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As noted by our sister site TouchArcade, Apple yesterday issued a Tweet announcing that Cut the Rope: Experiments is the company's "Free App of the Week", discounted from its usual $0.99 price [App Store] for the iPhone version and $1.99 price [App Store] for the iPad version.

cut_the_rope_experiments_freeappoftheweek.jpg



While Apple has previously offered some apps for free through its App Store Facebook page, the new promotion directly through the App Store will make such offers more visible to users.
As the official App Store Twitter account posted earlier today, Cut the Rope: Experiments is their "Free App of the Week", which as far as we can tell is the first of its kind.

Now, don't get me wrong, Cut the Rope: Experiments is an excellent game and you should go download it immediately if you haven't already, no matter what the promotion is. But it will be interesting to see if this is something that Apple keeps doing each week, and I'd be curious to know how they decide on which games or apps to promote.
TouchArcade also notes several other tweaks to the App Store, including new "Editors' Choice" picks and the removal of the "Staff Favorites" section. In the U.S. App Store for iOS, Apple is currently featuring Facebook Camera [App Store] and Extreme Skater [App Store] as Editors' Choice picks on the iPhone side, with SketchBook Ink [App Store] and Air Mail [App Store] being highlighted on the iPad section of the store.

ios_app_store_editors_choice.jpg



As noticed by The Verge, the Editors' Choice terminology has also been picked up in the Mac App Store, with Cobook [Mac App Store] being the initial recipient of the designation. Deus Ex: Human Revolution [Mac App Store] has also been made an Editors' Choice pick, but there appears to be no Free App of the Week in the Mac App Store to correspond with the feature on the iOS side, although Cobook is a free app.

Article Link: Apple Launches 'Free App of the Week' and 'Editors' Choice' Promotions on App Store
 

monkor

macrumors regular
May 25, 2012
169
1
Google Play store has had this and Editor's Pick's for a long time now...
 

omgitswes

Guest
Apr 23, 2012
79
0
Cool, amazon's app store has the same thing, except it was app of the day. When it first started they had some really good apps, but now not so much.
 

jlnr

macrumors regular
Sep 27, 2010
188
79
Google Play store has had this and Editor's Pick's for a long time now...

The Play store does not even exist for a "long time" under its current name. :p The App Store had Staff Favorites for a while, it's just that they may have been renamed to Editors' Choice now.

Cool, amazon's app store has the same thing, except it was app of the day. When it first started they had some really good apps, but now not so much.

And there was quite some hubbub about amazon's conditions for the deal. I can't wait until we get to hear how Apple handles this on the App Store.
 

macmastersam

macrumors 6502a
Sep 14, 2011
515
0
Essex, england
nice. especially for those who don't want to dish out money on an app,but still want a good one that is free. forget Google doing this first, all i care is that the app store have finally implemented this!
 

Moonjumper

macrumors 68030
Jun 20, 2009
2,740
2,908
Lincoln, UK
I hope that Apple pick apps out of obscurity in the future. Cut the Rope is already a popular franchise, concentrating on successful apps serves to push downloads onto fewer and fewer titles. There is a lot of good content out there that would benefit from some promotion because it has got lost in the noise.
 

commander.data

macrumors 65816
Nov 10, 2006
1,056
183
I wonder if Apple is paying the developers to make the app free or simply co-ordinating/highlighting an app that would have dropped to free anyways?
 

ArtOfWarfare

macrumors G3
Nov 26, 2007
9,541
6,026
Everyone's heard "To make money you have to have money."

I feel like it can also be said "To get popular you have to be popular." could also be said...

Apple's just joining in with the media crowd now, promoting the things you already know about.
 

locust76

macrumors 6502a
Jan 23, 2009
688
90
I wonder if Apple pays the developer per download, even though they're offering the app for free.

Or does Apple have a quick telco with the developer to see if they're ok with not earning money on App X for a week?
 

Snowy_River

macrumors 68030
Jul 17, 2002
2,520
0
Corvallis, OR
Everyone's heard "To make money you have to have money."

I feel like it can also be said "To get popular you have to be popular." could also be said...

Apple's just joining in with the media crowd now, promoting the things you already know about.

To be fair, a good way to get people's attention with something like this is to start off by offering something that people have heard of and are more likely to want to immediately download. Later, as they'll have already captured people's interest, they can offer lesser known titles.

I wonder if Apple pays the developer per download, even though they're offering the app for free.

Or does Apple have a quick telco with the developer to see if they're ok with not earning money on App X for a week?

I would hope so. Otherwise, the timing of this just after the start of the BecauseWeMay sale would be extremely ironic...
 

