourite. Colour. Aluminium. There I did it ;)

Not all of our customers are insane…only most of them

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 11:38:52 +1030

Greetings overlords of The Shifty Jelly Kingdom!

Round up all ye Jelly Shifters for I have a great tale to spin.

Once upon a time there was a fair princess who loved nothing more than listening to someone talk, so she longed for a prince that would never stop talking. She searched the land through and through and still could not find a prince that loved to talk as much as she loved to listen.

She found a prince that claimed he loved to talk, but he took so long to start speaking that the princess left before he even started.

She found another prince that claimed he loved to talk, but he only spoke for a few minutes before he just stopped and stared blankly at the wall until the princess slapped his face, and then he had to start at the beginning again because he lost his place.

She even found a prince that talked and talked and talked but he insisted on only wearing underwear and he never let the princess decide what he should talk about. So, the princess grew disgusted and bored and decided to go to the mysterious lands of the Shifting Jellies to see if the very last prince had anything good to say.

What she found at the mysterious lands of the Shifting Jellies she will never forget. EVERYONE never stopped talking even for one minute -unless specifically asked to by the princess- and they always invited the princess to suggest a topic of discussion. They never said anything boring and they let the princess listen as long as she wanted.

After staying for quite some time, she found the prince and invited him to come back to the castle with her where he never stopped talking and she never stopped listening and they lived happily ever after.

:P

Seriously, though, I searched through almost every podcast app out there and never found one that I liked until I found your app. I love it! I do have a suggestion, though. I think it would be great to be able to open a podcast and just be able to swipe to the next podcast rather than having to press back or press the tiled icon on the bottom and return to the home screen to pick the next podcast.

That way when I arrange the tiles to show podcasts with the latest episodes first, I can open the first one and just swipe to see the next one when I am ready.

I hope that makes sense, the more I read over it the less sure I am. But I’m not sure how else to word it. Just let me know and I can compose a slide show to illustrate what I mean visually.

Have a great day!

Daughter Dearest,

Your mother tells me that you have, at long last, found the a suitor, a prince no less. I hear that he’s a fine fellow, who will treat my little princess with the respect and give her the verbosity that she so deservers. As your dad, I can’t tell you how happy this makes me, it really warms the depths of my bowels. You are after all 19 years old, and entering the twilight of your years. I do hope that we’ll see some fine grandchildren next year.

Well…that kinda got awkward really quickly. Anyway glad you’re liking our app and welcome aboard. I assume you have the iOS version, and I like your idea. I think you’ll find that version 4.0 (that we’re currently working on) will give you all that and more. In the meantime we have an extremely clumsy ‘playlist’ feature, which you can add downloaded episodes to and have them play one after the other. Like I say, it’s a bit clunky at the moment. To add an episode either turn on the option that auto-adds downloaded episodes to it, or tap the episode in the list, tap the share button, then tap ‘Add To Playlist’. You’ll find the playlist itself on the now playing page.

By the way: thanks for the crazy email. Combined with your Google+ profile picture we really did all have a good laugh…and I think a few of us may have mouthed the letters ‘W T F’ as well. #winning!

SHIFTY SMASSSH

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 21:50:54 +0930

First of all, I want to say.. Fantastic work! By far the best Podcast app I have used. I wanted to let you know that I have been using this app on my android for a while. I also want to let you know that I have pirated your software. Im not proud of it, and I’m not bragging. I simply wanted to try it before I buy it type of deal. Aside congratulating your team on this awesome app I’m also coming to you on a sort of hopeful front. Hopeful that you may see in this bad economy, we cant pay for everything. I’m not asking for charity or a handout, more along the lines of a “discount”. As a former Apple employee, I understand the relationship a company like yourself would have with someone with my aptitude for communication and charm to the general public. Any help would be greatly appreciated. If not, I totally understand and will continue to use your product to the fullest and will definitely make the full purchase when my purse allows for it. Keep up the good work and thanks J

I’m always confused by emails like these. You run an expensive smart phone, presumably on an expensive phone plan. You do that because you probably feel like you need it. Our app costs $3. I’ll do you a deal, I’ll show you some magic whereby you’ll be able to afford to buy it yourself, restore your dignity, and get some self-confidence back.

The next time you go to buy one of the following:

- chocolate bar

- soft drink

- coffee

- lolly/chewing gum

- cake

- anything under $3

Stop yourself, put that change into your pocket. Pretty quickly you’ll save $3. Either that or search the couch while you watch Netflix with the wife or play Skyrim [Note: he linked his Twitter, Google+ and Facebook profiles at the bottom of the email and he certainly wasn’t doing it tough]. I’m a nice guy, but don’t kid yourself, there’s no excuse for piracy. You think you have it tough? We ran out of money last month, because, in no small part, people like you cost us money (server hosting and load) while not giving us anything back. I don’t pull punches, I hope you feel guilty as hell and man up and buy our app.

