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The App Store Effect: Are iPhone Apps Headed for Oblivion?
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Slinkytech
11/27/09

In reply to This Week's Best iPhone Apps
Oscar, the iphone grouch.
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secretmanofagent
11/24/09

In reply to CoPilot Live GPS App Is $20 During Thanksgiving Special
Any substantial updates to it since it was last reviewed?
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Homerjay is utterly alone. promoted this comment secretmanofagent was starred secretmanofagent was unstarred

Homerjay is utterly alone.
11/24/09

@secretmanofagent: This is by far the best bang for your buck.
The Sept upgrade fixed everything that was wrong with the original release of this. I was PISSED when I bought it in August. Demanded a refund from anyone that would listen (and still didn't get it). After the upgrade it works beautifully.
No major issues at all and I sent them just a few things they can tweak to make it a more pleasant GPS.
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Wilson Rothman
11/24/09

@Homerjay is utterly alone.: What he said. :)
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fleebailey33
10/16/09

In reply to The App Store Effect: Are iPhone Apps Headed for Oblivion?
you are making the iphone usable and available for people who lots of times don't even use a computer, There will always be a market for quality apps.

Wayyy to many people expect to make some quick money in the app store, I hope those people leave.

How are the sales on the 100 dollar tom tom and navigon apps? i would like to know that.

I think the best solution is advertising in free apps, for developers. i think one of the fart apps reported a while ago making 4000 a day in ad revenue. #theappstoreeffect
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iElvis
10/16/09

In reply to The App Store Effect: Are iPhone Apps Headed for Oblivion?
Nonsense.

The App Store is going nowhere. When you have 50 million potential customers and 2 billion downloads in less than two years, you have a huge market.

Demand + possibility of supply = market

Things will sort themselves out eventually, and developers will find a way to service the market profitably.
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fleebailey33 promoted this comment Edited by iElvis at 10/16/09 2:12 PM iElvis was starred iElvis was unstarred

fleebailey33
10/16/09

@iElvis: I agree,
Whenever something gets popular the increase in people bitching goes up too. Like now we are worried if the h1n1 vaccines are safe, etc #theappstoreeffect
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Con Seannery
10/18/09

@iElvis: True. This is because it's a new market (2 years isn't long for a sales system like this to have existed) that's in a state of tremendous change, not quite stabilized yet. Once it settles down, prices will normalize, advertising will pimp the pricier apps, the free guys will duke it out, and the big boys will hold their own...it'll settle down. Now, what's gonna get interesting is when Android gets to be a big dog in the mobile OS market on the same scale as the iPhone. Then you'll have cross-platform price wars between devs trying to elbow into the other OS's market. #theappstoreeffect
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jimmyg
10/16/09

In reply to The App Store Effect: Are iPhone Apps Headed for Oblivion?
At some point users have to get back into the mindset that if they want quality content, whether it's iPhone apps, eBooks, newspapers, movies, music or websites, they will have to pay an amount that's sufficient to create the product, including paying creators' salaries and owners' profits. Otherwise all we'll have is citizen-journalist inaccurate newsfeeds, garage-band music, YouTube movies and iFart software. Quality costs money. Try finding quality work on sites like Suite101 or Examiner.com that pay a writer $5 or $10 for a feature-length article. #theappstoreeffect
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€hЯ!§
10/16/09

In reply to The App Store Effect: Are iPhone Apps Headed for Oblivion?
I don't mind spending good money on a good app. I just don't like to spend a lot of money on an app when I don't get a chance to try it first. But for $1 or $2, I'll give any app that seems interesting a shot. #theappstoreeffect
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MWUK
10/16/09

In reply to The App Store Effect: Are iPhone Apps Headed for Oblivion?
Also pricing needs to lose the catergoric system...
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Edited by MWUK at 10/16/09 12:49 PM Wilson Rothman approved this comment MWUK was starred MWUK was unstarred

Lite: hates Illinois Nazis
10/16/09

In reply to The App Store Effect: Are iPhone Apps Headed for Oblivion?
I think you're missing a lot of points in this guys.

