The Status of Marvin

[rfog]

As last resort, if he can't or does not want to maintain the program, he could make it open source and let community continue with the work. Or try to sell/give the program to other developer that will take the effort to continue it.

I always wanted to do an ebook reader software (I'm 30 years Windows developer), but the sum of my laziness and the fact that time used in develop will be time removed from reading, and as for own experience the starts are very grateful, but when the nasty bugs epoch arrives, you start to procrastinate at the level to get busy with your 10 years completely forgotten garden, makes me think that I will never finish what I theoretically start... And, of course, I'm Windows developer, not macOS/iOS developer, that will add the learning layer to all the stuff.

[Faterson]

My (reasonable) guess is that Kris is proud of his code and would hate to share it. And no wonder! Marvin is clearly superior over the likes of iBooks or Kindle. Gigantic multi-billion corporations like Apple and Amazon should be ashamed of what inferior software products they're offering in the guise of e-book readers.

Also, I understand Marvin 3 was a complete code re-write from Marvin 2, so that we, actually, already have 2 separate Marvins. A complete code re-write has its advantages, but also disadvantages. See all the missing/lost features from Marvin 2 that still aren't available in Marvin 3!

I have heard of solutions where there is a "fork" in software development at a certain stage, for whatever reason. Isn't that what happened to OpenOffice a few years ago, so that today, we have both OpenOffice and LibreOffice, and users can choose either package? And a few years earlier, I think the same thing happened with Mozilla, where it split into Firefox and SeaMonkey.

So, just in theory (but it may be unacceptable to Kris, and the very idea might offend him), Kris could retain his full rights to Marvin and keep Marvin to himself, for future development at a slower rate that is convenient to him. But, at the same time, if he shared the code, there could be a spin-off product from Marvin (called Malvin for all I care), where volunteer developers like yourself might attempt to improve/further develop the code.

I'm not optimistic that this will ever happen, but just in theory, it's possible.

By the way, Kris originally also mentioned he'd love to create a Windows version of Marvin. (Prior to that, though, it might be smarter to go for Android as the dominating mobile platform nowadays; Moon+ Reader Pro is certainly an excellent app, but not quite as good as Marvin, so it can certainly be "beaten on its home turf".) I also have a few friends who ditched Marvin precisely because it's not available on desktop. So, one of my friends switched to Google Play Books stating this as the primary reason: that at any time when he's at his Windows desktop machine, he can just fire up Google Play Books and see all his highlights and annotations right there before him, so he can process them right away without any manual export operations the way Marvin makes them necessary.

[rfog]

For my experience, re-writing code is not the best solution to resolve the old bloated code. New code will start clean but it will be bloated in a short time. As a metaphor, your old house lacks integrated heating. You rebuild it and after you have done, you want air conditioner and didn't left the circulation pipes. Then you star making holes in your wall/ceiling and end with a new house with a perfect heating solution but a patched air conditioner, and you will want start over to find you didn't prepare your third house rebuilding with support for solar panels...

Normally, when I read a software has "been rebuilt form new source code" I automatically think: new bugs and feauture lost, as it happened with Marvin. The solution for bloated/buggy/old code is slow refactoring while adding new features and resolve bugs. Sometimes source is the same and they only clean the face, as a marketing technique to convince customers to pay for the same thing a second time, because current Store model is completely broken. If you are used to Spanish you can read my last article about this, or can use an online translator.

(Currently I'm in charge of about 4.5 millions of lines of code in C++, and before each new feature I take an old part of the code and refactor it, improving and updating old parts of the code. If tell my employer to star over he will die of heart attack).

I'm afraid making Marvin work in Android/Windows will be a very difficult task. I assume Marvin is donde in Objective-C, and the only compiler I know for that in Windows/Linux is GNU one, and to say softly, is a piece of crap. Not to say of the API of each platform, completely different. Perhaps separating Marvin in two parts (backend/frontend, as it is done in CoolReader), and doing the backend in C++, perhaps and only perhaps, could be done. With a lot of effort.

The other solution is use one of the available multi platform toolkits. As a summary, all of them are crap, and the less crappy have important annual fees, like QT. (Yes, QT could be Open Source for Windows, Linux and MAC, but the interesting things are proprietary, and for mobile platforms the cheapest solution is about 600$/year for platform).

