App Cubby Tweaks AppStore Pricing Model
1:18 pm, January 22nd, 2009, Lonnie Lazar
iPhone application developer AppCubby has slashed prices on all its apps to 99¢ to combat what App Cubby founder David Barnard describes as, “the challenges of selling in the App Store.” Apps formerly priced up to $10 will now sell at a flat dollar fee, with satisfied users invited to make “donations” to the developer to fund future app development.
“The App Store [has] continued to frustrate me and foil my best efforts. So I’ve decided to try a little experiment,” Barnard says, echoing concerns he’s expressed before over the financial ecology of Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch application marketplace.
Barnard’s frustration, that “artificial market forces are driving down the price of apps, which in turn drives down the perceived value of the products we have invested significant time and money to create,” has also been widely expressed by developer Craig Hockenberry, who published a wish list of changes he’d like to see made to the AppStore back in December.
AppCubby’s “experiment” will be interesting to follow insofar as it appears to push beyond Apple’s AppStore pricing guidelines, which prohibit “sales” of software outside the approved channel. If App Cubby can gain greater exposure for its products by pricing them at a buck and fund additional development operations through donations made outside the AppStore, it could look like a better deal for everyone – including Apple – than trying (and failing) to move the same apps for $5 – $10.
Via iLounge
Posted by Lonnie Lazar in News | Comment on this article
I’d be curious to hear what these “artificial market forces” are. It sounds strangely like the same “artificial market forces” the music industry complained about when the iTunes Music Store started selling music for $0.99.
I think what Barnard and Hockenberry really mean to say is that there’s a flood of free, low-priced, and competing apps on the app store, and they’re concerned that no one will take the risk on a paid app, especially if it’s more expensive than the median, when there are likely free apps that duplicate some of all of the paid apps’ functionality.
In the end, they’re forced to lower their prices to market demand, as opposed to desired revenue or profit, or even cost. That, my friends, is called supply and demand, not “artificial market forces,” although it’s unfortunate that some App store developers aren’t seeing the income they’d like from App Store customers.
phoenix, on January 22nd, 2009 at 6:02 pm
I got excited, cheep apps. Then I looked at what they sold, and, well… I don’t really think they’re worth the dollar. Yea, there is some work on them, and they have a graph, but really, I can do most of what their apps do with free/included software. No graphs on the phone, but I don’t really need graphs. I’m not a manager.
Ryan, on January 22nd, 2009 at 9:48 pm
Translation: “waaah we don’t understand basic economics and the way the appstore works. Other people make cheaper stuff than us and people go to them instead of our expensive stuff that doesn’t offer anything special. waaaahhh”
As they say in the common internet vernacular: cry more noob
MrCrispy, on January 23rd, 2009 at 6:28 am
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