I suppose the prices could drop to $0 so we can hear the refrains of, 'so how do you make money?' :)
Flashlight apps for $5, I'll agree, yeah, that's a bit much. Games though, not so much, since there's quite a bit more to creating those than a few lines of javascript.
Seriously, put a call out to developers to get their side of the story-- we might look a little weird griping about this, if one guy has netted say, not even the cost of an iPhone in sales revenues, while we can take a day off from work and plop down enough money for one or two iPhones.
Tom
· 1 year ago
"why are you forced to pay $1.99 for a junky Hangman game"
You're not. No-one's got a knife to your throat. If you don't like the look of the game, don't buy it.
If the customers refuse to pay these prices, developers will reduce the prices eventually.
Now what would be interesting is a FairPlay-enforced demo period, so you can effectively try before you buy. Also possibly a FairPlay-enforced subscription model, where you can buy access to an app for a specific repeating or non-repeating period.
Give me a break! It's a free market, so the market will eventually decide what price point is reasonable. Quit complaining! No one's forcing you to do anything!
Stut
· 1 year ago
What the app store is missing is demo's. Why didn't Apple build in support for a free download of a time/feature limited version associated with a paid full version? Seems like an obvious feature to me.
kdp
· 1 year ago
The initial wave of goods sold always costs more. The initial developers took a risk in developing for the iPhone, and the prices are higher as a consequence.
I just dropped over to Handango and checked the prices there. $19.95 seemed like a common price. I suspect the smaller market and many phones it can run on increase the price here.
As the iPhone grows in popularity and there is a shake-out in the apps, you can expect to see the prices drop.
If you want lower priced apps, please review as many of them as possible on Mashable. The more people that see the better apps that are priced well, the more competition there will be to match the features and price point of that app.
Neil Duckett
· 1 year ago
I agree. I don't want to have to wade through the ton of crap in there to find the good stuff. It will regulate though,as long as you can sort by popularity etc.
Loving the iPhone so far though!
Adam Helweh
· 1 year ago
No one is being forced to purchase anything in the app store. Additionally, no one has ever executed an application marketplace like this for such an enticing and capable platform like the iPhone.
Given some time things will level out. Whether initiated by the developers or the consumers, time will tell.
Who is to say what the going rate for a hangman game should be? Ask a hangman fan maybe? I agree that a lot of what's being posted is poor quality. The bigger question would be, if this is what Apple has let into the store, what kind of apps are they rejecting?
Jeff Rochlin
· 1 year ago
I think you are seeing the effects of the initial rollout and some developers that are attempting to get what they can quickly...
This is ultimately a self correcting problem, because each application page has ratings and reviews and people won't pay ten bucks for an application that other users have clearly said sucks.
Anson
· 1 year ago
"why hasn't anyone even mentioned the fact that most of the paid applications aren’t all that great[...]?"
Plenty of people have, Don, plenty of people have.
It could just be that when you weren't being "forced" to "trudge through this time of gouging" or to "wade through the junk" you were otherwise too busy thinking up lousy metaphors to notice? (j/k)
themanuel
· 1 year ago
Use the app called iPint instead of iBeer. Same effect but free. Cheers! :)
Peter
· 1 year ago
Reminds me of some of the early days of WinCE where one "developer" came up with a new set of "apps" just about every day. All free, but all just about equally useless. The only thing that could be said was that it was driving up the app count for WinCE to approach the number of apps for Palm. The good part was that these were hosted on his own site, not through a store like Handango so no wading through the apps to separate good from bad (at least those bad apps).
And yes, the author noted that the marketplace will eventually put the prices where they need to be. And I happen to agree that if you want a particular app, you are probably "forced" to wade through a lot of bad apps to find what you're looking for. (Not as in gun held to head, but as in no other way to perform said task.)
chris
· 1 year ago
Here's a concept...why don't we let the market decide?
D
· 1 year ago
Apple is just capitalizing on American stupidity.
eas
· 1 year ago
Yeah yeah yeah. Honestly, none of the quoted prices sound outrageous as long as there the apps are of good quality. I agree that $2 for a novelty like iBeer is silly, but then again, it is only $2, the cost of two music tracks, or a couple of good doughnuts.