However, porting Marvin to MAC won't be a big task, and I think Kris could do it with not much effort.

Based on Marvin, what I would like to have is:
*File system based in iCloud, then all books will automatically be available in all devices.
*Synced of reading, bookmarks, comments, configuration, etc.

[Faterson]

Yeah, I've always assumed Marvin for Windows/Android would need to be wholly new apps, "inspired" by the original Marvin for iOS and striving to emulate all of its features, but perhaps written in different programming languages better suited for those other platforms. (We're talking in terms of pipe-dreams now.)

I think such things have been done with other apps before, and I don't mean corporate ones. My financial app is PocketMoney on iOS, whose (young!) developer tragically died of cancer a few years ago. His cousin nevertheless successfully created a PocketMoney version for Android. When you use the app on Android, you can just feel it's not really the same app, but it's still nearly identical to the iOS version (though not quite as polished), so it's pretty fine overall. I'm not sure if the two apps were written in different programming languages.

As to iCloud for syncing purposes, I'd really welcome if Dropbox were an optional alternative. iCloud keeps bugging me about my space running out. I pay a euro a month for the 50 GB option, whereas I pay €99 per year for Dropbox where I have a terabyte at my disposal, so I'd like to use as much Dropbox as possible.

$600 per year and platform doesn't actually sound quite that intimidating. Marvin's user base might perhaps cover it with relative ease? I know, that's the cheapest option, probably not the best quality.

PS: I'm not currently fluent in Spanish, but I see you mention the Day One journaling app in your article. I'm fine with their subscription model at €26 per year. I'd subscribe to Marvin, too, for a similar price, if Marvin at least offered highlights and annotations syncing. Day One is likewise planning to expand to Android, very soon now, perhaps in September or October. I wonder what programming language they are using to create the Android app? (Oh, and I intend to start learning Spanish soon, using the Duolingo and/or Babbel app, so I can talk to my 6-year-old half-Cuban niece in her half-native tongue one day.)

[rfog]

Normal non-corporate cross platform should be WebApps, that is even worse than Multiplatform Frameworks like Xamarin or QT. Normally, the only way to make an application feel and behave native is use their own native API and language (Objective-C or Swift for macOS/iOS, Java for Android and, well C# for Windows UWP).

Said that, general App quality is not the same in iOS than in Android, not because developer competence, but for the platforms. Think in iOS as a High Tech Car, Android as a dirty truck and Windows Phone... Well, thing Windows Phone as a dead skull...

Paying 600$/year is not a big issue for a company, but for a standalone developer could be his yearly app income. More if he need to pay 600 for iOS, 600 for Android and about 3000 for each desktop. Sometimes app income is not so much, and risk so many amount before know if you are going to get at least those money back in sales, for a home-brew developer, is a no-scenario.

Problem with Dropbox, as I understand the platform, is it is not a "drive" but a cloud. You must download from cloud each time you need a file, and iCloud, now with iOS 10 and 11, is a drive that replicates into the cloud. And consider pay 120$/year for 2 TB instead of 1TB Dropbox... I paid Dropbox but as I started abandoning Windows platform except for work, I prefer to pay for iCloud. Currently for 200 MB but will pay for 2 TB when needed.

Te blog post I refer before was a rationale about the current problem with Store application model, that tend to kill developers in flavor of the users. It is not a complain about subscriptions, of course, but companies must understand that people cannot support pay 500$ in monthly fees for subscriptions to Evernote, Dropbox, iCloud, Ulysses, Day One, Microsoft Office, etc... (BTW, I use Day One, but as I'm old user, I have enough with the current free account).

PS: Oh, man, you have me make go back to Marvin!

[pwalker8]

Open source rarely last for long simply because there is no money in it and maintaining code is hard work. The open source project that last more than a few years tends to be corporate supported rather than supported by individuals. I can't think of any consumer oreiented open source projects for iDevices that stayed active more than a few years. There just isn't any money in it and developers get bored with it.

Cross platform development frameworks rarely work. I think that most companies that develop successful multi-platform applications tend to write to a specific base platform and then port it to other platforms. You can do it if you are careful and design it with cross platform in mind, but it isn't easy.