Bob delivers...

Thu, 30 Aug 2012 13:13:00 +0930

Love the weather app chaps, but I just have to say…

Please get rid of that bird next to the ‘feels like’ number. I keep thinking it’s a minus sign.

Hi,

We’ll remove those two rain drops from the next version, just for you Bob. We expect a xmas card though, chocolates would probably be asking too much, but a xmas card would be nice ;)

All the best from your new friends,

Team Shifty Jelly

Deal.

Some Animals are Beloved

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 15:59:00 +0930

BEST on the market, But I think it’s Terrible that 7 Animals were hurt during the making of this app. Keep up the great work.

Would it help if we told you they were rats? We ran them through mazes in an attempt to get them to predict podcasting trends. The experiment was a failure, and the Norwegian Scientist involved has been fired.

Strangely it does make me feel better, (rats don’t have feelings) And I gave you guys a 5 star review awhile ago, just thought i’d send an Email because at also works great on my Nexus 7.

VERY VERY VERY Disappointing...

Mon, 20 Aug 2012 10:56:00 +0930

I used to love Pocket Weather AU for the iPad lads, but paying for updates now? VERY VERY VERY disappointing
I will avoid ALL Shiftyjelly Apps in future

Regards

Rob

I used to know a Rob Brown, he was a great guy, I’m guessing you’re not him though (from SA, used to work at Saab)?

Anyhoo I don’t think there’s any shame in us charging for an update after 4 years of free and constant updates. You may not have made the connection, but we pay for Bureau of Meteorology data and we run very expensive servers. We also have kids to feed and send to school, and this is our full time job. $2 is not a lot to ask for an optional update. If it’s a choice of that or go out of business and turn off all access to our apps, then we’ll take the $2 every 4 years option anytime.

You can read more about it here:

http://blog.shiftyjelly.com/2012/08/02/announcing-the-new-pocket-weather-australia/

I’m in WA, my comments may mean you think I’m a not such a great guy, but I am giving frank feedback, which is probably better then none? Yes you have costs, but you are competing in the apps marketplace, and you are the first instance in which i have experienced payment for an update as being required. Perhaps the marketplace needs to change, perhaps updates at a cost lower then buying the app from “new” would be the way to start?

I do appreciate the feedback, and I really did know a Rob Brown, but we have to be honest with one another. $2 is very cheap for anything. You can’t even buy a coffee for that these days. As developers we have a responsibility to ourselves, our users and our families to stay in business making great apps. Releasing updates for free forever is simply not sustainable. I realise that’s the expectation out there, but if we don’t change it, then all the good developers will eventually disappear, and you’ll be left with the EA Sports of the world milking you for $5 of in-app currency, and apps that let you stretch your belly to make you look pregnant.

Our app is already cheaper than it’s predecessor, when you consider you can now run it on your iPad and iPhone for $2, vs $4 that it cost before. But upgrade pricing on a $2 app? That just strikes me as ridiculous.

At the end of the day, I don’t mind if you buy our app or not, but we have to face facts, this is unavoidable. Either you will give that $2 to a company that goes out of business, and turns off their servers, or you’ll give it to a company like us who is actively planning to be around in 2 years time. The choice is yours. I think if you were to examine all the dealings we’ve ever had with our customers via email, twitter, Facebook and the App Store, that we’ve always been open, honest and reliable. If that’s not something you want to support, then that’s up to you, but that’s the kind of business we run.

Update #2 on the puppy saga

Tue, 14 Aug 2012 15:18:11 +0930

Very funny! I’m still pissed off with the crappy app!

Sent from my iPhone

Are you actually being serious? If so what exactly about it is crappy? Don’t leave us hanging.

I’ve attached a picture of one of our iOS coder thinking deeply about what on earth you could possibly think was bad about our app.

Defuse Bombs With Puppies

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 12:43:34 +0930

This is the worst weather app ever! And I paid $1.99. Really pissed off. My email is [email removed]

Hi Kathryn,

Is this one of our friends trying to be funny (we have a lot of want to be smart alecs we know) or do you have an actual complaint? If so we’re all ears ;)

In anticipation of your complaint, we’ve attached a picture to help get you in the right mood.

