Fudget 1: What happened?

Fudget 1: What happened?

Creating Fudget 1 & Early Mis-steps

When I started working on Fudget 1, around a decade ago, I had created only 1 very simple app (Speed Distance Time Calculator), but otherwise I had no experience creating apps. It was really only a hobby.

At the time, I was using Excel to manage my money, and make sure I didn't overspend each month.

It was a hassle, needing to open up my laptop and launch Excel every single time I wanted to manage my finances.

In the age of smartphones, this frustration led to the idea of Fudget - a sort of "spreadsheet in your pocket".

I knew that this app would be complicated. And honestly, I knew I didn't have the skill or experience to create such an app.

But I thought...

"Nobody is going to download it, anyway"

...So I went ahead and created it.

And unfortunately, since I didn't really know what I was doing - I made some mistakes.

The biggest mistake was storing your data (all of your budgets and entries) within the app itself. It didn't become apparent how much of a mistake this was until much later on.

Fast forward to 2023, and Fudget has received over 2 million downloads, and that mistake had much bigger consequences (and for far more people) than I ever would've thought possible a decade ago.

Why Did the Updates Stop?

In Fudget 1, the entire app ran within what is known as a WebView. A WebView is basically like a browser (such as Chrome or Firefox) but without the address bar, bookmarks, buttons and all that other stuff.

The WebView that Fudget 1 was using was the UIWebView.

In 2020, this UIWebView was deprecated by Apple. This meant that they would no longer support apps that use this WebView.

In this article about UIWebView on the Apple website, you can see they stated the following:

"The App Store will no longer accept app updates containing UIWebView as of December 2020"

This meant that from December 2020, I could no longer submit any updates for Fudget 1, unless I replaced the UIWebView with the newer WKWebView.

Ordinarily, it would've been a simple fix to replace the WebView and submit an update for Fudget 1, except for one big problem:

All of your data (all of your budgets, income entries and expense entries) was stored within this UIWebView.

This meant that, if I replaced the WebView and submitted an update for Fudget 1, then every user would lose all of their data as soon as they updated to the latest version.

Obviously, this was not an option. Sadly, the only option was to never submit another update for Fudget 1. This is why Fudget 1 never received any updates after 2020.

Around this time, we begun working on Fudget 2, which for the above reasons, needed to be a completely separate app (and not just an update).

Why was Fudget 1 Removed from the App Stores?

Despite us not being able to submit updates for Fudget 1, the app continued to work correctly. And it had worked correctly for several years, without requiring any major updates.

Therefore, the plan was to keep Fudget 1 on the App Stores as a cheaper alternative to Fudget 2, after Fudget 2 was released.

However, towards the end of development for Fudget 2, iOS 16.4 was released.

This iOS update brought major issues to Fudget 1 - including headers and footers floating around the screen. But most devastatingly, the balance area (for your budgets) would disappear completely. A critical component of the app, could no longer be seen.

Knowing that we could not update the Fudget 1 app, we sped up the development of Fudget 2 as much as possible, so that we could get a working app to all of our users as soon as possible.

We let everybody on the Fudget Newsletter know what was going on, and why Fudget 1 could not be updated. But unfortunately, only a small percentage of users were on the newsletter, and there was no way to keep all of the other users informed, because:

• Push Notifications were no longer working in Fudget 1, so we couldn't inform users with Push Notifications.

• And we couldn't even update the description on the App Store page, to get a message to users, since updating the description requires an actual app update to be submitted - which we were no longer able to do.

With no possibility of fixing a broken app, there was no choice but to remove Fudget 1 from the App Stores.

However, if you would still like to use the original app (and you already downloaded it) then you can still download it via your previous purchases.

Please note that we don't recommend this, since we can't update the app. And since future iOS (or Android) updates could potentially break the app even further.

What about Fudget 2?

There are many questions about Fudget 2, such as "Why do I need to create an account?", "Why the subscription?", "Is my data safe?" And "Will I need to create yet another subscription again in the future?".

Let's answer all of these questions.

Why do I need to create an account?

Fudget is used by many couples who use it to budget together, and many business partners who use it together. And also, by people who simply want to use it on multiple devices. People who want to, for example, do the heavy work on the desktop apps and the lighter work (or adhoc work) on their mobile.

