Editorial: iPad app prices are out of control and will kill us all
By Paul Miller 
posted April 5th 2010 2:00PM
posted April 5th 2010 2:00PM
In the long run, it's perhaps difficult to expect $0.99 and $1.99 apps being the norm for the iPad. With less than a million devices on the market (compared to almost 70 million iPhones and iPod touches), there isn't the sort of scale yet that will make the iPad inherently a gold rush. Plus there's the real fact that the iPad requires a separate effort of development, with non-game apps requiring exponentially more UI elements and even games requiring new high-res versions of all graphics and iPad-specific controls. Even the iPhone's App Store was a little pricier in the beginning as first-to-market apps capitalized on the easy cash, so maybe we're just seeing a repeat.
But double the price? The typical offenders (like Real Racing HD) double the price of an iPhone app you might already own, but also require a separate purchase -- all for merely iPad-enhanced views. Even worse is something like Minigore HD, which is $4.99 (a new quasi-baseline for paid apps) for an "HD" version of a $0.99 / $1.99 game, and which, like most of the games we've seen, is merely a bump in resolution. Sure, you might get suckered in once or twice, but most of these don't have enhancements worthy of even a second purchase. Particularly at launch, we would've loved these heavy iPhone hitters to build "universal" (the little + icon on the purchasing button) versions of their software, adding value for people who have already bought in the form of a free iPad download, and adding incentive for folks who haven't. After all, what iPad owner doesn't have an iPhone? Developers might be feeling the pain of a second platform to develop for, but from a casual user's perspective they're going to spend maybe an hour or two a day with the iPad, but their whole day with their iPhone -- they don't ascribe value to mere quantity of pixels.
Our fear isn't just of a selfish "give us more apps for less money" sort, but we're also worried about what will happen to developers a couple months down the line -- these nerds need to stay happy so we can keep getting our regular fix, after all. The problem with charging too much for an application is that you can feel burned. Sure, you might blaze through your first half dozen iPad purchases, but once those iTunes Store receipts start piling up in the inbox, and then the credit card bill comes in the mail, we can see regret setting in. We're reminded of a little ditty by our boy Frank Herbert:
We think it went something like that. Anyway, it's hard to regret a $0.99 app. Even if you play with it for 15 minutes and then give up, you shrug your shoulders and say, "oh well, that was a nice bit of fun." But with a $9.99 or $14.99 app, you really expect greatness. If the app doesn't deliver (and trust us, most of the apps we've seen so far for the iPad aren't worth half the price), you feel burned. You resent the app, you resent the developer, you resent yourself, and you even resent the iPad itself. Maybe the iPhone purchasing process has made you numb to these sort of feelings, but we found them rushing back with the iPad, and we're pretty sure these prices could make even the least frugal of App Store big spenders cringe.I must not regret. Regret is the App Store killer. Regret is the little-death that brings snackable obliteration. I will face my regret. I will not permit my significant other to look at the credit card bill and glare at me. And when she has gone away to play Scrabble on her iPhone I will turn the inner eye to see its iPad. Where the regret has gone there will be no more "HD" versions of apps I already own. Only I will remain.
Not all of this is the fault of the developers: if Apple implemented a trial period it could really soften the blow (iPhone OS 4.0, perhaps?). The iPad could perfect the shareware model that almost has worked on the PC, and it wouldn't hurt to have trials on the iPhone either. We'd also like to see video and better resources in the app store itself for discerning the quality of an app. If $9.99 is the new norm, then we need some new tools to discern and evaluate. Some applications are really worth $9.99+, either for the brand (Scrabble comes to mind, as does Civilization Revolution), or for the sheer utility (Pages, or Brushes), but we hope and pray the market solves these prices down to something much more reasonable for the average not-a-life-changer app.
If anything, the App Store taught many people not only how to pay money for things, but also taught them how rewarding it could be. Developers could make millions with a well designed, useful, or entertaining app, and responded accordingly. It's one of Apple's most wild successes, in an era of stolen music and everything-on-the-web-is-free mentalities. We're not arguing against the power of paid, we just want it to continue in the best way possible: cheap.
@Jack
I see from the volume of your posts on this article that you are a true apple defender. I also see from your posts that you are fond of personal attacks, and are quite immature. I made a comment about a product, and you chose to make a comment about ME. I am an adult, so I'll just say that I'm done with this interaction. You can post a reply if you like, but you will not get another response from me.
