Will the iPhone App Store cost you more than your iPhone?
I still think the iPhone App Store is more monumental than adding 3G and GPS to the handset itself. And actually that worries me. I just woke up and I’m seeing my FriendFeed sidebar buzzing non-stop about apps that are now available. Some examples:
- John F Morton: “Excited to get the next version of OmniFocus. It syncs! Already bought the iPhone app. Can’t use it yet though."
- Steve Rubel: “Really excited to have an eBook reader on my iPhone. That is a big deal.” (Note: he’s speaking of eReader, and I’m totally psyched that my five-year old library can be used!)
- Grant: "25 apps already for me!"
- Steve Rubel again: "There’s a Pandora app!" I just checked and suprisingly it’s the free Pandora Radio, my fave for online audio streaming.
I’m zipping around iTunes right now and there has to be several hundred applications right ouf of the gate. Many of which I could see myself nabbing. If I had to guess, I’d say the average price is around $8… many apps are free, but I saw a few productivity apps at $29.99. Let’s pick my $8 as the average. 25 average priced apps gets me to $200, which is what my iPhone upgrade purchase price would be. That’s really no different than any Windows Mobile device I’ve owned… I’ve probably added at least that many apps to my handsets in the past. One big difference? Microsoft didn’t get a 20% 30% cut of the developer revenue; Apple will.
After you upgrade to iTunes 7.7, have a look around the app store and drop a note on what you see, what you like, and what you’re going to buy. One thing I’m not seeing (or I’m just missing it): free trials of apps. I really wanted to see if Super MonkeyBall was worth the $9.99. ;)
Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.
I am totally stoked to see eReader in there already, just like the Fictionwise folks told us weeks ago they were working on it.
Same here. Interesting observation since I’ve already downloaded it through iTunes (although I can’t install until we get the firmware update). It was a 1 MB download. The Windows Mobile version is 3 MB. I’ll have to check a few other apps that are also available for Windows Mobile and see if they too are “slimmer” for the Apple products based on the SDK and development environment. I’ve often seen large footprints on the WinMo side.
App store looks pretty cool. Can’t wait to give some of these apps a try. I was a little surprised looking around the Japanese store to find a Mixi app missing. This is the biggest social network in Japan and I would have thought that there would be an app for that. Did not see much specific to Japan except for a cool train app that seems to let you find train schedules which would be cool for Japan. I can see the app store getting hit hard in the next few days..
Is it out already?
I still can’t upgrade…
Def, you should be able to upgrade your iTunes to 7.7. That will let you browse and buy items in the App Store. You can’t install the apps until Apple releases the 2.0 firmware for the iPhone.
I might actually cave if they have Sling? Do they? Huh, huh?
(Can’t iTunes from work…)
No SlingPlayer in the store right now Pam. Just checked for you. Hopefully coming soon.
Oh fek! It is too early for my brain to function. Caffeine level low. And now I must invoke Apple Update to get the latest iTunes (and it’ll probably want to plant the latest QT too).
It will be hours before my mind is at sufficient GHzage for me to lose myself in the App Store.
I will have to keep a list of my own to post along with what the $$$ total will be.
Am I the only one to think that the freedom of the installer app feels better???
No update to QT was a part of it.