Roustem
· 1 year ago
Don,
It is very easy to stop these outrageous prices. Download a FREE copy of Xcode, write these applications yourself and you will get them all for FREE!
Best regards, Roustem Co-author of 1Password
TPP
· 1 year ago
It's refreshing to know that the one advantage the App Store was supposed to have over jailbroken apps is turning out to be just pre-sales hype.
I laugh.
Mark
· 1 year ago
iPhones are for people with jobs, who don't mind paying money for goods and services.
DangerousAl
· 1 year ago
Give me a break! Quit complaining! No one's forcing you to do anything! So far this is the worst posted in here.
Michael
· 1 year ago
I absolutely agree, the apps are just too expensive. There are just too many apps that cost $9.99 and very few of them are really worth $9.99. Crash Nitro Kart should really cost $7.50 and Twitterrific should really only cost $2.99.
Pyrovolley
· 1 year ago
I am happy that your readers are smarter than you. Clearly, you have never had to write software to earn a living. Instead you WRITE about the innovations that developers make and profit from that. All the while you are preaching to people that free software is the way! Really? Free software is the way? Sure, for a leech like you it is. The Hangman app is not innovative. Far from it. But for you to suggest the AppStore is flawed because it's actually a platform for developers to earn a living is crazy talk. This is the point where I recommend you listen to the other comments that point out this is America, and we support free markets. Want prices to go down? Don't buy any apps. Supply and Demand. Wow.
You know what? If you think you can do better, pick up a compiler and start coding. Until then I suggest you focus your attention on figuring out what the next big innovation I create will be so that you can proceed to earn your living off my back. Pfft.
Al Delgado
· 1 year ago
I imagine someone somewhere has started a blog that reviews apps at itunes. The market will shake things out. ho hummm
Bryan Kress
· 1 year ago
I felt like after watching the keynote presentation that the apple iPhone apps were suppose to be fairly affordable. It looks like a bunch of vulture app developers are gonna make the quick buck until some other developers create similar apps at a rock bottom price.
Ben Nevile
· 1 year ago
This is one of the most irritating articles I've read on any blog this year. Yeah, a lot of the iPhone apps are trivial trinkets, but nobody is forcing any of us to pay for them. It's beyond me how $2-10 for any piece of software can be considered "outrageous" in an era where many of us don't think twice about shelling out $3-6 for second-rate "premium" coffee drinks.
Falkirk
· 1 year ago
There are so many things wrong with this article that it's hard to know where to begin.
There is no such thing as a fair price. There are now 7 million iPhone owners. Each of them is an individual that may value things differently than you do. You don't get to tell me how much an application is worth because you don't know how much it is worth to me.
There has never before been an application sold on the App store. For you to expect developers to hit some mythical "right" price that exists only in your head is not only unfair and arrogant - it's impossible. How about you be a little more gracious and allow developers a whole week for them to become perfect like you.
Get some perspective. Your big gripe is that the average cost of the top ten programs is $6.49. Dude, that's a big mac with fries and a coke. And the app doesn't give me high cholesterol or make me fat.
Get some more perspective. Have you compared App store prices with the prices of applications being sold on other platforms? I think you'll find that the App store is selling a bucket load of free and 99 cent programs that put some of the $20 programs on other platforms to shame.
Find a real problem to focus on. Fortunately we no longer let people like you decide for us what is valuable and what is fair. We have free markets. The pricing problem is self-correcting and is already being corrected. A web site called PinchMedia http://www.pinchmedia.com/fresh-pricing-data-7-... is carefully tracking the pricing of the iPhone and prices have dropped already.
Anderson
· 1 year ago
Apple does this because it knows what kind of people use iPhones. Simple consumers. No businessmen or technologically educated people. It enables free market at the app store, with developers charging whatever they want (sometimes free),because Apple knows that it deals with the sort of people that have no idea what they should or shouldn't pay for. If your audience is simple, no need to put much thought behind the pricing structure. Let the market balance itself.
Patrick
· 1 year ago
I have no problem to pay $20 for a game, if it is worth it, but the games that I saw until now, aren't. Does the 3D quality, that we are seeing in games like crash bandicot, is best they can make, or is it only because they had not enought time to make something decent?
Andrew Knott
· 1 year ago
Get over it... Don't buy it if you don't want it... It's not rocket science... geeezuz.