Don't Make Shifty Cry

Thu, 02 Aug 2012 20:49:28 +0930

The new app is hands down outstanding. Chapeau to the team! $1.99 feels like stealing candy from a baby—way too cheap for an app of such quality, care, thought and love. Fantastic work to team shifty jelly—the real olympic champions.
Thanks for all your work!

More emails like this! (this one is about http://www.shiftyjelly.com/ios/pocketweatherau)

Ahhh little brothers...

Sat, 14 Jul 2012 09:23:27 +0930

Please right back

Hi,

We do reply to emails. Are you in need of assistance? :)

Come on

What dose that mean please right back now

Hi,

You’ve completely lost us. What is it you need?

Sorry for all those e-mails because my brother rote it so I’m so sorry

No need to be sorry. Enjoy the rest of your day :)

Sorry but I think no thanks or I will get in trouble by my parents thanks tho

Followed by:

Please right back

And

Are you going to right back

Then

Can you talk to me again like on the email please right back yes or no and do it right now now

and finally:

Did I miss out on it please right back

2 + 2 = 2

Sat, 14 Jul 2012 09:22:58 +0930

Hi guys. I don’t mind feeding you once, and I have the pocket weather HD on my iPad, but I don’t think I should have to pay to have it on my iPhone too.

Hi,

It’s $1.99, even if you did buy it twice, we still don’t have enough for lunch. At $4, we get $2.54 after Apple and the Government have taken their share. Even less if you factor in a corporate tax rate of 30%. I bought a coffee today, it cost me $3.50. It powered my work for over 2 hours. Curious to know how you think they’d react if I went there tomorrow and asked for a free refill?

What I am getting at is that when we build an iPhone version, we don’t hit copy and paste and an iPad one comes out magically. We spend months on this stuff, and frankly if you don’t think it’s worth $2, then I should go home and start crying right about now. As 3 guys who do this full time, we rely on people buying our app. I won’t lie to you, your email makes me angry and sad all at the same time. What has the world come to where a developer can spend 3-12 months working on an app, and a customer questions having to pay $1.99 for it. For their $800 iPhone. After having bought it for their $579+ iPad…

PD We tray harder

Wed, 11 Jul 2012 11:11:14 +0930

One more things… I tray the official pidcast app by apple and suck jaja your are the best!

Kip doing amazing apps!

PD Sorry for my English ;-)

Greetings from Spain

Hi,

Working on both for later this year, and please don’t be sorry, you’re English is amazing!

12 Year Old on Facebook (name changed)

Tue, 10 Jul 2012 21:07:38 +0930

Hey could you please help me make my own app?? i am 12 years old but not a expert at computers. ive got some ideas but i dont know how to make them come real. Thanks georgina x:)

Hey Georgina!

Pretty cool that you want to make your own app! The first thing you need is a Mac, then you need to download ‘Xcode’ from the Mac App Store. This is the tool apps are built with.

After that is where it gets tricky though, because you have to learn how to program. Do you have anyone you know (like a relative or something) who is a programmer?

I dont have any of that though. my family is going through a rough patch at the moment with money. where is your company?? would you guys be able to help me set it up??

If you don’t have a mac, then you can’t make iPhone apps

Don’t worry, one day you’ll get your own job, have your own money and do whatever you want. My family was poor when I was growing up, we didn’t even have a computer anywhere in the house. But here I am today, coding iPhone apps for a living.

We can’t really help you out I’m afraid, we’re very busy working on our apps. I really do wish you all the best though, maybe step 1 is just to finish High School

Thanks 4 ur help:) could u take ur mac to dick smith or a place like that 4 a programmer?? cause i know a lot of people that work in tech places

I don’t think you’ll find any programmers there. They tend to hang out in offices, doing boring work all day. Their managers rarely let them see real ‘daylight’ so really you’d have to ask around your friends and relatives and I’m sure someone will know someone who knows something.

You had me at 'IMOTION'

Wed, 04 Jul 2012 10:41:34 +0930

Hi,I am Sandipon Karmakar

As someone who is in a leadership position at your company,I know that you’re pressed for time. But,please could you give me your full attention for the next 30 second as you read this message.BECAUSE IT IS NOT ONLY A MAIL,IT IS MY IMOTION.

SIR,THIS IS A VERY LONG STORY BUT I WILLTRY & KEEP IT SHORT WITHOUT LEAVING OUT THE IMPROTENT DETAILS. I love a gigl named Reshmi. WE LOVE EACH OTHER SINCE 4YEARS. But her father is a rich man & he said to me that…

Sorry, time’s up.

One time where the emailer is funnier than us...

Tue, 03 Jul 2012 22:54:00 +0930

My policy is not to purchase anything from the AppStore unless a free trial is included, especially from a juvenile site such as yours…

I mean what is with the coffee? Apart from that it sounds interesting.

