A Magical App Ruined by Subscription Creep
Then I updated the app.
Suddenly, functionality I had been using without issue is locked behind yet another subscription.
And before the developer responds with the same explanation being given to other reviewers—that these features were supposedly always “Pro” and users only had access because of a years-long subscription bug—I’m sorry, but from the user’s perspective that distinction is almost meaningless.
If your app allows people to use a feature for YEARS, people integrate that feature into their daily routines, you never meaningfully interrupt that experience, and then one software update abruptly takes it away unless they start paying you every month or year, you have functionally taken an existing feature away from those users. Calling the previous access a “bug” doesn’t magically make the experience less anti-consumer.
And this is exactly what people are exhausted by.
Not every useful function on our phones needs to become another recurring payment. I am perfectly willing to PAY for good software. Charge a reasonable one-time price. Offer a lifetime unlock. Put genuinely NEW advanced capabilities into a Pro tier. There are plenty of fair ways to monetize continued development.
But taking something your longtime users have relied on and effectively saying, “Actually, you weren’t supposed to have that—subscribe now if you’d like it back,” is an excellent way to destroy goodwill.
The irony is that Planetaro was good enough that I would have happily supported its continued development. Instead, this update has made me question whether I want to support it at all.
Developers should understand the difference between adding value worth subscribing to and removing value until people subscribe to get it back.
Planetaro used to feel like a thoughtful astrology tool made for people who genuinely use planetary hours in their daily lives.
Now it feels like another app looking at previously satisfied users and asking: “What else can we turn into recurring revenue?”
Extremely disappointing.
Response from developer
Thank you for the most thoughtful critique this update has received, and you are right about more than you might expect us to admit. From your side the distinction between a bug fix and a price change is indeed almost meaningless: you had something, you built it into your daily routine, and an update took it away without warning. If we had done that deliberately, it would deserve every word you wrote. But consider what a deliberate version would have looked like: nobody reprices in silence, with no announcement and no transition, because the only thing silence buys is exactly what happened, a wave of one star reviews. The correction itself was logged as a minor cleanup in our tracker. Nobody knew that a years-old bug had quietly been handing out Pro access at this scale, and we learned it from the reviews, which is the last way an independent developer wants to learn anything. On the explanation you have seen under other reviews: it repeats because the truth does not change from one review to the next, but every review and every mail, including yours, has been read and answered personally by the same person for six years, and this one is no exception. Your fairness principle is one we agree with, and for what it is worth, Pro was built on it: everything that existed before the subscription has stayed free since 2020, and Pro was meant to cover only what came after. This update did not move that line, it surfaced the place where a bug had quietly erased it. And one more thing, because your review deserves more than words: you asked for a fair one-time option, and you are getting it. A lifetime unlock is coming in Planetaro 2026.4, and we are committing to that here, in writing. Until then, two things are yours if you want them: the full story is at planetaro.com/six-years-of-planetaro-and-a-note-about-the-widgets/ and if you open Settings and tap "Help Us Improve the App", we will send you a personal code for a full free year of Planetaro Pro. Not as a sales tactic, simply because nobody should lose something they loved to the same bug twice.
After update this app has took a major turn for the worst :(
I have used this app for almost a year, and I have absolutely loved my experience with it so far. The little Home Screen widget that shows what planetary hour it is along with how much time has elapsed in that hour and how much is left, along with a small colored visual of said planet, and what was before and after, has been one of my favorite features. It was SO helpful and convenient. I am not a fan of opening up an app just to check for one simple thing, especially on an older generation phone. Along with this feature, there was also an additional feature that I loved, which was adding a small tiny widget to the lock screen, which basically just told you what planetary day it was and also included it’s little symbol/sigil. It was awesome, oh it’s Tuesday, mars day, and here’s its symbol as well. It was not only aesthetically pleasing, but it was incredibly helpful, especially when I was just beginning to learn the correlations to each day.
Unfortunately, with the newest update, these features, that have been available for as long as I was using the app, are now locked behind a premium subscription paywall. This is incredibly upsetting on multiple levels.
I have read the recent reviews and I am not the only one saying this.