Those who didn't see this coming please raise your hands.
Fully agree with article. If no one pays and just download free apps the price will go down.
I have downloaded and payed for many iphone appz even if i have mine jailbreaked. I think only "special" appz/games deserve that kind of money like say GTA game :)
Jailbreaking your wifi only iPad may actually be kind of safe...without fear of being banned by the carrier....
The sad part is "HD" games are just re-rendered at a higher resolution and do not gain in polygon count
@Jedi - you know that would seem to be the case, that an app like FB is useless when there is already a fully accessible site but that is not always the case. IMO the iPhone FB app is in most ways better than the regular website viewed on my PC.
Why are most developers coming out with separate iPad apps instead of building a universal app? Universal apps mean you pay once and you can use it on any device, and enhanced functionality is already built in for the newer devices. Having to install two different versions (even if it's a free app) is silly. Obviously it's to make more profit... How many are going to be willing to pay twice? I don't own an iPad (would love to get one eventually) but will never pay twice for the same app I already bought (I've bought plenty for my iPhone). We're supposed to be able to use the apps on all the devices we sync with our account... I'm a software developer and understand they need to make a living, but this is silly.
While I agree the model for buying apps untested is broken, people need to understand that if they want software to continue being developed, it's going to end up costing them more than a pack of gum.
Paying 99 cents for something that took a team of 3-5 people (or more) six months (or more) to make was never going to last. You were fooling yourself if you thought otherwise. After all, it takes highly skilled individuals to create these apps.
I would personally like to see mr. Paul Miller's compensation reduced to the level he's willing to pay for apps. After all, they're just words, and by all means this editorial/rant took no skill to write.
Guess what? Bill Gates wants you to pay for software too.
Or you're stealing it. (Jailbreak)
What...exactly are you suggesting Paul? This is world class software and you want to not pay for it?
windows phone apps are free.
@(Unverified)
...except for the ones that cost money.
iMoneyPit will suck you dry
I never though I'd say this but I think for once MS has seen it coming.
I mean compare this to Windows Phone 7.
Windows phone 7 is based on those "hubs" instead of dedicated apps for anything. Of course there will be tons of Apps to be bought from MS marketplace, but the core functions will be 100% 1st party.
What does this tell us ? Well it tells us next MS advertising campaign will be some flavour of :
"Either you spend $600 on an iPhone4/iPad and then $200 more to get the Apps you like OR you spend $600 on a WP7 smartphone/Courrier and $20 for additionnals apps and you get the same functions !"
I regret buying it. The prices some of these apps charge pisses me off. Especially the WSJ app, how the hell do they charge double the print subscription price. ESPN charging 5 bucks for their crappy score app, seriously a bigger shouldn't mean higher prices. The only "magical" thing about the iPad is it'll make your money disappear.
HP slate + Piratebay = :)
Hilarious considering that the vast majority of these are functionally identical to their respective websites. What a magical device.
Am I the only one who picked up on the Dune reference?
"I must not fear, fear is the mind killer"?
Granted, I'm kind of cheating given my username...
Don't worry about it. Market forces will pull the prices down to where they should be.
i won the 10k on the billionth app, so i don't worry about that :)
It needs a Windows emulator program so people can put Office on it... (and other programs)
It's not just the prices that are out of control, it's the price of the device itself. For that 800 dollars you could buy a top-of-the-line netbook with a faster processor, more memory, and an OS with a bunch of free programs and capabilities like flash and multitasking. Not to entirely downplay the iPad, but it's nowhere near worth its price.
"Microsoft Office, thou art hereby usurped of 'Elite Cash Cow' status!"
"iPad, henceforth shalt thou be called aPOS (apple Point Of Sale)!''
"Paul Miller, wouldst thou consider being dubbed iPaul?"
When the 16 year olds lose their moms credit cards, that`s when Apple will stop gaining market share!
headline win.
These applications are simply ridiculously overpriced, that's all there is to it.
The whole concept of the App Store is that you'll have a large, captive audience. As of last year, there was an estimated 6.4 MILLION active iPhones in the US alone.
Now, let's say you make a very basic application, perhaps so basic it is like those iBeer, iFart, iSmoke, whatever the hell apps. You charge a menial $0.99 for it. All it took to code was adjust an image via accelerometer and add sounds at various thresholds. I think I could find that off CodeProject and put it together in a night.
