Try to get a job and come back later. Do not forget to tell you are using Xojo.
I am now retired, but never get a job since 1998 (In may of that year I started using REALbasic, then spent $100 for a license, and I continued to pay until until 2015).
You are happy ? Fine. You lucky, you never fall into a trap (or pay two of three times a license to continue using Xojo.
I can understand that.
PS: It tooks me three months to understand how to use my license in 2013. Apparently, I was the only one with that trouble.
I do not had troubles with the licenses since 1998 until 2013. And so I was able to build for macOS and Windows.
Rather than complaining or whining, I simply switched to Objo Studio, which allows me to create what I want.
If you’re happy with Buoy, B4X or Xojo, that’s perfectly fine with me. Everyone should use the development environment that best suits their needs and delivers the results they’re looking for. Ultimately, it’s a matter of personal preference.
That said, I must mention that the current pricing of a Xojo licence puts it beyond my financial reach.
Indeed their recent price changes have probably had an impact on Xojo’s finances as its push “lite” license users right off their revenue stream and made anyone using the Desktop versions really reconsider their options since the former $299 license is now $499
Personally my most telling on his in Off Topic where one user was trying to sell their source code and the stumbling block was - Xojo
No takers because it was Xojo
So he spent months porting it to something else & has now successfully sold it to someone else
Now anecdotal evidence is just that - anecdotal
Both examples are “one offs” and may not represent typical experiences
But I CAN say that the “have to port to something else” experience IS something I’ve seen, and experienced
I’m another who got stung by xojo’s greed when the price for Lite jumped last year from $99 USD to $499 USD.
I’ve never minded paying the asking price for something, when I value that something - but as soon as I feel taken advantage of, then I take my money elsewhere.
The hate against greedy corporations has become acute of late, and the ironic things is the number of people behind xojo is very small, but they want to act like they’re one of the big players. In the end, they will likely fail just as hard - like the big players do sometimes.
Now, I’d rather bank my money with a dedicated and passionate small player, over an unpredictable, greedy one, any day.
I don’t think Xojo is being ‘greedy’, per se. I think they looked at the financials and saw the handwriting on the wall and came to a decision. The outcome of that decision was pretty easy to see coming and what makes it more irritating to those of us that stuck with the company (for many more years than we should have) is that they did a 180 on Citizen Developers vs Pro Developers when they already burned the bridge with many of the pro developers years ago.
The emphasis on new licenses is/was stupid. Getting new customers is always harder than retaining customers. We’ve joked for years that we’ll throw money at them if they’d fix what we need instead of what they think we need. We wanted stability and fewer bugs. Instead we got years of API 2 work that very few wanted, Web 2 that couldn’t easily be upgraded to, and Android that’s barely working years after the initial release (and still taking away resources from the rest of the product). I could probably go on and on.
I’ve been using Xojo for the last week or so and it’s like going back to an old flip phone after using a modern smart phone. Sure, gets the job done, it’s slow, and it’s missing many of the things that make development a joy in some other environments.
If the outcome is they no longer offer a “cheap” buy option for a Desktop hobbyist, and instead leave you only with a buy option that is 400% higher in price - it still smells like greed to me.
Besides, us peons aren’t supposed to know what their real financial situation is.
I understand the frustration, but I would welcome people raising concerns now, even if they previously defended Xojo’s decisions. People can change their minds when they experience the consequences themselves.
For me, the central issue is affordability. The $499 Desktop licence puts Xojo beyond my budget, so I switched to another paid development tool. I am happy with that decision. This is not about expecting software for nothing; it is about finding a licence that fits my needs and finances.
I respect Geoff Perlman and understand that Xojo needs sustainable revenue. Nevertheless, removing the affordable entry-level option creates a gap for hobbyists and developers who only need one platform.
A single-user, single-platform licence at around $199 could provide a practical middle ground. Only Xojo can assess whether that price is viable, but I believe the option deserves consideration.
Regarding Javier’s response, mentioning Swift in a discussion about alternatives to an unaffordable licence is not automatically trolling or advertising. There is a difference between repeatedly promoting a competitor and explaining why customers are considering other tools.
The feedback deserves attention. Once people have moved elsewhere and invested time in learning another tool, they may not return—even if Xojo later changes its pricing.
I am very happy with my decision to switch to Objo Studio.
Hey, don’t pick on flip phones! Modern flip phones are “insanely great” (yeah, I know what I said). I got a refurbished Flip 7 yesterday and wow. The quality of the build, engineering that went into this and attention to detail is like something from the Jobs era.
Samsung’s One UI makes stock Android look and feel like a Netwon. Then, there is the customization, which is on crazy levels.
I remember really good how many people stood behind the XoJo decisions. If you ask me: why should they change. Cool Aid drinkers are cool aid drinkers. And on the other side: they deserve the XoJo world. What shall I say. XoJo left all Web 1.0 users alone. With a new Web API which wasn’s even a bit compatible with Web 2.0. Another animal. So people which wanted to tell me in 2020 that this decision was right should stay with it till eternity. The other ones can change. On INN we have enough languages starting growing.
I was in that boat for a bit. Seems like a stage of grief, prob denial.
Geoff seems plays this very well making people think the solution is a little bit down the road, but he just spins his wheels. All this time he could have focused on making xojo solid.
It’s kinda parallel to what Trump does with the bait and switch like you’ll have the best healthcare or whatever. Lots of promises and a crap implementation…
I’m working really hard to lower the barriers for Xojo users to switch to Objo, at least for new projects. I’ve toyed with the idea of a converter but I just have a bunch of more important and interesting things to implement first.
My problem isn’t that people don’t like Objo or that it isn’t a good fit, it’s that they don’t know about it.
I read somewhere recently a thought piece to the effect that creators of new products have a bigger problem being seen in the first place. The reason why had something to do with how products are now discovered via AI rather than the old search algorithms.
I don’t think the below link is the same article but it’s a similar sort of overview.
Like you, I’m no marketer, but I suspect your spending time here is an example of the kinds of things you have to do to be noticed.
I don’t know that the set of former Xojo users sufficiently disgruntled to jump ship to something else is all that large anymore (you probably found most of us here, although some have already committed to other languages), but if you can figure out a way to get buzz in some other smaller communities like PureBasic for example, the aggregate of a number of those would be potentially helpful. The trick is you can’t just drop in and promote Objo in the middle of a PB forum, it has to be subtle or adjacent in some way …
More broadly, I suspect you have to find people who want cross-platform – especially the web or phone targets – and don’t want the pain of figuring the peculiarities of those out and/or don’t like the other options on the market.