Happy New Year @phillryu, @ben, & all. I wanted to see if you have any updates on when we can expect the next TestFlight beta or Clear update? Looking forward to it!
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Happy New Year all. We’ll be back to work tomorrow, I guess we have a Watch beta to refresh, and I do hope to get sync testing kicking off early this year.
We’re also exploring a Clear Pro/Ultimate membership and will be working on this in January in parallel with sync. I’ll probably start up a new thread about this later this month with the plan more figured out.
For current users I think most of the stuff in Clear Pro to start will be already-existing more pro-ey things moved into it, but you will be grandfathered into any currently shipping features and will not need to subscribe to continue using them so I’m hoping it won’t be as dramatic of an event as it has been for other apps!
I think this will also help reset some of Clear’s minimalism for new people in a good way, and for pro users overall it should more accommodate opting into the extras you need/want and turning off things you don’t.
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That’s exciting to learn and can’t wait to see what comes with the Pro. I just need a web based version and I’ll be happy/complete 
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Thanks for the update, Phill, hope you have had a good start to 2025, looking forward to Clear Pro!
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Really looking forward to this!
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Happy New Year to everyone. Pro sounds promising, I’m waiting for it too.
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Please just keep in mind regional prices if you can! Not every country has the same purchasing power 
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I’m open to it, like we’re not trying to maximize revenue per person in lower purchasing power countries or something. But we haven’t done this before so I would have to look more into it. (We have used Apple’s price tiers so far which they do adjust per market but I think only based on currency conversion.)
I’m curious what we would peg it to, like is the most authoritative purchasing power reference the price of a Big Mac in each market?
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So good! Look forward to try what’s coming thank you all for the amazing work.
For the last days I’ve been thinking how much I miss the watch app, specially shopping.
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Hello, Will existing users be grandfathered into the upcoming sync feature? Or will it require a subscription? Thanks for any info and for keeping us informed.
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I think we need to anchor Clear Pro with sync (e.g. not grandfathering) because of its server/usage costs and the huge engineering project it has been for us and will continue to be with over time, more native/differentiated clients to support and develop moving forward.
We will be offering a discount for legacy users, but there are enough of you out there where promising free cloud/syncing would be irresponsible of us and we wouldn’t be able to subsidize or guarantee this.
At the end of the day we need some more percentage of the base to be supporting Clear as an indie business. I know there will be some that are just vehemently anti-subscription or unable to, but I’m hopeful there will be enough who are down to pay for this and the other features and perks, and who get enough ongoing value out of Clear to make it a fair trade.
The shop was surprisingly successful especially earlier last year, but it doesn’t ultimately feel that sustainable for the short and medium term future, at least in that I think it leans too much on the niche of Clear fans (and super fans) who love the customization side. Not axing it, but hoping Pro membership ends up being a more distributed backbone for the business.
I will post a thread soon about Clear Pro to link for twitter etc. so we can get some community discussion going. The goal continues to be figuring out the sustainable and fair business model for Clear and hopefully what we end up shipping, we do with some real level of community consensus that it hit some reasonable sweet spot.
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The shop was surprisingly successful especially earlier last year, but it doesn’t ultimately feel that sustainable for the short and medium term future
In the first couple months of Clear 2, there were many new items in the Clear shop. I would be buying multiple items each week, if not each day. I just checked and I spent $126 on Clear last January alone. Since that early time period, it is rare that I see something in the shop that I’ve never seen before. It would take a while for me to go through the receipts in Apple Wallet, but I would guess I didn’t even spend a total of $20 in the Clear shop in the last six (or seven, or eight?) months of 2024 combined.
As a member of this message board, I felt that there was a fair bit of enthusiasm around Clear design concepts prior to, during, and shortly after the release of Clear 2. I excitedly responded to a handful of people on here who were creating all sorts of themes and icons. But while I still look at the shop with hope everyday, there simply is nothing new and seemingly hasn’t been now for most of Clear 2’s public, year-long lifespan. A lot of those potential designs and ideas that we all talked about in January and February and March never came to fruition.
(I’m sure there were and are important reasons as to why some of this happened, beginning with you and the team working out bugs, as well as working on the infamous and impending sync. I understand you only have so many resources. But the shop being unsustainable isn’t inevitable. There is always the option of reviving the shop and introducing new things for us to buy. Hint hint nudge nudge. )
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The lack of shiny new collectibles explains most of 2024’s sales past the earlier launch months, but tbh even if we went hard there again, I feel like the user base would have to be something like 5x what it is to really sustain by itself. Part of the early success was also kind of a venting (in an amazing way) of support from longterm users, many who had been with the app for a decade or more, but I don’t think something we could really extrapolate further out, or for brand new people etc.
