Hello. Here’s an update on Transmit iOS that I promise will not use the words “sunset” or “journey”.

Quick summary:

We are suspending the sale of Transmit iOS very soon

Revenue was not enough to cover development — we won’t sell something we can’t actively develop

This does not affect Transmit 5 for Mac. It’s doing extremely well

It’s doing extremely well This also does not affect Coda iOS and Prompt iOS , both of which are still going strong

, both of which are still going strong We really hope to bring it back someday in some form

Why?

Transmit for iOS always felt like an obvious addition to our lineup, but we never thought it made a ton of sense in the tightly-restricted world of iOS until Apple announced the “Share Sheet” for iOS 8. Finally, we thought, in addition to using Transmit iOS to upload/download whatever you need, you could easily (?) get data out of apps and send it to your favorite servers. So, in 2014, we built it!

I’m extremely proud of the finished product. I think we made an app that is beautiful, elegant, and extremely powerful — a really great way to manage files on iOS with a wide variety of server types.

For people who needed it, Transmit iOS was truly much-loved…

★★★★★ Brilliant for sending photos to clients As a photographer who has been using Transmit on a Mac for a very long time I find this to be the best FTP client on iOS devices for my needs. Not only does it work really with the iOS11 Files system but it can output straight from Lightroom CC too. Possibly the best bit is the sync between the Mac OS version which transfers all of you favourite server settings to this version and vice-versa. If all of that isn’t enough, Transmit has proved to be ultra-reliable on both the iPad and iPhone.

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★★★★★ Way more than I expected for iOS I’m a longtime user of Transmit on Mac OS. When I upgraded to v4 I decided to look into the iOS version (on iPhone 7 and iPad Air 2). Glad I did. Every feature that makes sense in the iOS environment is implemented here, and the interface is functionally identical to the Mac version. Even Panic Sync worked well. Impressed.

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★★★★★ Another winner from Panic This app is easier to use, faster, better written and more effective at managing files on my NAS and servers than the vendor-supplied apps. Btw it’s also beautiful.

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…but, quite sadly, there just weren’t enough of these lovely people.

Transmit iOS made about $35k in revenue in the last year, representing a minuscule fraction of our overall 2017 app revenue. That’s not enough to cover even a half-time developer working on the app. And the app needs full-time work — we’d love to be adding all of the new protocols we added in Transmit 5, as well as some dream features, but the low revenue would render that effort a guaranteed money-loser. Also, paid upgrades are still a matter of great debate and discomfort in the iOS universe, so the normally logical idea of a paid “Transmit 2 for iOS” would be unlikely to help. Finally, the new Files app in iOS 10 overlaps a lot of file-management functionality Transmit provides, and feels like a more natural place for that functionality. It all leads to one hecka murky situation.

Was the use case for this app too edge-casey or advanced? Did we overestimate the amount of file management people want to do on a portable device? Should we have focused more on document viewing capabilities? Maybe all of the above?

My optimistic take: we hope that as iOS matures, and more and more pro users begin to seriously consider the iPad as a legitimate part of their daily work routines, Transmit iOS can one day return and triumph like it does on the Mac.

In the meantime, we can now better focus on our other great apps, including Coda iOS (which, by the way, has full file management too) and Prompt.

What Next?

We will soon remove Transmit iOS from sale. This is your last chance to purchase it — if you think it’ll be useful for you. It does a lot of useful things, even if it won’t be updated in the foreseeable future. Everyone that has Transmit iOS installed can use it on their devices in the foreseeable future. Plus, it should be easily re-downloadable from your App Store “Purchased” zone — at least until a hopefully-far-future iOS update breaks compatibility with it. We’ve posted Transmit iOS 1.3.9 which adds full iPhone X support! If you use Transmit iOS, make sure to grab that final update as quickly as possible, since auto-updates will stop when the app is removed from sale. We’ll keep Panic Sync working for Transmit iOS. There’s no reason for us to turn it off as long as the app continues to run! Finally, any customers who purchased Transmit iOS in the last 60 days or so should contact us — because that sucks. While Apple doesn’t provide us with the ability to provide you with a refund, we’ll do everything we can to help.

Thank You

For everyone who purchased, used, and enjoyed Transmit iOS during its existence, we thank you so sincerely! Here’s hoping the computing stars will align for its return in the future.