In Fudget 1, the only way to budget across multiple devices (or people) was using the Dropbox Save & Restore feature.

This feature would save all of the user's data to Dropbox at once, and then restore all of the user's data from Dropbox at once. This feature had a lot of limitations:

• Users would forget to save their data
• Users would sometimes accidentally restore data, when they didn't mean to
• Users would sometimes lose data
• One person would overwrite another person's data
• A person could overwrite their own data from one device with the data on another device, mistakenly
• It was just generally clunky and annoying to use

Therefore, one of the features most requested by users was automatic sync across devices.

And the only way to achieve this was to store your data in a secure cloud database and have you create an account, so that you can log in on any device (or platform) and access your data securely.

An account system is the only way that we can tie your data to you as an individual, and ensure that nobody else can access your data.

This has several benefits:

• It keeps your data safe. Even if your device is lost or destroyed, you can just download Fudget 2 again, log in and access your data
• It allows you to budget in real time across multiple devices (and platforms)
• It allows you to budget together in realtime with other people
• It prevents all those previous issues of losing data, overwriting data & needing to manually save & restore

Why the Subscription?

There are now over 2 million apps on the Apple App Store, with over 30,000 new apps being released every month.

With ever increasing competition, this results in dramatically decreasing downloads over time.

Here is a chart of Fudget 1's monthly downloads over 5.5 years:

Fudget 1's Monthly Downloads - Jan 2018 to Jul 2023

Fudget 1's monthly downloads dropped from 68,287 in January 2018 to only 9,189 in July 2023.

When your app business is based on one-time purchases, this means that the generated revenue also dramatically decreases over time.

This meant that Fudget, as a one-time purchase product, was no-longer a sustainable business.

There were only 2 choices:

1. Leave Fudget to die and abandon it completely
2. Create a much better, subscription-based app which is worthy of a subscription

We didn't want to let Fudget die, so we went with option 2. We abandoned other, more lucrative ventures in order to put 2.5 years of unpaid love into creating a much better app (completely from scratch) based on years of feedback and suggestions from users like yourself.

We added many of the features you were screaming out for over the years, including:

• Live, real time data sync across your devices & platforms
• Integrated number pad with calculator
• Folders for Budgets
• Partial payments
• Notes
• Carry over
• Printing budgets & charts
• Search & filter
• Reminders
• Copy & Move Budgets & Entries
• Multiple languages
• Text size options
• Multiple currencies

And much more.

A subscription-based product will also allow us to invest more heavily into the app - to eventually expand the team and provide regular updates, so that we can keep Fudget 2 being the best app that it can be.

We are extremely proud of the product we've created, believe it is still great value in today's market (with similar subscription apps charging 5X more) and believe that a better, more expensive Fudget is better than no Fudget at all.

Is my Data Safe?

After what happened with Fudget 1, you may understandably have some concerns over the safety of your data in Fudget 2.

As I mentioned earlier, in Fudget 1, your data was stored on your device, within the app itself. This was a mistake made by an inexperienced developer (at the time) who didn't really know what he was doing. And this mistake led to the whole issue of not being able to submit updates for Fudget 1 and ultimately needing to remove it from the app stores.

However, Fudget 2 has been crafted on the back of over 10 years of experience creating apps, both for our business and for other businesses - including apps for well-known charities such as Age UK.

I have also created a popular YouTube channel which teaches people how to create apps and created several top-rated courses for the Udemy website which also teach people how to create apps correctly.

In short - we know what we are doing now.

And in Fudget 2, your data is not stored on your device, but in a highly secure, realtime Firebase database (created by Google).

This is the same database used by very popular apps including:

• Duolingo
• Lyft
• Venmo
• Twitch
• Trustpilot
• Trivago
• New York Times
• The Economist

And many more.

So, even if the Fudget 2 app itself requires a major change (such as needing to replace the WebView) - we can make that change swiftly and you will still be able to access your data. So yes, in Fudget 2, your data is completely safe & secure and will remain so.

Will there be a separate Fudget 3 app in the future, and will I need to buy a new subscription all over again?

