Cut the Thunkable team some slack please!

An open letter to all Thunkers and the Thunkable team

Dear all

I recently noticed an increased number of posts by Thunkers who feel that the platform does not live up to its promises and that it is not worth paying for in a manner which can politely be characterized as… impolite.

I have been Thunking for a few months now and paying for a monthly subscription because I prefer to keep my projects private and I truly believe that Thunkable is worth the price it asks for to keep its engine running while trying to pull off something unique which allows people who simply can’t or don’t want to code to develop apps and unleash their creativity.

So recently I noticed an increasing number of posts which I believe cross the line and express criticism in ways which I believe are unfair. Arguments along the lines of “Thunkable is only good for Hello World types of apps” and that “The Thunkable support is crap” are so, so unfair. People who think like that most probably have false expectations or are not willing to spend time to find out which are the available tools the platform offers and how to use them creatively to overcome limitations which is exactly what computer programming is about anyway!

Thunkable enables you to create cross-platform apps very easily comparing to native coding (seriously, have you seen what it takes to create a button that actually does something in XCode? Hilarious!!!) but it is not perfect. Perfection does not exist btw… Thunkable does NOT enable you to click a button and create the new Facebook app… If you think it does, get real bro! You still need to learn how think like a coder but with the benefit of not having to write a single line of code. You still need to learn how to handle JSON objects which is not hard at all btw! You still need to understand the implications of your app design and this takes time. If you are not willing to do so, try using Ionic, Xamarin, PhoneGap, heck, code native XCode and Java and then you will appreciate what Thunkable does! Go ahead!

Could things be improved? You bet! There is always room for improvement but that does not mean that you can’t create great apps with Thunkable. The community is doing great job in supporting new users (big respect to @actech, @kartik14 and others I forget to mention) and of course the entire Thunkable team.

Thunkable is not perfect. There are plenty of bugs on Git, many of which remain un-processed for quite some time while at the same time new features are being introduced. And yes, sometimes new releases break things that previously worked but you know what? Tough $hit! No one can claim it is done intentionally. I don’t know how many people are behind Thunkable but they deserve an upvote for their effort.

That’s all… I am now going back to Thunking…
Konstantinos

P.S. No, I did not get paid to write this. I just can’t cope with reading flames from people who don’t know what they are talking about. If you are reading this and you feel you are one of them, drop a message in the forum and we will try to help you. We are here to be part of the solution, not the problem.

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I agree with you, I started a few weeks ago with a free account to try, at that time I published a problem and the thunkable team replied that I had discovered a bug offering help to solve my need while they corrected the code.

Currently I opened a new pay PRO account because I think it is a way to help them to have the resources to improve the platform and I know that compared to the classic platform it lacks many components but it is still faster than developing in XAMARIN (I usually program in C # and visual studio).

I hope to help and share what I learned with other users.

Best Regards,
Alejandro Castrejon

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Thunkable Pro is a work in progress. It’s cost should reflect that.

Hey @Dean_Artis

I think that it can’t get any cheaper than free, can it? The only real advantage PRO gives you is that you can keep your projects private.

But I am curious… what would a reasonable price for you be?

Kind regards
Konstantinos

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I think it should be completely free including keeping your projects private.

However, if you want to publish an app there could be a one-off charge of say $5 per app.

This way you can make the app you want and if you want to publish it to Google Play or App Store then you can do so and Thunkable would be remunerated for the service they have provided.

Once Thunkable X has the features of something like Kodular then I can see there being a monthly or yearly subscription.

Hum… Is Kodular cross-platform or only for Android?

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Android only.

A post was split to a new topic: Any tips for building scaled apps?

I am the kind of guy to scour the internet for something better. And Thunkable X turned up trumps.

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I agree with you 100%!

I think that the price for the pro version of 20$ is very fair and when I look at the at the release notes it’s clear the thunkable is getting better and more powerful with every update.

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Thanks @eoinparkinson


Lot’s of exciting new stuff in the works for this month @Joey, should be very popular I think!

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