Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
First Wave of Mac App Store Apps Features Broad Range of Prices
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I'm not saying that these apps have to be $.99-$4.99, I understand developing/coding is time consuming and developers need to make a living. My point was (and I'm going to use Osmos as an example), if I paid $2.99 for the iPhone app and $4.99 for the iPad app, I don't see the incentive to paying $9.99 for the same iOS app ported over to the Mac, when the Mac version offers no additional functionality or levels, the same goes for Enigmo ($14.99).
I'm not saying every app is the same way, and I'm sure its not going to stay this way for long (this is just like when Apple opened the iOS App Store in 2008). Right now developers are trying to profit from early adopters.
How much is Angry Birds with apt-get ?
Dunno but Apache and MySQL games are both 100% free.
Makes perfect sense.
So if Apple priced their computers like PCs, Apple would make more money.
Brilliant.
Someone call Steve and let him know....
It does depend on the application. If it is a large application, such as Office ( not that its going to appear in the Mac App Store, but i'll use it anyway as an example) , I'd expect to pay more than some iOS to OSX conversion.
Applications, depending on the development time vs sales, application can only be priced at such a low price before it becomes unviable for the developer. I.e., so you couldn't expect RapidWeaver to be selling at $10 as an example and keep the same level of functionality. I doubt the demand would be there to maintain a business.. however, at a higher price point, it would be possible as present.
Actually, it works the other way.
I dropped the prices of some of my iOS apps, and sales didn't go up that much. The actual numbers were more like:
10 people bought my $20 app = $200
And unit sales did go up when I dropped the price:
20 people bought my $5 app = $100
but not enough, so I made a lot less money during my app's sale price.
Needless to say, I raised my prices back up so I could make more money per month.
This is too true.
2 years ago I sold a game for £2.99 and it did quite well.
A year later I had a pay-what-you-want sale with a minimum amount of £1. 98% paid £1, but I made 6 times more in that 2-week sale than I did for the whole year at full price.
The most recent story I heard of this working was Recetter [sp] on Steam. The devs made 100k sales during a sale period. Also the activity on Steam shoots up and their legendary sales are, well they're legendary.
But yea this Mac App store doesn't really interest me. I like to stick to Steam for games and I prefer my expensive software in physical form. I'm sure it'll be a hit though.
Last edited:
Hi! I'm the author of the TUAW piece this article references. I couldn't agree more; there are really two questions here -- what it's like at launch day, and what it'll be like when it's settled into a steady state. I am looking forward to repeating this analysis down the road. The launch day data is interesting in itself though; someone I saw on Twitter described it as a "roomful of devs playing blindfolded app pricing chicken".
Thanks for your kind words!
Is it me or are there 0 interesting apps? I can't even find one I want to install just to test the damn thing out.
I think it is realistic. How many of those lower cost app purchases are impulse buys? I was ready to impulse buy Bejeweled3 until I saw the $19 price on it. The price made me say no to their app. I think that something these app developers should consider when pricing their apps is whether or not they are selling the type of app someone would impulse buy. I wouldn't suggest lowering the price to the $5 or less for full blown titles such as the Lego series games, but parlor type games such as Bejeweled, they need to be priced lower.
The reason they can do this and make money is because there are massive amounts of people in the showroom right now looking for something to buy. It's not the PopCap store on the PopCap website anymore. It's the Apple App store and all types of people and all sorts of new traffic are looking at their game. I think the $20 + price tag is going to only grab the enthusiasts and drive away a lot of potential sales. I like the game and am a gamer, but for $20, I choose to check out 4-5 other titles, and stick with Bejweled2 on the iPhone which is priced reasonably.
I think that the ports from iOS apps are a little overpriced, but the the higher priced programs and games is a good thing. This race to the bottom with the iPhone and iPad app store has scared away most large game developers. Maybe if the Mac App store can keep the prices acceptable then we can see some more interest and support from larger developers.
Interesting. That might explain why it launched with just 1k titles. I would have thought it would have ten times that many.
I do think a higher Mac price SHOULD have more features....