Labeno

macrumors 6502
Jul 21, 2008
351
1,089
nice. especially for those who don't want to dish out money on an app,but still want a good one that is free. forget Google doing this first, all i care is that the app store have finally implemented this!

It's amazing how full the world is with people who will sit at a bar drinking $5 beer after $5 beer tipping a few bucks each time to a cute waitress, and will bitterly complain how they can't believe a fantastic app costs 99 cents, and no way in hell will they get it unless it becomes free. It's an ironic world we live in. I believe in paying 99 cents for hard work or else it turns into an Android app (no quality and full of bugs).
 

GQB

macrumors 65816
Sep 26, 2007
1,196
109
I wonder if Apple (unlike Amazon) is making up the difference to the developer?
 

Mr. Gates

macrumors 68020
Playing games on an iPhone kinda sucks. The screen is too small and most of the games get boring quick. Once the gimmick or novelty of the game wears off its pointless.

I hope to see some useful Apps featured like DocScanner or some of the iWork Apps.

But that's just me I guess.

I have a bunch of other platforms to play games that I actually enjoy.
 

BC2009

macrumors 68020
Jul 1, 2009
2,235
1,370
I wonder if the developer still gets paid their cut for every download or if they agree to make their app free for week. It seems to me a week-long offering could really hurt their long-term sales.
 

sh0knah

macrumors newbie
May 25, 2012
1
0
Where does it say "Free App of the Week?"

I don't see any where that says "Free App of the Week." I see "App of the Week." And it has a "free" banner on it and Zepto says it's free for a limited time.

But (as much as I love free apps), I'm not pinning my hopes on that coincidence being a new "free app" program from Apple.
 

Eduardo R.

macrumors member
Dec 1, 2011
30
0

whooleytoo

macrumors 604
Aug 2, 2002
6,607
716
Cork, Ireland.
I wonder if Apple is paying the developers to make the app free or simply co-ordinating/highlighting an app that would have dropped to free anyways?

I'd like to know too. Someone mentioned on the "Because we may" thread that some app stores have T&C's that stipulate they can offer an app for free for a period of time with no compensation for the developer.

I don't know if that's true (of any app store), but it must be a very mixed bag if true. Yes, you get LOTS of new exposure. Unfortunately, most of those users who notice your app then get it for free.
 

MacAddict1978

macrumors 68000
Jun 21, 2006
1,642
875
Google Play store has had this and Editor's Pick's for a long time now...

Um, Google Play hasn't even been around for a long time.

They also did a crap load of give aways and fire sales to promote the launch, but iTunes has done this kind of thing forever with promos, picks, sales, freebies, movie rentals, etc.

This is also not the first time Apple did a free App Of The Week. This is just the first time it was a dedicated link in iTunes. Starbucks had app cards you could pick up every week and redeem for the app of the week like they did with the song of the week.

I just hope the free apps are better than most of the free songs.

----------

Playing games on an iPhone kinda sucks. The screen is too small and most of the games get boring quick. Once the gimmick or novelty of the game wears off its pointless.

I hope to see some useful Apps featured like DocScanner or some of the iWork Apps.

But that's just me I guess.

I have a bunch of other platforms to play games that I actually enjoy.

I'm kind of with you on ios games. The novelty wears off for me really fast, and the screen is too cramped most of the time. There are great games that aren't novelty/gimmicky games, but the controls on the screen size make them less than enjoyable most of the time.

Really hoping for that 4" screen on the new iPhone. Just that bit of space would make a huge difference. Would be really cool if they could have a multitouch area in the bezel... but I think that rumor sailed

----------

The Play store does not even exist for a "long time" under its current name. :p The App Store had Staff Favorites for a while, it's just that they may have been renamed to Editors' Choice now.



And there was quite some hubbub about amazon's conditions for the deal. I can't wait until we get to hear how Apple handles this on the App Store.

Amazon deal directly with the developer, not really what I'd call hubbub. There are advantages to giving an app away for 1 day. It propels it to the top of the charts (and the paid charts since it's not technically free, but discounted) and then if it's good, it gets good reviews and exposure, which turns into purchases after that free day.

When Google PLay launched, Google took a loss on most of those deals, but chalk that up to advertising expenses for all intent and purpose.

Google has a challenge Apple doesn't have... which is that you don't need Google Play/Android market for content on that platform. You can get apps, videos, books, music, etc. from anywhere and everywhere and circumvent Google all together. And people generally do, and piracy is rampant on the android platform which is a big reason why it gets less developer support despite having more devices in the wild than Apple. Google really needs to push their echo system.

This is also the #1 reason I don't think we'll ever see an SD card slot on an IOS device. Someone would eventually find a way to side load like you can on android, and circumvent iTunes purchases.
 
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