Comments on: BlackBerry paid apps to start at $2.99, require PayPal

By: Sumocat

Sumocat — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:40:44 +0000

I agree that Apple has a strong edge here, but I wouldn’t chalk it up to technical savvy. The core of Apple’s advantage is that they added their App Store to the iTunes Store, so they were already set to handle credit card transactions, and in large volumes of small amounts.

Apple makes thousands of 99 cent sales every day. Adding a few more to that is no problem. The other guys, however, are starting from zero. That means low volumes of small amounts, which likely means losing money. Google can afford it for now, but I guess RIM can’t. Will be interesting to see what Palm does. But again, it’s a matter of Apple having a running start vs. having a technical advantage.

By: Scotty

Scotty — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 15:55:57 +0000

One of the technical break throughs in iTunes is Apple’s system to handle credit card billing. Apple exploits the volume of sales to keep their credit card per transaction totals up. Customers typically cluster their buys and Apple has figured out how to sweep all those $0.99 sales together into larger transactions that keep their merchant account overhead down.

As can be clearly seen here: it gives Apple a competitive advantage over smaller less technically savvy competitors.

Say what you want about Apple but I really don’t want to pay $40 to print from my Storm. And for a business oriented phone: why no built in stock tracker??? How much is that going to cost on the new store? At least $2.99 apparently. :-(

By: Ellen

Ellen — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 15:42:04 +0000

Color me confused. The FAQs say all apps will be paid for through PayPal. The RIM distribution agreement makes it sound like developers will collect the money and pay RIM. But then developers have to sign a Digital River agreement. I can’t make the pieces fit.