Why the Brighton HipstaPak was released on Oggl first. No, it wasn’t a ploy to get you to spring for an Oggl subscription.
It’s been over five days since First Friday, the day of the month the Haus of Hipstamatic releases its goodness into the Hipstasphere. However, there’s still no new pak for Hipstamatic Classic users at the time of this writing. Just the promise of Brighton and a lot of Oggl users telling us “I’ve been using it since last week.”
The Brighton HipstaPak is coming as soon as it can. And, no, this wasn’t a plot to get the Oggl holdouts to finally spring for a subscription. More after the jump. >>>
With all of the user frustration, rumor and speculation on Facebook, Twitter, GetSatisfaction and other online forums, I decided to reach out to Molli Sullivan, Director of Communications at Hipstamatic, and ask her about the delay.
She told me, “The Brighton HipstaPak for Hipstamatic Classic is still in review with Apple. As soon as Apple approves it, we will make it available to the community. We understand some members of the community are frustrated, but please know we’re very eager to get it out to everyone — we’re just waiting on Apple.”
She enclosed a screenshot which you can see below, from the Apple Developer portal. This shows the current status of the Brighton in-app purchase. This screenshot was taken today, July 10 at 2:32 PM, Eastern time.
Brighton HipstaPak developer review status, 07.10.13
I also asked Molli about the “conspiracy theories” that a lot of unhappy Hipstamatic users are speculating — implying a connection between the delay in release and Classic users getting double-dipped for a HipstaPak and an Oggl subscription.
Her reply, “The reason gear can be made available for Oggl subscribers immediately is because, unlike Hipstamatic Classic, we control when gear is added and released, and there is no review process by Apple. With Hipstamatic Classic, every pak requires a single, in-app purchase, which goes through iTunes and therefore has to be approved by Apple for distribution.”
This explanation makes sense to me and I’d suspected it had something to do with the two different payment models of the apps. It’s one of the many quirks of the App Store.
The review process for developers can be frustrating in many ways. There are many review teams around the world that review app submissions. Some of them are faster than others. Sometimes an approval comes quickly. Other times not. It can be frustrating for the lack of consistency, even just watching from the viewpoint of a blogger and a spectator.
It goes both ways. In the past, there have been HipstaPaks that flew through the Approval process and were released early — surprising even the developers.
So, hold tight, Hipstamatic Classic users. The Brighton Pak is on its way. I, too, am obsessively refreshing the Hipstamart until it gets here.
=M=
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