Len Kendall
· 1 year ago
While things are a novelty (which the new iphone is currently) people will pay for being the "first." Once adoption grows and more people jailbreak their phones then the rise of free applications will dramatically reduce the cost of the paid applications.
Magnus Nordlander
· 1 year ago
I agree with the title of this post. I totally disagree with the rest.
The way I see it there are two problems with the App Store. First of all, the prices are too low. With these prices it will take way too many sales to recoup the development costs, and even more to turn a profit. These prices are probably not going to work out in the long run.
The other problem is that there are to many crappy apps. For example, the four flashlights, all those crappy apps with no purpuse like iBeer or other apps that clearly were done in like 10 minutes.
What the App Store needs is better quality control. Get rid of those useless apps. Also, get rid of those developers who add leading spaces to get listed earlier in the alphabetical listing. If you can't behave, you don't belong in the App Store with the real developers.
Tony T
· 1 year ago
I agree with most of the comments here. Let the market decide. Developers need to make their money too and there are plenty of free apps out there. Why are you so upset?
Lyle Johnson
· 1 year ago
Am I the only one who read this article as sarcasm? Isn't the author joking about the fact that most of the apps are in fact pretty inexpensive?
Badoo
· 1 year ago
Of course it's a free market, but I believe the point is that you can simply jailbreak a phone and get most of these same crap applications for free.
No one has a gun to our heads, but don't we still have the right to make some derogatory comments when someone is trying to sell us something that we can legally get for free? What would you Apple lovers say if a restaurant wanted to sell you water from the sink for $1? I mean, come on, it's only $1, right?? They might even serve it in a pretty sleek glass and offer it in multiple colors a few months later.
But where I can totally agree with Don, is this statement: "Sure, but why hasn’t anyone even mentioned the fact that most of the paid applications aren’t all that great and more often than not, they’re incredibly overpriced?"
Seriously, where is the objectivity when it comes to Apple and the iphone???
I plan to leave this pretty iphone world behind and switch to the beautiful utility of a Nokia E71, waiting for the day that a non-Apple multitouch graces us with its presence.
TPP
· 1 year ago
Who needs objectivity when you can be a fanboy instead!
When the App Store was announced, Apple was specifically asked about what will make it better than just jailbreaking the phone and getting apps for free. Apple (and all the fanboys) said the advantage was higher quality applications from established developers.
Well, the App Store came and what do we get...the same crap than on jailbreaked phones, but more expensive.
Wonderful.
Mark Galit
· 1 year ago
I have only one thing to say to the writer of this article.... DON'T BUY THE APPS IF YOU THINK THEY ARE OVER PRICED. The App Store is treading on unchartered waters and everyone is taking a stab in the dark with their pricing. The cream of the crop will rise to the top and everyone else will fall by the wayside. I mean come on, you have to start somewhere.
Andy S.
· 1 year ago
"But until then, we’ll be forced to wade through the junk in our desperate desire to find something that’s actually worth the price tag affixed to it."
Wow. Forced? Really?
Could you please post the photo of Steve Jobs holding a gun to your head while you involuntarily shop the app store? I think it would help your article to illustrate the extent of the duress you are obviously under.
Luke Noel-Storr
· 1 year ago
I can't believe you are bitching about paying a poxy $1.99 for a game.
God damn these evil developers, trying to make an honest living. They should do everything for free, who cares if they can't afford food and clothes!!
na
· 1 year ago
one word baby , Piracy , it is bound to appear and retaliate against the money grubbers
sorepheet
· 1 year ago
Having a 1st Gen iPhone still running 1.1.4 I'm looking forward to 2.0 and the App Store. However I'll have to wait wherein my iPhone is jailbroken and unlocked to use both T-Mobile and the Installer/Cydia Applications. As soon as there is a software unlock to jailbreak and unlock 2.0 I'll be able to mess around with App Store. I've been downloading free applications for months. Granted they don't all get along and I've had to restore my phone a few times, but I find solace in knowing that most of the apps in the App Store are just crummy things that have been available on Installer for months. If you're upset about the cost, jailbreak your device and download apps for free. the fact that anyone would spend money for a hangman game or iBeer is silly. Set your devices free in order to truly maximize utility.