Let's say only 0.5% of the iPhone users care to buy my application at $0.99. That's 32,000 users from the population, which at 70% cut is $22,400 total for me. That's off one stupid application that 0.5% of the iPhone population that downloaded the application, laughed a few times as they tilted their phone back and forth, and then never touched the application again. Don't forget iPod Touch users as well, those aren't even being counted here.
If you think that somehow 0.5% is a high percentage, you can half that, or even quarter it, it's still a large amount of money for doing a few hours work.
That's the beauty of the App Store. But now it's just getting abused to the point of absurdity. While it is true, there currently less iPads in the wild than iPhones, there were still over 300,000 sold in the opening weekend. I'll take NOVA for example since it was mentioned as being a good looking game, albeit simply a scaled up iPhone port. That's $9.99, and assuming 10% of the people bought it, that's $210,000. For a simple scaled up port?
Give me a break, do the math, it's not hard to see it's an obvious price gouging mania that developers are doing while they can. I'd say vote with your dollar, don't give in.
Wait, I get it. This article is meant to be ironic, right? Making fun of all the people who honestly complain about paying ten bucks for useful, well-crafted applications?
Because if it isn't meant to be ironic, let me just point out that most iPhone app developers don't make any money. At the prices iPhone apps sell, you have to be one of the top-selling apps to make any living at all. This means that there is little room for high-end apps. More expensive apps simply don't sell on the iPhone app store, so nobody makes them. That's not good for iPhone owners.
Personally, I want the iPad to have sophisticated apps like OmniGraffle on it. I don't want the iPad store to be like the iPhone store: Tens of thousands of stupid fart apps that cost 99 cents each. So I'm happy to pay twice as much for an iPad app, because honestly, in the big scheme of things, it's still on the low-end side of application prices. And if it helps developers make enough money to invest time into creating better apps, we all win.
I am a daily Engadget reader and, for the first time ever, am frankly disgusted by one of its writers' Editorials.
This magazine thrives on writing news and reviews on the latest in hardware and software innovations, and yet it encourages independent development to disappear.
How dare Engadget call a $10 app "too expensive"? A game like Mirror's Edge on iPad costs at least $200,000 to make - but only a company like EA can afford marketing and publicising it to publications such as Engadget and the mainstream printed press.
Independent developers have to put the same amount of resources into making a competitive product. The risks are huge.
What Engadget calls a "mere bump in resolution" is far more than that. In some cases, artists need to redo a game's or application's art FROM GROUND UP, meaning the same exact amount - if not more - in creating the necessary assets. That is thus TWICE the work in art assets, and thus deserves to charge double... especially given that some great games have been UNDERVALUED on the iPhone, due to nonsensical expectations of apps having to be "free."
Besides, the fact that Engadget is buying into such nonsense Apple marketing terminology as a "gold rush", when the prospect of a financial success on iPhone has been a lottery until now, is alarming.
Engadget is lucky to have been bought by AOL... otherwise they surely would have crumbled under their warped sense of economics.
I suspect we'll see a trial period the first year or so where developers will try and ballance price and sales numbers. Early iPad adopters are probably more forgiving to pay premium. As the install base grows though and the iPad app market matures I suspect both competition and the understanding for what "full apps" and "small apps" are - the prices will be clearer over time.
The thing that's genius about Apple is that they get the $499 price tag stuck in everyone's head. The reality is, by the time we get the storage upgrade, 3G, adapters, apps, case, etc... It'll be no time before we've somehow doubled their money.
I truly don't understand the point of the iPad. It seems like an undersized laptop computer. Why not save some money and splurge on the computer instead?
Hey all you 20 and 30 somethings....is this just another way to further continue to pursue what you believe is your personal life on the company's nickel? I'm 50+, and I'm sick and tired of these turds spending 1/2 of their time at "work" on their personal phone calls, daytrading, talking to their mother, sister, brother, etc or 4 hours on the phone to Gateway, because they're so stupid they also blew up their home computer, in addition to disabling our "shared "printer.
I guess the work ethic is pretty much gone from "that" generation. There's a few who understand, but everyone else seems to be trying to beat the system.......or is this the new system?
Wow, a negative news title really does draw the right crowd. Why would you wise, intelligence mob bother to read an article that doesn't concern your particular credit card bills? Is it because you own an iPad and really care about paying too much apps? Is it because your care of innocent, "lemming-like" iPad users? The death of free/cheap apps on your favorite platform, perhaps?
Or could it be at all possible that you have no life?
qb