Hello everyone and thank you for your input regarding Mindjet’s new iPad and iPhone applications.
We launched our new products because we believe that they are the most usable mobile mapping apps on the market today and have the best “round-tripping” between the MindManager and the iPad/iPhone. Some of you who had previously purchased the original Mindjet iPhone application have expressed concern about why the new iPhone app is not an “upgrade” to the original Mindjet mobile app.
Let me explain the route we have taken. The reality is the new iPhone app cannot be delivered as an “upgrade” to the original app. The reason is that these are totally different apps, with different features and capabilities. Automatically pushing out an “upgrade” from the old one to the new one would actually remove some features you are already using while enabling different ones. It was our judgment that, for most users of the original app, this would not be a good experience so we did not label the new Mindjet iPhone as an “upgrade” on the iTunes store. It is truly a brand new, v1.0 app.
In addition, Apple provides no way for Mindjet to provide free copies of apps that are not already free on the store. In fact, Mindjet originally intended to give away a copy of the new Mindjet iPhone app with every pre-order for our recent MindManager Mac 9 release but Apple would not let us. As we all know, Apple controls the software distribution and revenue model of its mobile applications very tightly. No freebies on the Apple Store (unless the app is already free).
So where does this leave us? Those of you who previously bought the Mindjet iPhone app got a functional application. It is true that Mindjet never did any updates to this app – like many apps that are offered on the store. Those of you who would like a new, different, Mindjet app for their iPhones or (finally) iPads can now purchase a new one. Unlike the previous app, these apps will be updated over time and we are already working on the 1.1 releases.
Hopefully you see the logic of this. It is definitely not Mindjet’s intention to dissatisfy any customers – we just have to operate within the realities of the systems we operate within.
Having said this, if any of you would like to contact Ray Polanco our head of customer support at mobile@mindjet.com we will follow up and see what kind of accommodation we can come to that continues your satisfaction with Mindjet. Please reference this blog post with “A Letter to Previous Mindjet iPhone Users” in the subject line of the email.
Regards,
Blaine Mathieu
Chief Products Officer
Mindjet