Looks from their website that if you bought a copy in the last three years you qualify for a free upgrade.

Hi Hakushodaimao. If you bought before May 2011 but less than three years ago you get this update for free. Up until May we had a policy of 3 years of free upgrades and we continue to honor that. Frankly I'm sad that we had to abandon that policy for new customers, but two things have pushed us to move to a more traditional versioning scheme (e.g. under the new scheme customers will get all the updates from 7.0 to 7.9 but 8.0 is a reduced cost paid upgrade ). Why we abandoned our 3 years policy? #1 People mostly get confused by the 3 years of free upgrades. So it's a headache for the customer and been challenging for us to manage as well. #2 The Mac App Store provides no way for us to know when a customer bought, let alone not charge them until 3 years later. Hence the new policy. I believe though we've structured the upgrade so that its very fair (although confusing, even for us). if you, or anyone feels that they aren't getting a fair deal, send an email to help@solrobots.com explaining your situation. We will do our best to do right by you.

Yes... my bad... Didn't remember the three year thing, so obviously was confused, too. Perhaps Sol Robots can make this a bit clearer on the purchase page. I do see the "Eligible for a free upgrade?" link, but assumed it didn't apply to me.

Hi Hakushodaimao. Ok, we've tried making it less confusing (it's hard with the dates) and we've updated our store. Let us know what you think.

I love this application but the Mac App Store is Evil. I do not want the company that makes my hardware and the OS that runs the hardware to be the sole outlet for apps that run on that hardware / OS. It's too much power and as you can see it results in developers changing policies and "selling out" because the MAS is easier to market their apps today. I get that but it's short-term thinking.

Look at the App sore for iOS. How long before Apple decides it knows what's best for you to have on your Mac and starts a screening process for MAS apps? No doubt it will all be in the name of security and keeping people safe, every major power grab today is done for this reason but, do not think for a second Apple isn't greedy for as much control and power as possible.

So, once developers' only outlet is the MAS you lose any leverage to guarantee yourself a fair deal. When (not if) Apple establishes this distribution monopoly and then changes the rules of the game developers will be the ones taking it up the proverbial you-know-what and consumers will get shafted too.

I'd also rather pay $35 or $40 for an app such as this direct to the developer rather than $50 because prices have been raised to cover Apple's cut. Apple is doing just fine selling hardware last time I checked and do not need to be putting their hands in Mac developers' pockets. iOS is different, it started that way so I can't complain but this is BAD for the Mac platform.

Oh and websites like this one will be the first casualty of the MAS and then Apple will control and moderate what people have to say about applications on the MAS.

Thanks for the information. Still got a surprise with the text: "Eligible for a Free Upgrade? (...) Note: Items purchased from the Mac App Store are not eligible." I did buy the MAS version, just because of the usually simple update process, but well, actually was not buying everything as I though. Please add a comment on the AppStore that those versions are not eligible for everyone to know. We assume wrong that the MAS products have the same policy :S . Thanks

Sorry, forgot to change the version number on the build we sent out. We have since fixed the problem and uploaded the new version. The only change being the version number.