Will the iPhone App Store cost you more than your iPhone?

Itunesappstore

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. ;)

 

loading

Comments have been disabled for this post