A couple of weeks ago, we decided to remove SERIST and MOVIST from the App Store. This raised some questions so we thought we’d share some of the answers.
What does it mean exactly?
It means you can’t find and buy SERIST and MOVIST on the App Store anymore. It also means that we won’t be able to send updates anymore.
However, if you downloaded an app on one device in the past, it will still be available to you on any of your compatible devices.
At some point in the future, SERIST and MOVIST may become unusable and won’t get fixed. Until then you can still use them.
Everything else, like the twitter accounts, the websites,… will also be stopped.
SERIST and MOVIST are built on top of Trakt.tv, everything is or can be synchronized with trakt. When that’s done, you can use any other apps that work with trakt or use trakt directly.
Why are we stopping?
MOVIST and SERIST are not new. The codebase is old and comes with a lot of technical debt. Without going into details, both apps became impossible to maintain given the limited time and ressources available for the task.
On top of this, both apps were built on an unsustainable business model. The goal here is not to explain, nor defend or attack the App Store economics so let’s just say that it does not make a lot of sense for such low-priced apps to get free updates for life.
What’s next?
There are a lot of free or paid alternatives to SERIST and MOVIST. Now, we are not pushing anyone toward one or another app or service but one of them is — our latest baby — Rippple.
When MOVIST and SERIST were actively maintained, a team of 3 to 6 were working on it. Now most of the team is gone and focusing on one app instead of two or three made more sense.
Rippple started as a 3rd side project to fill a gap — MOVIST was about movies, SERIST about series and Rippple was supposed to be about comments only.
With time, a lot of SERIST’s and MOVIST’s features were added to Rippple but they were integrated slowly and with a lot of care to stay maintainable, sustainable, modular and improved where it was possible. We basically used everything we learned making SERIST and MOVIST to build Rippple.
Of course some of you won’t love Rippple as much as SERIST and MOVIST and that’s okay. We are still working on Rippple and have a long way to go. The endgame is to build the best Trakt app so we welcome any feedback as long as it’s meant to push us forward.
Thanks for reading, understanding and hopefully following and still supporting us 🙏
Kevin