TO THE DEVELOPER: I sincerely hope that you take all of your users seriously, and I hope that you take into account that we are upset at this new update, and that we would all like our widgets and simplicity and helpfulness back. We deserve the simple features. The features listed in this comment that are now locked with the newest update, have been available to any and all users for around a year or more, and I would really appreciate it if you consider changing it back to the way it was.
It is unfair that in the updates notes you did not include some features now only being included in premium. This is a disservice to us all, and it is also blatant trickery — something that magicians should stay away from.
Please give us our features back.
Thank you for your time and attention to this matter. Take care.
Response from developer
Thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed and honest review, it deserves an equally honest answer. The two widgets you describe, the home screen widget with the elapsed and remaining time of the current planetary hour and the lock screen widget with the day ruler and its symbol, have been part of Planetaro Pro since the day they were introduced. They were never moved behind the paywall in this update. What the update fixed is a long-standing bug where an expired subscription or free trial could silently keep Pro features unlocked for years, and that is almost certainly why they worked for you all this time, most likely from a trial started when you first installed the app. On your fairness point, you are right that trickery has no place here, so here is the plain truth: we did not mention this in the release notes because we did not know, we only discovered the bug through reviews like yours, and the fix note will be in the next update notes. The core of Planetaro stays free for everyone, the planetary hours themselves, moon phases and the free home screen widget showing the current hour. And since you lost widgets you genuinely loved, let us give them back: open Planetaro, go to Settings, tap "Help Us Improve the App" and attach a screenshot of your Apple subscriptions screen showing the expired Planetaro plan, and we will send you a personal offer code for a full free year of Planetaro Pro.
Forced to subscribe?
Response from developer
Thank you for the kind words about the app, and we understand the disappointment, so let us explain what actually happened. You were not suddenly locked out of a free feature: this update fixed a long-standing bug where an expired subscription or free trial could silently keep Pro features unlocked for years, and that is almost certainly how the widgets had been working for you, most likely from a trial started long ago. Nothing was moved behind the paywall, and the planetary hours themselves, moon phases and the free home screen widget remain free for everyone. Before you go looking for a replacement, let us make it right: open Planetaro, go to Settings, tap "Help Us Improve the App" and attach a screenshot of your Apple subscriptions screen showing the expired Planetaro plan, and we will send you a personal offer code for a full free year of Planetaro Pro.
Was best left free.
Response from developer
Thank you for years of using Planetaro for planetary hours, and we hear the subscription fatigue, so let us clear up what happened before you go. Nothing was moved behind the paywall in this update. The Pro widgets have been part of the subscription since they were introduced, and what changed is that we fixed a long-standing bug where an expired subscription or free trial could silently keep them unlocked for years, which is very likely how you were using them for free. The core of Planetaro stays free for everyone, the planetary hours themselves, moon phases and the free home screen widget, and that is deliberate. On the capitalism point, fair enough, but Planetaro is not a corporation, it is a tiny independent team, and the subscription is simply what keeps the servers running and the app maintained. Since you lost something you were used to, we would like to give it back: open Planetaro, go to Settings, tap "Help Us Improve the App" and attach a screenshot of your Apple subscriptions screen showing the expired Planetaro plan, and we will send you a personal offer code for a full free year of Planetaro Pro.
Pay for widgets??
Response from developer
Thank you for this kind review, it genuinely made our day, and we are glad Planetaro helped you learn the planetary days and hours. Let us explain what happened, because it is not what it looks like. The lock screen widgets have been part of Planetaro Pro since the day they were introduced, and this update did not move them or anything else behind the paywall. What it fixed is a long-standing bug where an expired subscription or free trial could silently keep Pro features unlocked, so your lock screen widget most likely stayed free all this time because of that bug, probably from a trial started a while ago. We completely understand subscription fatigue, and we love that you are staying anyway, so let us make it right: open Planetaro, go to Settings, tap "Help Us Improve the App" and attach a screenshot of your Apple subscriptions screen showing the expired Planetaro plan, and we will send you a personal offer code for a free year of Planetaro Pro, no strings attached. And either way, the planetary hours, the free home screen widget and moon phases stay free for you forever.
