It’s the holidays. The soft spice of holly and evergreen cling to the air, and a carefully curated playlist hums at just the right volume. The only thing that could make the atmosphere more inviting is the warm glow of a fire — so you load up the first one you see on the App Store and cast it to the family TV.
Everything is going well, until you turn and notice a popup on your yule log imploring you to upgrade to premium.
That’s the situation facing users of “Winter Fireplace,” a digital yule log on the Apple App Store. Drowning in a sea of similar vibey kitsch, Winter Fireplace starts off a free download, but soon begins begging users to sign up for premium with irritating popups that blot out all the warmth of the fire.
“Experience Winter Fireplace at its best,” the popup — viewed by Futurism at a holiday party — merrily declares. “Upgrade for a clean, distraction-free picture, cozy soundscapes, and the full scene library.”
Users are then invited to “Upgrade to Premium,” which can cost either $0.99 or $2.99, apparently, according to the app’s listing on the App Store. We chose “not right now,” in order to close the popup and get back to the high-octane holiday action. But 15 minutes later, the popup returned, offering the exact same deal.
A closer look at the store’s in-app purchases shows this isn’t your grandma’s yule log app. It’s jampacked with features like immersive soundscapes and iCloud integration, and boasts over 80 “premium” fire loops “showcasing fireplace, fireside, candle, campfire and bonfire scenes.” And though the base app is free, those extras are gonna cost you.
For example, users can purchase various themed packs for different holidays, like Christmas and Halloween for $5.99 apiece. There’s a “Mega Bundle” for $12.99, which includes numerous firescapes, but not all. For that, users need to shell out a whopping $19.99 to “unlock” the entire app, though we don’t know why anybody would.
(Thriftier holiday enjoyers can find many free — and ad-free — fireplace videos online.)
The developer of Winter Fireplace, Henry Glendening, has found himself in the news before, though not for anything related to his app. Back in 2015, Glendening became the subject of a feel-good lifestyle story, after St Louis Today reported on his betrothal to Kasey Bergh, whom the developer met thanks to a text to a wrong-number.
But the story didn’t really pick up pace until a while later, when Bergh — thirty years Glendening’s senior — needed a new kidney, according to local outlet KSDK. As it turns out, Glendening was a “perfect immunological match” for his wife.
Glendening’s story, then, is a modern parable. As the popup fades and the digital fire resumes its loop, we’re left with a perfect encapsulation of this moment in time, where human connection and the logic of monetization not only coexist, but emerge from the very same device.
We reached out to the developer for comment.
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