And yes it was a lot of work to crank out good ones at that pace! And was getting harder as we went, as we were checking off the obvious good ideas.
I will note Pro membership could include something like a rotating monthly collection of premium themes for members to sample, so it’s also not entirely abandoning this side. Just shooting for more rounded and ‘four quadrant’ appeal.
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Since 2012 I have been a longtime loyal Clear user. What I have loved most about Clear is the beautiful minimalistic design coupled with the simplicity of adding items to a list in 1 step, not multi step like so many other productivity apps. (and…I have tried most of them)
In the beginning, I was able to use Clear as my go to Task list…not just for shopping or packing lists, like today. I was able to use Clear as my task list because it synced across my phone, iPad and Mac. I was able to easily move tasks from one list to another on the fly, with a large full view of all of my lists, especially when I turned my iPad sideways. Not like today on my phone, which even at max size is too small to be productive.
While I appreciate the hard work and creativity that went into the collectibles and rewards, I found them more of a distraction. Instead, I loved the random positive reinforcement loot drops that happened after I had been genuinely productive, not the ones that I received for competing obscure reward tasks, which became a time waster for me.
I eagerly look forward to the meat & potatoes app changes more than whatever new stock is in the store.
I am looking forward to an app that will continue to be my go to tool for task completion & my parking lot for thoughts & ideas to reduce mental ram.
If I had my Clear wishlist, it would be to easily sync Clear across the full Apple ecosystem of products with random loot drops that reinforce the fun of getting tasks done. I would gladly pay for what we once enjoyed so many years ago
Thanks Phill & Team.
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I have subscription fatigue and 2024 went a bit out of hand. I’m cutting it all down this year and may well have to bow out of this app unfortunately if it’s yet another music/streaming service level monthly pricing that I can’t afford.
Have had Clear since the pre pre pre TestFlights and supported it through the store (icons ftw) so would be a shame but I understand it’s needed to make projects like this feasible sometimes.
Good luck with the release either way.
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I’m ready to subscribe to a pro version.
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I’d pay for a sub no problem. I understand there really is no way to sustain an app that’s free these days, or hell, even for a one time fee. The App Store spoiled everyone back in the day with free or $0.99 apps. It was fine then because most apps came and went (fart apps anyone) but the truly productive apps had to raise prices and they did.
Eventually Clear rarely saw an update until one day it was more or less abandoned. It wasn’t sustainable. We original Clear users were stoked to see it being developed again and I’d say most users remain stoked. Having said all that I think we have to accept that a sub is really the only way forward to keep an app alive in today’s market. If Clear is just an occasional side project with rare updates then sure, it can stay free with a shop putting a few quarters in the teams pockets at the end of each month….or go with ads 
. Joke!
I don’t mind subs for great apps that make life easier and entertain me. Knowing my reoccurring payments will guarantee ongoing development and updates is a fair trade.
I think what it all boils down to is what that sub will cost. If it’s Fantastical pricing it would be near impossible to justify as it is even with sync but finding that sweet spot in pricing is key.
I only subscribe to apps I absolutely use on a daily basis and I have to love using them. Clear is one of those apps without a doubt.
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Yeah I understand and anticipate others having that fatigue. Went through my subscriptions earlier this year cutting some and downgrading to ad tier for others to tighten the belt a bit.
We’re currently thinking $4 or $5 monthly, but with some discount for legacy users. (Bringing it down to $3 or $4). And a yearly option with some built in discount.
This feels to me within some ‘fair or reasonable’ range for a pro membership in a productivity app, but I’m curious what the community will think. I get it if it doesn’t meet someone’s personal budget or threshold based on how much they get out of the app.
For shop customers, let me see if we can do something there, like some extra discount or free trial period.
Appreciate some of the early pledges of support and discussion so far. I’ve been drafting up the proper forum post for this, I’m running it by a couple indie friends/team and plan to post it later this week.
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Happy new year Phill and team!
I am wondering if there could be a way to implement a function to manually export my lists from my iPhone Clear 2 and then import them on my iPad version of Clear 2 by having a Setting option in app and then just sharing the list/export file via airdrop to my other device. Don’t know if CSV type files would be feasible. Some of my movie catalog apps allow this very functionality and is quite helpful to have as a backup solution that also helps move lists to other devices quite easily.
That way there would be no server side strain on your end so for people like myself who really do not want anything to do with subscription services, a great way to at least manually export their lists to another device.
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I suppose you could be doing that with the share function / plain text option? (Swipe list title right for the option)
If you do this and save to clipboard, iCloud clipboard should let you then paste the list’s contents into the other device.