No idea what Marvin 3 is written in, but everyone is moving to Swift these days.

The issue that any 3rd party ebook reader is going to face is the same issue that all the ones out there face. The ebook store reader app (iBook, Kindle and Kobo) is good enough for the vast majority of people, and those who it's not good enough for, tend to be very picky.

Since most have very different wants, it's impossible for any app to successfully fore-fill all those wants. Add in a few obsessive types who absolutely pound any app that doesn't do things exactly like they want (ignoring the fact that their wants change over time) as worthless junk and the question quickly become why would anyone keep with such a thankless job? Only a masochist would stick with it long term.

If I every get some spare time, I plan to write something like calibre for audiobooks simply because I have a desire for something like that and the current offerings don't meet my needs. If I every get around to doing it and like the result, I may or may not try putting it up on the app store, but if I do, then it will be for a nominal charge and an "as is" basis. I know it won't make money and I know that some will bash it.

[Faterson]

I certainly wasn't talking about the phone version of Windows. That's dead indeed. I mean regular desktop Windows 10 and Windows 7. To have Marvin run right there, so I can process annotations directly without even exporting them from Marvin, just like my friend does it with Google Play Books, would be a dream come true. It's likely never going to happen.

(I have a MacBook 13, but as I detest Apple software of all sorts, I only run Windows 10 on it, via Boot Camp. So I wouldn't really miss Marvin on Mac OS, because I don't use Mac OS.)

I'm also certainly not switching from Dropbox to iCloud as my main cloud provider. I also hear many developers complaining about iCloud, even in its latest iterations. You may potentially be in a minority that is happier with iCloud, but... For example, the Swedish developer of a nice time-management app called ATracker was forced to switch syncing from iCloud to Dropbox, because iCloud wasn't being transparent enough for his programming purposes. The syncing was buggy all the time, whereas now with Dropbox syncing, everything is working fine.

I also have an Android phone and tablet, and iCloud would be useless there. Plus, there's a host of fantastic third-party apps that only really work with Dropbox – such as my cloud-based voice-recorder app, RecUp (formerly DropVox), or the aforementioned plain-text editor Permanote (formerly Nebulous Notes).

As to those $600 and $3000 upfront fees, I guess the developers would need to be transparent with their users about them. So, for example, it's September 2017 right now. The developer might ask their user-base: "Do you wish to continue using this app on platform A, B, C, and D in 2018? If yes, here's the cost." A "fund-raising" webpage might be set up for each particular platform. I'm pretty sure that if, for example, all that it would take for us to make Marvin run on Android was to collect $600, we might be able to collect the $600 right here among MobileRead users only! Perhaps I'm being overly optimistic, but if the $600 weren't collected on time – well, the app wouldn't run on that particular platform for the following year, then. This way, users would at least know what they're paying for.

I agree that paying for all those subscriptions for apps for everyday needs can easily get out-of-hand. Which is why I purchased a classic, one-time MS Office licence for both my desktop and laptop a couple of years ago, and which is why I'm not considering the purchase of a Permanote subscription, and would not consider purchasing a Marvin subscription unless Marvin starts at least to support the basic feature of highlights and annotations syncing (with further improvements in sight).

[Faterson]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

The ebook store reader app (iBook, Kindle and Kobo) is good enough for the vast majority of people

But that is precisely why we need to insist that their alternatives are clearly better than them. We don't need another iBooks, a slight variation of it, only slightly less inept than iBooks, right? What would be the point? We need an app, an alternative to iBooks or Kindle, at which we can confidently point our finger and say: "Here, this is a professional app for you to use. Forget about iBooks or Kindle – that's for the kids, for the casual reader or user, or for Grandma and Grandpa. Professional users turn to a different e-reader."

I'd love if I could one day confidently say that about Marvin (or any of the other competitors). But how could I say that about Marvin today, when Marvin even lacks some features offered by iBooks, including an essential feature like highlights and annotations syncing?

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Faterson

But that is precisely why we need to insist that their alternatives are clearly better than them. We don't need another iBooks, a slight variation of it, only slightly less inept than iBooks, right? What would be the point? We need an app, an alternative to iBooks or Kindle, at which we can confidently point our finger and say: "Here, this is a professional app for you to use. Forget about iBooks or Kindle – that's for the kids, for the casual reader or user, or for Grandma and Grandpa. Professional users turn to a different e-reader."