A) No packaging
B) Decently effective anti-theft feature of apps being tied to the phone's account
C) Most of the dev work has already been done for existing apps, and is a matter of porting the code.
D) Software producers do not have to pay for bandwidth/infrastructure to distribute app. This comes in the 30% apple take.

So basically, captive audience, lower infrastructure costs, less piracy, and a lot of old apps making a comeback.

What's so odd about this? #theappstoreeffect
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reifer
10/16/09

In reply to The App Store Effect: Are iPhone Apps Headed for Oblivion?
"Myself and others like me will have no choice but to focus our development efforts elsewhere."

And, where would that be??

I still believe that the app store has opened up a huge previously untapped market.
I admit that I'm a "geazer" but for the first time in my life I actually have apps on my phone. I've got nearly 100 apps, use 50+ regularly and over half of them cost something. Good luck getting my business anywhere else. #theappstoreeffect
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WeaselWeaz000
10/16/09

In reply to The App Store Effect: Are iPhone Apps Headed for Oblivion?
Interesting, but ignores that Wal-Mart still exists. They follow a similar business plan: get low-priced products that can sell to many people, with quailty as a secondary. The products are not designed to last forever either, you know that a $5 frying pan is going to be lower quality and last shorter than a $30 pan from Macy's and far less than a professional level product.

The argument about pricing out developers has a simple solution: charge for upgrades and extra features. If you have a $3 app and you add an upgrade with better features it should cost up to $2. Developers of quality products also need to charge more and market their products better. It isn't brain science or rocket surgery.
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Zoolook
10/16/09

In reply to The App Store Effect: Are iPhone Apps Headed for Oblivion?
I think something to remember here is that this is all still very new. The market will sort things out, and eventually there will be established players in the App store, some familiar now, some new, and prices will be at a level that is sustainable.

What is good about Apple's model, is that the developer (not the publisher) is rewarded for success. This was the idea behind steam, and gamers are fairly loyal and happy to reward quality.

Back in the old days of computer games, there was a sudden glut of 1.99 games that came out (Code Masters started it in the UK I think) and this didn;t save 8-bit gaming. Ultimately consoles came out, sold games for $70 or $80 (Donkey Kong Country on the SNES...) and even in the high days of the Playstation, games still cost $50.

I think the iPhone ecosystem will probably be successful, with winners and losers along the way - but I believe people are always happy to pay for quality. #theappstoreeffect
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Con Seannery
10/18/09

@Zoolook: Or will the glut of crap give us an App Crash that will almost doom the mobile app industry until the NintendoPhone comes out?

But in all seriousness, I think you'll get a lot of devs who dove in not ready for it getting kicked back out by the market, reputation pushing some expensive apps along, and the cheap guys jockeying to make the top seller lists. I mean, with Android, people know to look for certain apps like Locale, ChompSMS, Shazam, etc. I can't imagine it's any different with the iPhone. #theappstoreeffect
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stokessd
10/16/09

In reply to The App Store Effect: Are iPhone Apps Headed for Oblivion?
My app is free, it doesn't get any cheaper than that. I'm in the center of the black hole... #theappstoreeffect
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Yinzers Are People Too
10/16/09

In reply to The App Store Effect: Are iPhone Apps Headed for Oblivion?
I have to say that this is by far the best article I've read on Gizmodo since I started frequenting the site (about a year ago, I think). Thanks, John! #theappstoreeffect
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Stromson
10/16/09

In reply to The App Store Effect: Are iPhone Apps Headed for Oblivion?
*sigh* The truth hurts. Great article, John. #theappstoreeffect
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cabjf
10/16/09

In reply to The App Store Effect: Are iPhone Apps Headed for Oblivion?
But I remember hearing that iPhone users are more likely to purchase apps than other smartphone users. Combine the number of iPhones and iPod Touches and you have to come up with a huge install base. Now even if you spend more on making a more polished app, by lowering the price you can attract a higher volume of sales. And for the digital distribution each sale costs the developer nothing. It's not like making a physical product that costs money per item made. Of course, you pretty much have to put apps in for lower in the App Store since there is so much competition, but it's not like it's impossible to make money there.

Most of this argument does apply to the the price war over books between Amazon and Walmart. There really are no winners there. #theappstoreeffect
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