Aio
· 1 year ago
Seriously, what a whining rant, a worthless article. How about pulling off your ads, I hate being exposed to them while reading such a thoughtless article. Apps like beatmaker and others that have fairly serious development behind them are worth a price (how much, dont know) but this provides a great opportunity for developers and end users alike. Some stuff should be free but the good apps are worth a few bucks here and there. If you think something is too expensive, stop whining and simply dont buy it.
Michael Kaye
· 1 year ago
Wow I can't believe all the complaining. I guess you guys have never paid a shareware fee in your life. If you had even the most basic piece of shareware costs a couple of quid (couple of dollars to you US types). So paying 5 dollars for a game or even 20 is pretty good value in my opinion especially considering the time and efforts of the developers.
Put it this way - how much do you pay for a cup of coffee? How long does it take them to make it. How many time can you drink that particular cup of coffee. QED, App store applications are pretty good value!
Kenneth
· 1 year ago
You got a real good point over there but you know people out there are just being a bitch. They would rather pay $5 for a cup of coffee and not drink it than to pay $1 for an Application that they might use it daily. Why do you think piracy is popular?
tina
· 7 months ago
anyone with a windows mobile phone is alreadly paying ten dollars or more per game or app, so whats the big fuss over paying that for something on a iphone. i have a windows mobile phone and have paid up to $15 for a single app, get over it if you dont like the prices, DON'T GET THE PHONE!
ben111
· 2 months ago
I disagree because games for Nintendo DS and PSP are about 10x more than these prices. With the app store you don't have to go to a physical store, and with this you just download them and you can play. The DS game of Monopoly comes with monopoly, yahtzee, boggle, and battleship. This costs about $40. On iPhone/iPod Touch, it costs $13. You get a better deal with the App Store than you get with Nintendo, or Sony. And by the way, nobody is forcing you to buy hangman (and there are many free versions), and tetris is only $5, not 10. To buy the apps, you click buy with the price on the button, and it's not like you don't know what you're paying for, like it suggests here: "but can’t Apple institute some form of creative control to ensure developers aren’t trying to pull one over on you?" Although this article is over a year old, I think that it was not based on facts, like people are being forced to buy these reasonably priced apps.
All Comments
Flashlight apps for $5, I'll agree, yeah, that's a bit much. Games though, not so much, since there's quite a bit more to creating those than a few lines of javascript.
Seriously, put a call out to developers to get their side of the story-- we might look a little weird griping about this, if one guy has netted say, not even the cost of an iPhone in sales revenues, while we can take a day off from work and plop down enough money for one or two iPhones.
You're not. No-one's got a knife to your throat. If you don't like the look of the game, don't buy it.
If the customers refuse to pay these prices, developers will reduce the prices eventually.
Now what would be interesting is a FairPlay-enforced demo period, so you can effectively try before you buy. Also possibly a FairPlay-enforced subscription model, where you can buy access to an app for a specific repeating or non-repeating period.
I just dropped over to Handango and checked the prices there. $19.95 seemed like a common price. I suspect the smaller market and many phones it can run on increase the price here.
As the iPhone grows in popularity and there is a shake-out in the apps, you can expect to see the prices drop.
If you want lower priced apps, please review as many of them as possible on Mashable. The more people that see the better apps that are priced well, the more competition there will be to match the features and price point of that app.
Loving the iPhone so far though!
Given some time things will level out. Whether initiated by the developers or the consumers, time will tell.
Who is to say what the going rate for a hangman game should be? Ask a hangman fan maybe? I agree that a lot of what's being posted is poor quality. The bigger question would be, if this is what Apple has let into the store, what kind of apps are they rejecting?
This is ultimately a self correcting problem, because each application page has ratings and reviews and people won't pay ten bucks for an application that other users have clearly said sucks.
Plenty of people have, Don, plenty of people have.
It could just be that when you weren't being "forced" to "trudge through this time of gouging" or to "wade through the junk" you were otherwise too busy thinking up lousy metaphors to notice? (j/k)
And yes, the author noted that the marketplace will eventually put the prices where they need to be. And I happen to agree that if you want a particular app, you are probably "forced" to wade through a lot of bad apps to find what you're looking for. (Not as in gun held to head, but as in no other way to perform said task.)
