iConfession
My friends from college, Patrick and Chip Leinen, have made the news and made it big with their now famous Confession App for the iPhone. Much of the press I’ve read has treated the idea of bringing a phone into the confessional as something quite bizarre, but then much of the same press views the sacrament itself as bizarre. My friendship with the developers (yes, yes, I’m basking in their glory) may be turning me towards a favorable view of their product, but, upon reflection, I have to say that, yes, I really have a favorable view of their product. Perhaps it’s the geek in me, the love I have for anachronistic blends of cutting-edge science and ancient myth (Final Fantasy, Star Wars, etc.), that disposes me to welcome technology and the sacred sharing the same space–in this case, the confessional. Anyhow, congratulations to the Leinens and to their fellow developer Ryan Kreager on their success. I hope their app proves beneficial to many a penitent.
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Praise for the wonderful app, but a slight knock that they’re charging money for it. I know that it takes time and expense to develop something like this, but I would wager that it would be much more of a public service if people could download it for free. I would think the only people that would pay for this app would be those who already know enough about confession not to need it.
The price is pretty minimal, much less than you’d pay for a bible or a rosary or a book about confession. Besides, the developers deserve the financial rewards of making the app, and if they make a decent profit, that gives them more opportunity to perfect this app and make others.
Doesn’t matter. You could charge $0.05 for the app. The sheer fact that it has a price attached to it is a deterrent for the fence-sitters who could actually benefit from it.
What are the intentions here? To make money, or to help people? I don’t think you can have one without compromising the other. Do you want your treasure here or in heaven?
In fairness, it can cost significant bucks to create one of these apps. Perhaps they are just attempting to recover costs?
Otherwise this app would not be available for people who really have no use for it.
Given that the app is on an iPhone, which isn’t exactly an inexpensive item, I can’t see how the price in any way acts as a deterrent.
Psychology plays a lot into it. If you read the stats on iPhone apps, you’ll see what I’m talking about Our company is a licensed Apple dev that has created an iPhone app ourselves, so I’m not speaking from ignorance.
For example, have you ever ready the comments section of Angry Birds? People bitch and complain that the developers released 60 new levels for 99c and didn’t include it as a free update to the original.
Or those other apps that have both the free and paid versions, even though the paid version is only $1.99? They do it because they know people don’t buy stuff unless they get to try it out first.
It’s absurd, but the reality is that people expect that stuff to be free, and a lot of people won’t try it out if it is paid.
I’m all for cost recovery, but I continue to be disheartened at the fact that there are thousands of free apps in all genres, except Catholic apps, which are always paid. Hmmm….
Nothing personal but I am holding out for the iEucharist app.
I’m not sure how such an app would work or what its use would be, but it would definitely be problematic, to say the least.
In depth review, including 20 screenshots, here:
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2011/02/review-the-new-iphone-app-for-confession-useful-but-flawed/
Interestingly, the developers (your college friends?) chimed in on the comment thread: “As one of the developers, thank you so much for your review. We want this app to be not just good, but very good. We have made notes of all of your suggestions and we will be including them in our next version. If you have any other suggestions or questions, please let me know. We really appreciate the review.”
Is this app intended to be physically taken into the Confessional as an aid? I presumed it was a SUBSTITUTE for Confession, but if used as an aid in actual Confession, that would make it much less problematic.
It’s an aid, not a substitute.
Fr. Z’s review makes rather clear it is an aid, not a substitute.
The secular MSM got that all wrong and went nuts over the idea of confession by iPhone, particularly in their headlines, which totally gave the wrong impression.