The Future of Flint

As you have probably heard, Campfire will soon be sunset. This means that while Campfire will be maintained for existing users, it will no longer accept new users or have any new development. Since the news came out, I’ve had many people ask me what’s going to happen to Flint. To be perfectly honest, with Campfire no longer being actively developed and getting no new customers, it doesn’t make much sense to work on a Campfire client — the app store can be a tough business even for apps with strong, growing markets. From now on, Flint will only receive bug-fix updates and minor feature updates.

What does this mean for you?

First, Flint should continue to work the same as it does now for as long as Campfire is running. In addition, I still use Flint all day, every day, so I’ll do my best to provide bug fixes if something should break. In light of all this, I’ve reduced the price for Flint for Mac from $14.99 to $7.99, and Flint for iOS will be reduced from $7.99 to $3.99. Future updates for Flint for Mac will also require Mavericks (10.9) to make maintenance easier so I can get updates out faster.

Second, I’m sorry to announce that I’m removing push notification support from Flint for iOS. Unlike the Mac and iOS clients, the push notification service requires a server running 24/7, being monitored and maintained. Discontinuing the push service will allow me to focus limited resources on the Mac and iOS clients.

This is effective immediately for new users as I’ve removed the app from sale until I can post a new version that removes the push option. The rest of the app will work exactly the same. To give existing users a little notice, push notifications will continue to work until September 1, 2014, a little less than 6 months from now.

Thank You!

Finally, I want to say thanks to everyone who has bought and supported Flint over the last 2 and half years! I’ve been really lucky to have fantastic users from amazing companies all over the world. Many of you have told me how much love Flint and gave great feedback, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that.

Update: More about Push Notifications
I neglected to mention the other reason for removing push notifications: they were taking up to 10 minutes to receive during peak traffic times. This delay almost completely removes the usefulness of push notifications, and was one of the main complaints I received about push from users who rightly expected it to be near instant. As much as I hate to remove support for an existing feature, I also hate to have a non-working or misleading feature. Push notifications require polling Campfire for updated messages, and because of how many rooms I needed to poll, I can't poll any faster than I'm currently doing without having a negative impact on the Campfire service as whole.