Savannah Reising of Astropad posted a killer blog post (via Dave Mark at The Loop) offering six tips for how to handle being sherlocked by Apple. Getting sherlocked means that Apple just announced the product, software, or feature that you built your business on, and it’s a known risk for Apple ecosystem veterans. It happened to Astropad when Apple announced Sidecar at WWDC this past June. Her lessons include Know your true competition; Don’t wait to diversify; Build a culture of experimentation; Go where your customers go; Seize the narrative; and, When Apple goes wide — dive deep. It’s a very good read, and I strongly recommend it.
But now that the Sidecar dust has settled, I want to share our experience with other players in the Apple ecosystem. My intent is two-fold: On a personal level, it’s therapeutic to reflect on how this has impacted our work. But more importantly, my hope is that by candidly sharing our story, I can pass along some of the painful insights we learned along the way — like how you can prevent getting sherlocked, and what to do if it happens to you.
Check It Out: Developer Offers Tips for How to Handle Getting Sherlocked
Gotta agree on the subscription pricing. Just feel on some software you you just purchase. Like utilities. Putting an app like these into a subscription model would kill it. Add Apple “Shelocking” it and now you’re in trouble.
Third party utilities and useful OS extensions always run the risk of being Sherlocked. In fact, the better they are and the more they improve the user experience, the more likely Apple is to absorb them into the OS! The advice to diversify is very appropriate.
For some time I had been greatly frustrated with the likes of AstroPad and Duet Display for their obnoxious subscription pricing for a feature that should have been built into the OS to begin with!! Air Display had a better pricing model but tbh none of them worked well for me. I considered trying Luna display but I wasn’t enthusiastic about purchasing an expensive hardware dongle. I submitted feature requests to Apple in the hope that they would actually build this into iOS/macOS, and I am delighted that they finally have and that it basically “just works” by plugging in a lightning cable – no clunky/expensive dongles, no obnoxious subscription pricing!