Makes me giggle every time…so juvenile!

Saying No The Weird Way(TM)

Tue, 03 Jul 2012 14:51:43 +0930

I’d love to set the Notification badge to show the number of unfinished and unplayed episodes.

How would you sleep at night if you did that? It would constantly be staring at you, as if looking straight through you into your soul saying “Why are there 3 unread episodes. Do you not love us? You must listen to us. Listen to us now”. I don’t know about you, but I find that creepy.

I have an app idea!

Tue, 03 Jul 2012 14:43:00 +0930

Hey how are you?

I’m just trying to do some research on apps and developing them.

I have some ideas that I would like to put forward and have developed.

But where do I start, who can do this for me and how much will it cost????

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

The first place to start is to recognise that every person in Australia, and around the world has app ideas. Ideas are not unique, or particularly valuable. Despite what some people will tell you, it is the execution of an idea that is critical. Did you have an idea for being able to order coffee from your phone? That’s great, so did thousands of others, but only a few put there money where their ideas were and built out an entire infrastructure for doing so. And it wasn’t cheap or easy, execution rarely is. Many tried outsourcing their ideas overseas and failed miserably (we hear from these people all the time). Others went with back-yarders who completely mis-understimated what it takes to build a successful app and basically wasted their money building apps that never worked properly.

Another way to think about your idea: imagine it’s not for an app, but rather a book. Would you approach an author with it? And what would you expect from them, vs they from you if they were to write the entire book? The Harry Potter series made their author a multi-millionaire, but it wasn’t just the idea, she had to sit down and painstakingly write them all over many years. Writing a book, is much like writing an app, the idea is only the first 1% of what is required.

So how much does an app cost? How much does a car cost? How much does a holiday cost? None of these things have a fixed price. You can buy a bomb of a car for $100, or you can buy a Lamborghini for $400,000. How do you start? Well if you want to work with us you start by being serious about your idea, about allocating the time, budget and passion required to see the app to completion and beyond. You need to be realistic, and realise that the App Store is not a gold mine, it’s a market place. One in which you have to have a great app, with great marketing and great support in order to succeed.

So if you want to find out more, feel free to ask any questions you have via email (you can contact me directly: [personal email]).

Grammar Is Fun

Tue, 03 Jul 2012 13:59:33 +0930

Hello.

I’m a grammar tragic as well as a weather tragic. I’m sending you a free apostrophe with this email, in the hope you might be able to insert it between the Y and the S in “todays forecast”.

Here it is: ‘

your quiet write. Their does seem to be an mistake in their some-where. Me and Phil will investigate weather or not we can have an effect on this problem.

What we need to know first though, is wheres the catch? We all know that apostrophes do not grow on trees. This is how you say, a fact.

Thank-you for your response. I appreciate and respect your scepticism. Rest assured that I am an apostrophe philanthropist with a long and proud record of donating apostrophes to good causes.

My interest in this area began during the dark days of World War II, when I would sit with my grandmother as she knitted socks for our brave boys abroad. Socks were beyond me, but I soon learnt to knit apostrophes and commas to ensure our servicemen and women could maintain their grammatical integrity.

Over the years I perfected the art of knitting a range of punctuation marks in a huge variety of fonts and sizes. I hate to boast, but my work has won prizes across Australia and overseas. I have been offered huge sums of money for some of these lovely symbols, but I have never taken a cent for myself. Rather, I donate my punctuation to a range of good causes.

The years have gnarled my hands and dimmed my eyes, and it is all I can do to produce a simple sans serif apostrophe these days. I am sorry that I can not offer you a more elaborate mark. But please accept my apostrophe in the spirit in which it is offered, and put it to good use in your lovely little “app”.

Note that all my punctuation, including the inverted commas in the previous sentence, is 100% reusable and recyclable. I hope it will give you many years of grammatically correct pleasure.

A good day to you my dear Carolyn,

I hope this letter finds you well. We are currently advancing on the [REMOVED] in preparation for our assault on [REMOVED]. The boys are chipper though, thanks mainly to your kind donation of apostrophes, and our beloved commas. I’ll never forget the looks on their faces, where upon opening box after box of socks, they came across your present. Rest assured they were well received and we did dance and sing grammatically correct songs long into the night.

I am serving with an odd fellow from [REMOVED] who says he makes weather applications for typewriters. Strange chap indeed. In any case he said to let you know he’d be taking your offer to his board of directors as soon as this messy business with the [REMOVED] is resolved.

yours always,

[REMOVED]