No. All future updates for Fudget 2 will be added to the current apps which are in the stores (and on the website). And even if we rebrand Fudget 2 to Fudget 3 in the future, it will still be the same app - only requiring an update - and will still work with your existing subscription.

Since every user has an account, and all of your purchase history is now tracked, we can always give you access to your account & subscription benefits, regardless of any issues and bugs that might come up.

This means that the Fudget Plus subscription (and all of the benefits) you have now will continue forever.

Why can't I use my Fudget 1 Pro Upgrade in Fudget 2?

In Fudget 1, there were no user accounts (you never needed to create an account or log in). This means that user purchases were never tracked and associated with individual users. And because Fudget 2 is a completely separate app from Fudget 1, there is no way (in Fudget 2) to detect whether a user purchased the Pro Upgrade in Fudget 1 in order to automatically provide a discount.

However, you can now follow these steps to reduce the cost of a Fudget Plus subscription by the same price as the Fudget 1 Pro Upgrade, every year, for as long as you remain subscribed:

• Open Fudget 2
• Go to the Account page
• Tap My Upgrade Options
• Tap Restore Purchase
• Tap Paid for Fudget 1? Get your Special Discount
• Tap Copy Code
• Tap Discount Code (under the price buttons)
• Paste in the code and tap Submit
• You will see the prices on the price buttons update

An Apology

I would like to take this opportunity to apologise for a few different mistakes, and offer assurances that these mistakes will not be made again.

(1) Storing your data carelessly in Fudget 1

I apologise for storing your data carelessly in the original app. This led to us not being able to update and fix the app, and ultimately having to remove it from the app stores. I understand this must've caused a lot of frustration and disappointment, especially for users who paid for the Pro Upgrade.

As explained earlier, I can assure you that this will never happen with Fudget 2, as your data is stored in a secure cloud database - so no matter what problems come up with the app itself - we can always update the app and always allow you to access your data.

(2) Not keeping you informed

While everybody on the Fudget Newsletter was kept informed about the issues in Fudget 1, this was only a small percentage of users. So, I apologise for not setting up better mechanisms in the original app to be able keep you informed.

However, in Fudget 2, every user is added to the Fudget 2 Newsletter when they create an account. This means that, as long as you stay subscribed to this newsletter, we can always keep you informed of any important developments.

We promise not to spam you, or send you any information unrelated to Fudget 2. We will send you a few initial welcome emails, to help you get started. Then, after that, we will only occasionally send important updates related to Fudget 2 - or special offers for Fudget 2, such as Black Friday discounts etc.

(3) Not providing a better offer for Fudget 1 Pro Users

As explained earlier, it is not possible, in Fudget 2, to automatically detect whether a user purchased the Fudget 1 Pro Upgrade, and then give those users a better offer.

Everybody on the Fudget Newsletter was sent a discount code which reduces an annual subscription by the same price as the Fudget 1 Pro Upgrade every year, for as long as you remain subscribed.

However, as mentioned before, most users are not on this newsletter.

Therefore, this better offer for Fudget 1 Pro users should've been included within the app itself - right from the start.

I apologise for not including this and not focussing on the best interests of our users.

However, in the latest version of Fudget 2 (2.0.3 onwards) you can now access this offer within the app:

• Open Fudget 2
• Go to the Account page
• Tap My Upgrade Options
• Tap Restore Purchase
• Tap Paid for Fudget 1? Get your Special Discount
• Tap Copy Code
• Tap Discount Code (under the price buttons)
• Paste in the code and tap Submit
• You will see the prices on the price buttons update

Also, if you have the iOS version of the Fudget 1 Pro Upgrade (and it is broken for you) you are free to request a refund from Apple. Please note this will be rewarded at Apple's discretion, as they are the merchant.

Final Thoughts

I hope you continue to enjoy and support Fudget. We want to keep improving Fudget 2 and making it the best app it can be. If you have any questions, or any suggestions for improving Fudget 2, or if you're unhappy for any reason, we welcome your feedback. Please email us via the app:

• Settings
• Help
• Ask a Question
• Scroll down
• Email us

Or if you prefer, you can email us via the website.

Thank you for choosing Fudget.

Danny Connell