I'd love if I could one day confidently say that about Marvin (or any of the other competitors). But how could I say that about Marvin today, when Marvin even lacks some features offered by iBooks, including an essential feature like highlights and annotations syncing?

I don't think you understand the meaning of good enough. A paid 10x better will never, ever beat a free good enough. There is little reason for the typical user to jump through the hoops you need to read an ebook on a third party app. The average reader is just fine buying a book in the ebook store of their choice and have it instantly show up in the associated reader app. Heck, most the people here couldn't care less about highlights and annotation syncing that you insist is so essential, much less the average ebook reader. You think that someone is highlighting the juicy parts in their favorite Romance novel, or going back and highlighting the clues in their favorite detective novel?

You can't insist on anything. Bashing a good app in an online web board because it isn't perfect in your mind merely drives the developer off and bores everyone else.

[rfog]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I don't think you understand the meaning of good enough. A paid 10x better will never, ever beat a free good enough. There is little reason for the typical user to jump through the hoops you need to read an ebook on a third party app. The average reader is just fine buying a book in the ebook store of their choice and have it instantly show up in the associated reader app. Heck, most the people here couldn't care less about highlights and annotation syncing that you insist is so essential, much less the average ebook reader. You think that someone is highlighting the juicy parts in their favorite Romance novel, or going back and highlighting the clues in their favorite detective novel?

You can't insist on anything. Bashing a good app in an online web board because it isn't perfect in your mind merely drives the developer off and bores everyone else.

Ok, man, change the concept: amateur use vs professional use.

(So big discussions about how many demons can dance over the needle point...)

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by rfog

Ok, man, change the concept: amateur use vs professional use.

(So big discussions about how many demons can dance over the needle point...)

I agree that professional use requires more features than amateur use. But the problem here is: we're talking about a READING app. How much revenue do you expect to get from professional users in this kind of app? And I think that's the point.

[rfog]

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

I agree that professional use requires more features than amateur use. But the problem here is: we're talking about a READING app. How much revenue do you expect to get from professional users in this kind of app? And I think that's the point.

Hi Ter!!!!!

That is the reason Faterson and me are talking about subscription model and other options. A standalone developer could live with an income of 30K year. Only need to do some calculations. 20 euro/year, need 1500 users. Assume 60K with taxes and so, 3000 users and you can make a living of it.

Do you want?

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by rfog

Hi Ter!!!!!

That is the reason Faterson and me are talking about subscription model and other options. A standalone developer could live with an income of 30K year. Only need to do some calculations. 20 euro/year, need 1500 users. Assume 60K with taxes and so, 3000 users and you can make a living of it.

Do you want?

Hi rfog!

No, really It looks a lot like counting your chicken before they hatch (vamos, el cuento de la lechera ), and in a more up-to-date language, a case of wishful thinking (at least for a reading app).

[rfog]

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

Hi rfog!

No, really It looks a lot like counting your chicken before they hatch (vamos, el cuento de la lechera ), and in a more up-to-date language, a case of wishful thinking (at least for a reading app).

"Ni con un palo, oiga." Let the chicken live his own life.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by rfog

Hi Ter!!!!!

That is the reason Faterson and me are talking about subscription model and other options. A standalone developer could live with an income of 30K year. Only need to do some calculations. 20 euro/year, need 1500 users. Assume 60K with taxes and so, 3000 users and you can make a living of it.

Do you want?

That's major league wishful thinking. First, as attractive as it is to a developer, users generally don't go in for a subscription model for an app. Second, I think that you are off by at least a factor of 10 in your estimate of users. I would be pretty surprised if 3000 people paid the one time $5 price for Marvin. Your most likely target audience might be closer to 100 if the app is real good and most of those wouldn't go for a subscription scheme, since being a professional reader isn't exactly a high paid profession.

A programmer who has the business knowledge and skill to write the sort of program that you want, is likely to be able to make a lot more money in a traditional programming gig. You talk about 30K, but someone with that skill set in the US can command in excess of 100K.