Intentionally inconvenient
I honestly was considering the subscription as the app has a nicer interface than voice memos and the added features look cool, but I don’t really want to support or encourage creating inconveniences to sell something, it’s a very manipulative way to operate.
Response from developer
I’m very sorry to hear that you feel this way. Let me explain the thinking behind it, so that hopefully you feel a little less angry about it. Tape It is a free app with a paid pro tier. The free tier is pretty strong and contains most of the features, but ultimately it’s the paid version that pays for the development of the app. There are no ads, no associated hardware sales or other means of income. Tape It is simply an app, developed by me, as my fulltime job. The free tier exists for casual users, so that more demanding users can try the app before buying, and that sharing recordings among friends doesn’t force any of your friends to buy it. It also ensures there’s no lock in - if you ever stop paying for the pro version, you can still access all your recordings, and all the effort you put into adding notes and organising them into mixtapes isn’t lost either. The search in Tape It is a fairly powerful feature. You can search by instruments, for example, which Tape It automatically detects. It’s also a feature that you only need if you have tons of recordings, and at that point you’re probably a power user and should consider paying for the app. That’s why I decided to limit the search in the free version to recordings made in the last three months. Other popular apps like Slack have the same limitation, although Slack also hides messages that are older than three months. That I find evil, and I’d never do that in Tape It. All your recordings are yours, and you can always access them. I’m completely aware that this is an artificial constraint. At the end of the day, I have to draw the line somewhere between the free and the pro version, and this is a line that I thought made sense. Other apps tend to limit cloud storage, for example, but I don’t do that - both free and pro users have unlimited cloud storage for backups and syncing in Tape It, so that you can always rest assured that your recordings are backed up in case you lose your phone, and never worry about whether something should be recorded or not. I hope this explanation makes sense. I’m still happy to reconsider the search limitation, and will certainly take your comment into account as I rethink it. Best, Thomas
So good
Missing Core Music Memos App Features
There is no beat or time signature detection, no tempo beat mapping, no chord detection, no virtual drummer and no virtual bass player.
