IPod touch is ultrathin and colorful, plays music and video, rules games, runs apps, makes video calls, takes amazing photos, and shoots HD video. Another Great App Went Subscription Only and Everything Is Terrible. I blame Adobe for this. Ulysses, one of the best writing tools available right now, is going subscription only. If you previously purchased Ulysses for Mac or i. OS it works seamlessly across Macs, i. Phones, and i. Pads you are now going to have to pony up 5 a month or 4. And again, I blame Adobe for this, because it taught software developers that they can put their clients over a barrelroyally screwing early adopters by having them pay repeatedly for product. Back in 2. 01. 3 Adobe moved its most valuable software, including Photoshop, Illustrator, and Premiere, to a subscription only model. If you want to use the industry standard software Adobe creates you have to throw down 1. Its been a sore point for many a computer user who still remembers the halcyon days when purchasing software meant you, essentially, owned it. Marius%20Masalar/2012/11/12/7-console-query.png' alt='Capturing Windows Messages Console Application Mac' title='Capturing Windows Messages Console Application Mac' />Do you care about the 2020 census You should. We all probably should care more about the 2020 census, because John Thompson, the director of the Census Bureau and. Directory of hundreds of tools for monitoring and analyzing network traffic. Wireshark is the worlds foremost and widelyused network protocol analyzer. It lets you see whats happening on your network at a microscopic level and is the de. Since then many apps have moved to this new modeloften promising cool updates as a reward for being a subscriber. Quicken, Autodesk, Adobe, and even more niche companies now like Ulysses, are moving towards this model and theres no sign of them stopping any time soon. Ulysses is developed by a small publisher called Soulmen, and its co founder, Max Seelman, took to Medium on Friday to defend his companys decision. Our users expect a continuously evolving high quality product  and subscription is the only way we can truly deliver on that expectation, he said in his post. Seelman went on to explain how software development has shifted dramatically since Soulmen first launched Ulysses. Software purchases used to be very different from how they are today. Capturing Windows Messages Console Application Mac' title='Capturing Windows Messages Console Application Mac' />There are significant changes made to Windows Explorer in Windows XP, both visually and functionally. Microsoft focused especially on making Windows Explorer more. Until not too long ago, you would purchase an application and get a physical copy on a bunch of floppies or later a CD. The thing you got  that was it. No patches, no updates. Developers had to put forward an extreme amount of attention to get everything right, because once an app was out, development had to be done. Seelman then noted that software development changed as internet speeds improved. With companies able to produce patches that not only resolved minor issues at launch, but also introduced new features. At first, these resulted in new features being added on the fly, but it quickly evolved into issuing more and more substantial patches  until today, where most v. Essentially, Seelman argues, software is now in constant development and pricing hasnt kept up with this new cycle. Which, okay, it makes sense If software is constantly getting features that normally would have warranted a new version and additional money than the company absolutely has the right to ask for more cash. The company is offering, for a limited time, a discount to older users, and if those user happened to purchase the software within the last year than theyll also received up to 1. Soulmen has also made it clear that the old version of the app available in the i. OS and Mac app stores will be available for use and updated to work with i. OS 1. 1 and High Sierra. After that youre out of luck. Whats frustrating about this is how shifting to these new forms of payment are great for the developer and fine for new users, but suck, a lot, for old users. I know, because Ive been using Ulysses for the better part of six years. Its a piece of software Im so attached to Ive name checked it when people ask why I dont switch to Windows or Android for my daily work machines. The announcement of a move to subscription based payment popped up as soon as I opened the app on my computer this morning and, annoyed, I took to Twitter to bask in the irritation of other users. Ulysses isnt going to be the last app forced to make this decision. As consumers demand more and more from minor updates software developers will need to find a way to make profit. They can try to tightly manage their business and continue with the old model, demanding money only when a new and truly outstanding feature appears, or they can go the Ulysses route, which many companies, including Adobe, have done before. Its proven effective, even as subscription fees balloon on users credit cards and leave them irritated and underwhelmed. Adobe, Autodesk and Quicken are all huge and required apps for their respective industries. They can afford to ask for money each month, but if Ulysses doesnt provide cool new features with every update, that 4. Scrivener or some other non subscription based writing app. At the very least Ulysses could have taken a note from the book of Plex. That software suite went from completely free to a subscription based model and users were. Automotive Embedded Software Jobs Europe. So Plex offered a lifetime membership. Essentially you pay out the nose once and never pay again. As someone who uses the app every day that was a no brainer for me. I dropped my wad of cash and never looked back, and I didnt have to look at yet another subscription fee on my credit card statement either. Just a thought Ulysses. Illinois Wants To Ban Location Tracking Without Consent. Its increasingly difficult to do anything on your phone nowadays without sharing your geolocation information. Certain Snapchat filters, Facebook status updates, Instagrams, and even text messages are all potentially tied to geolocation data. Its relatively simple for app developers to build in geolocation functionalityand many services require users to opt in to sharing location data. But now the state of Illinois wants ensure that all companies extracting geolocation data from individuals must provide an opt in, or else theyll have to pay up. Last week, both houses of the Illinois state legislature passed the Geolocation Privacy Protection Act HB3. Now, its on the desk of Governor Bruce Rauner, waiting to be signed into law. If signed, companies would be required to inform users of how theyre using the location data they collect, if the users decides to share it. Companies who dont adhere would be in violation of the Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act and would face criminal penalties and damages of at least 1,0. There are a few exceptions to the law. For instance, private entities can collect geolocation data without consent if the information will help parents find missing children or aid firefighters, police, or medical professionals. The new law might not have a huge real world impact, given that most devices and apps already ask people for permission before they start using location data. But this might encourage more tech companies and app developers to give users the option to opt out of being tracked. There have been plenty of times in the past when companies have faced repercussions for tracking users without their consent. For instance, Apple and Uber have been sued for allegedly tracking un notified users. Ari Scharg, director of the Digital Privacy Alliance DPA, told Gizmodo that the organization has done reports on the apps Selfie. Rate Selfie Pic Hot Or Not, which give developers precise GPS coordinates whenever a person uploads a photo. When a person is just browsing through the photos to rate them, if they were intercepting the backend traffic, they would be able to get the GPS coordinates of each person they viewed, Scharg said. Overall, a person could use this information to stalk someone or the owner of the picture could retaliate against a person that left a bad comment if they were capturing the traffic. The DPA urges app developers to be transparent with users by clarifying how location data is being used. The organization has been advocating for the bill, and even wrote an open letter to Governor Rauner, which was signed by more than 2. Chicago area tech companies. Illinois has a reputation of passing strict data privacy legislation. The states Biometric Information Privacy Act prohibits tech companies from using biometric identifierslike face scans and fingerprintswithout consent. Their Right To Know Actwhich passed in May, but was put on holdrequires companies such as Facebook, Amazon, and Google to disclose what data has been collected from consumers and shared with third parties.