(Disclosure: I'm the developer of "SkyWriting" for the iPad: www.skywritingapp.com) I don't mind Apple's 30% when you consider it just wasn't feasible before. I do charge $1.99 for the Mac version of SkyWriting over the $0.99 iPad and iPhone version, but I've added a LOT of functionality to the Mac version that I just couldn't do on the smaller processors. I would hope other developers did the same and didn't just port the same thing they had. I can see charging the iPad price if it's the iPad version, but not more unless they've added something! (After all, it's lost multitouch and acceleromter just going from the devices to the Mac, so your customers HAVE lost something if it's just a port.)
Here's the link if you're curious:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/skywriting/id412724669?mt=12&ls=1
(Disclosure: I'm the developer of "SkyWriting" for the iPad: www.skywritingapp.com) I don't mind Apple's 30% when you consider it just wasn't feasible before. I do charge $1.99 for the Mac version of SkyWriting over the $0.99 iPad and iPhone version, but I've added a LOT of functionality to the Mac version that I just couldn't do on the smaller processors. I would hope other developers did the same and didn't just port the same thing they had. I can see charging the iPad price if it's the iPad version, but not more unless they've added something! (After all, it's lost multitouch and acceleromter just going from the devices to the Mac, so your customers HAVE lost something if it's just a port.)
Here's the link if you're curious:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/skywriting/id412724669?mt=12&ls=1
That is not fair. He was just making a point that if they made software more affordable than more people would buy it. Which is probably true. It is just finding the right balance so both the consumer and developer feel they are getting a fair trade.
Didn't know there were so many economists on this board.
"...then huge numbers of apps in the $10-50 brackets. Again, informally surveying the store, these appear to be mostly traditional Mac software packages that have been ported over to the store and broadly maintained their price points."
Seems very surprising that many developers are offering their traditional software on the App Store at the same price point. They instantly lose 30% vs. selling it through their own website. I have no idea how much they need to pay to sell it in traditional stores or online places like Amazon (is there any charge)?
I guess if developers really feel that their reach will grow exponentially it could offset the 30% cost but that needs to be a lot of additional sales. I'd have to guess that the App Store will generally be made up of cheaper apps comparable to what we see on the iOS store and Apple developed software.
Seems very surprising that many developers are offering their traditional software on the App Store at the same price point. They instantly lose 30% vs. selling it through their own website. I have no idea how much they need to pay to sell it in traditional stores or online places like Amazon (is there any charge)?
I guess if developers really feel that their reach will grow exponentially it could offset the 30% cost but that needs to be a lot of additional sales. I'd have to guess that the App Store will generally be made up of cheaper apps comparable to what we see on the iOS store and Apple developed software.
Hey!
Just installed Mac App Store and spent about an hour searching trough countless of apps desperately to find even ONE, just one app to install on my Mac, even for a quick test.
But I didn´t find anything interesting and didn´t want to install anything on my Mac.
Is there something wrong with me?
By the way, I have about 100 apps installed on my iPhone and love them all.
Weird!
Just installed Mac App Store and spent about an hour searching trough countless of apps desperately to find even ONE, just one app to install on my Mac, even for a quick test.
But I didn´t find anything interesting and didn´t want to install anything on my Mac.
Is there something wrong with me?
By the way, I have about 100 apps installed on my iPhone and love them all.
Weird!
When will I be able to keep track of sales with Appshopper?
I agree...
I am actually glad to see the prices steady and not rock bottom. I don't want to see a bunch of crap for rock bottom prices and then real app developers don't want to get into the store.
I can't wait to see some of the deals when I get home!!!
There are more iPhone users than Mac users. There's a limit to how popular your app can get.
I'm glad to see pricing stay appropriate - especially for productivity apps. If an app saves you even a few hours work in even one month then it should be at least tens of dollars, not 99 cents.
If a game provides many hours of entertainment, then why shouldn't it cost more than 99 cents?
I just installed Angry Birds and Osmos on a Mac with a 30 inch monitor and B+W Speakers, it's pretty incredible, except that I have to try and work too..