Hi everyone,

There’s been some confusion, causing unhappiness, since the release of Penultimate 3.0 and its inclusion of an in-app Paper Shop. I don’t like seeing that, because it means that I haven’t done a very good job of something along the way. Many users perceive that I am strong-arming them into buying virtual paper from the Paper Shop, or suckering them out of their money for something they believe should be free. None of this is true, but I take responsibility for the confusion, and will make some changes moving forward.

The 3.0 release significantly expands what you can do with Penultimate by adding an ability to import any image as a paper texture. This originated with reams of user feedback. Some requests were for simple additional papers (new graph papers, music staff paper), but the majority of the paper-style requests were all over the map, and were often domain-specific to whatever the user’s workflow is (film storyboarding, landscape architecture, web design mockups, etc). It is so cool to see what people do with the app, but there was no way that I could fulfill all of those needs by just adding dozens of best-guess styles into Penultimate. (To say nothing of how cluttered that would have made the app feel.) The best way of allowing any user to reach their full creative goals was to allow them to bring into the app whatever template they needed. It was then my job to make sure that it looked great, and integrated into the experience in the high-quality way you’ve come to expect from Penultimate. I’m proud of the simplicity and quality of this function. I also built in a capability of sharing the papers, to encourage a community to form around user-created papers.

The Paper Shop component was intended primarily as a convenience for a minority of users. There were some specific paper requests that were common enough to design in-house and offer to users directly, should they prefer a simple install to hunting around for an exactly matched guitar chord chart (say). Many of these papers add significant extra value to the app— transforming it into a music composition tool, in one case. Charging a small amount for these very optional add-ons didn’t seem unreasonable, and they’re targeted at a self-selecting set of users, ones who are usually quite dedicated to the tasks they need the papers for. 

Unfortunately, the release was not perceived universally as a great paper import and management feature with an adjunct shop for convenience. And that failing is mine: as much sense as this made to me, it was not explained clearly enough and did not reflect the marketplace.

It actually turns out that lots of people are interested in the Paper Shop paper collections— more so than the fraction that I imagined. These users have broader use cases for the app, and don’t want to feel overcharged for specialty house-built papers that they’d like easier access to.

I think The Paper Shop is a great way of providing specific, well-designed papers that not everyone will need. But I am going to take three steps here to address concerns:

1. I will provide at least one free add-on collection of papers. This will allow all users to see how it works, and get value out of it, without any extra outlay. This will require an app update because the technical infrastructure to support it isn’t completely finished in the current version. This update will appear as soon as possible


2. In the meanwhile, to make them more accessible to more users, I’ll be lowering the price on some of the existing collections, effective tonight. If you’ve already bought one of these paper collections this week I will refund the difference to you directly via PayPal. I don’t get a record of who purchased things, so forward your iTunes receipt within the next 30 days to paperrefund@cocoabox.com along with your PayPal address. If the paper collection(s) you’ve purchased is made free with the next update, I’ll refund you the full price at that time. It might take me a few weeks to get through them, but I don’t want anyone feeling like they got a raw deal. 


3. Most importantly, I’m going to move more quickly on something I was intending to do anyways: provide a centralized location for user-created paper files that all Penultimate users can browse and download from. Lots of users have already taken up the task of building great templates for the app. If you will have some you’d like to share, let me know by sending me an email at papersubmission@cocoabox.com (don’t send papers yet). No announcement yet on the form this will take, but stay tuned for something soon.

I hope this explains the intention behind Penultimate 3.0— an update I believe opens up a lot of new applications for the app—and allays what may have been some of your concerns. If you have others, please send me a note directly at ben@cocoabox.com.

Thanks for reading and, as always, for your support.

Ben