It is very easy to stop these outrageous prices. Download a FREE copy of Xcode, write these applications yourself and you will get them all for FREE!
Best regards, Roustem
Co-author of 1Password
I laugh.
You know what? If you think you can do better, pick up a compiler and start coding. Until then I suggest you focus your attention on figuring out what the next big innovation I create will be so that you can proceed to earn your living off my back. Pfft.
There is no such thing as a fair price. There are now 7 million iPhone owners. Each of them is an individual that may value things differently than you do. You don't get to tell me how much an application is worth because you don't know how much it is worth to me.
There has never before been an application sold on the App store. For you to expect developers to hit some mythical "right" price that exists only in your head is not only unfair and arrogant - it's impossible. How about you be a little more gracious and allow developers a whole week for them to become perfect like you.
Get some perspective. Your big gripe is that the average cost of the top ten programs is $6.49. Dude, that's a big mac with fries and a coke. And the app doesn't give me high cholesterol or make me fat.
Get some more perspective. Have you compared App store prices with the prices of applications being sold on other platforms? I think you'll find that the App store is selling a bucket load of free and 99 cent programs that put some of the $20 programs on other platforms to shame.
Find a real problem to focus on. Fortunately we no longer let people like you decide for us what is valuable and what is fair. We have free markets. The pricing problem is self-correcting and is already being corrected. A web site called PinchMedia http://www.pinchmedia.com/fresh-pricing-data-7-... is carefully tracking the pricing of the iPhone and prices have dropped already.
Simple consumers. No businessmen or technologically educated people. It enables free market at the app store, with developers charging whatever they want (sometimes free),because Apple knows that it deals with the sort of people that have no idea what they should or shouldn't pay for.
If your audience is simple, no need to put much thought behind the pricing structure. Let the market balance itself.
The way I see it there are two problems with the App Store. First of all, the prices are too low. With these prices it will take way too many sales to recoup the development costs, and even more to turn a profit. These prices are probably not going to work out in the long run.
The other problem is that there are to many crappy apps. For example, the four flashlights, all those crappy apps with no purpuse like iBeer or other apps that clearly were done in like 10 minutes.
What the App Store needs is better quality control. Get rid of those useless apps. Also, get rid of those developers who add leading spaces to get listed earlier in the alphabetical listing. If you can't behave, you don't belong in the App Store with the real developers.
No one has a gun to our heads, but don't we still have the right to make some derogatory comments when someone is trying to sell us something that we can legally get for free? What would you Apple lovers say if a restaurant wanted to sell you water from the sink for $1? I mean, come on, it's only $1, right?? They might even serve it in a pretty sleek glass and offer it in multiple colors a few months later.
But where I can totally agree with Don, is this statement:
"Sure, but why hasn’t anyone even mentioned the fact that most of the paid applications aren’t all that great and more often than not, they’re incredibly overpriced?"
Seriously, where is the objectivity when it comes to Apple and the iphone???
I plan to leave this pretty iphone world behind and switch to the beautiful utility of a Nokia E71, waiting for the day that a non-Apple multitouch graces us with its presence.
When the App Store was announced, Apple was specifically asked about what will make it better than just jailbreaking the phone and getting apps for free. Apple (and all the fanboys) said the advantage was higher quality applications from established developers.
Well, the App Store came and what do we get...the same crap than on jailbreaked phones, but more expensive.
Wonderful.
Wow. Forced? Really?
Could you please post the photo of Steve Jobs holding a gun to your head while you involuntarily shop the app store? I think it would help your article to illustrate the extent of the duress you are obviously under.
God damn these evil developers, trying to make an honest living. They should do everything for free, who cares if they can't afford food and clothes!!
I've been downloading free applications for months. Granted they don't all get along and I've had to restore my phone a few times, but I find solace in knowing that most of the apps in the App Store are just crummy things that have been available on Installer for months.
If you're upset about the cost, jailbreak your device and download apps for free. the fact that anyone would spend money for a hangman game or iBeer is silly.
Set your devices free in order to truly maximize utility.
Put it this way - how much do you pay for a cup of coffee? How long does it take them to make it. How many time can you drink that particular cup of coffee. QED, App store applications are pretty good value!