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The market for paid iOS apps isn’t dead

marco.org

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Re: The market for paid iOS apps isn’t dead

#31

Post by benjiweber »

danielrakh wrote: post #19
ruswick wrote: post #11

Marco seems to make this unjustified and unelaborated assertion that price has no bearing on popularity, and the only differentiation between prices in free vs. paid. I'm not sure why this would be so for the App Store. Purchasing software, like purchasing any product, is necessarily a balance between utility and price. I, as a value-oriented consumer, have a finite amount of money that I wish to conserve, yet want t…

I agree with you. I also think the "evaluation of utility" of Apps is poor. IMO, You can't really evaluate the utility by just the screenshots and reviews. It would be great if just like a car, you could "test drive" the App. Download a version that would work for x mins and would automatically present you an option to buy or delete after x mins.

Google play lets you return apps within 15 minutes. Does the app store not have anything similar?

http://support.google.com/googleplay/bin/answer.py?hl=en-GB&...

Re: The market for paid iOS apps isn’t dead

#32

Post by rogerbinns »

danielrakh wrote: post #8

As an iOS developer I speculate that it's not the price that hinders people from downloading an App, it's the psychological barrier of paying for something (regardless of the price) that they haven't experienced yet. Sure reviews and screenshots help ease this tension as well as the standard $0.99 price tag, but I don't think it's enough. It would be really great if users could download the App and play around with i…

You used to be able to test drive for 24 hours with Android and get a refund within that time period. Some people abused it such as playing games and completing them within 24 hours and getting the refund.

Google then changed the period to 15 minutes which is far too short. Many games start off with large downloads that won't have finished in that time. I'm currently looking for a podcasting app and there is no way you can evaluate one within that time (little details matter).

Some try to solve this problem by having separate free versions that have less functionality, or various complex schemes involving paid unlocks, but neither solution is perfect.

Re: The market for paid iOS apps isn’t dead

#33

Post by cageface »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #28
danielrakh wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. If not for the dev, they should do it for the sake of the user experience. A "Try It Out" option would prevent customers from feeling duped when they buy an App that they think looks good but turns out to not be of their liking. Which right now contributes to the customer to be more hesitant of purchasing the next app tomorrow.

I suspect try it out would only reduce sales further, it adds a delay in the process and gives the customer more chance to change his mind. It might help for expensive software but for something that is a few dollars I'd see it as a negative as a developer.

What's happened in practice is that the market is moving towards free apps + IAP to make money. I think this tends to ruin most games but for a lot of other categories I don't think it's a bad model.

Re: The market for paid iOS apps isn’t dead

#34

Post by arthurrr »

andrewtbham wrote: post #6

Here is my app. Location based time tracking. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/onsite-time-tracker/id470803... Here are my sales https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Asp1Qlg4fVlzdFk...

what did you do (if anything) to get 270.2 in apr (apr is not even finished yet)? and 155 in mar? why are some months missing?

Re: The market for paid iOS apps isn’t dead

#35

Post by ludwigvan »

yoster wrote: post #25
rbritton wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll have to think about it. I'm not sure if disclosing it puts me at any disadvantage, but I want to make sure I'm not overlooking something.

It wouldn't hurt considering it would be free advertising. If I generated steady income off a popular app, I would be letting everybody and their momma know about that app. I would even throw a sales pitch right now!

It might cause more competitor apps to be made, which might put that constant stream of money to danger.

Re: The market for paid iOS apps isn’t dead

#36

Post by robomartin »

I experimented with one of my apps (www.TommyTeaches.com). I made the mistake of releasing it as a paid app at first. It didn't do so well. I switched it to free and it took off. Everyone at my kid's school got it and they let others know. Through analytics I can see it is being used for long periods of time by many kids every day. Tried the teaching approach with kids with mild learning disabilities and it made a difference in a number of cases.

All of that is good, however the problem is that in order to be able to justify completing the series I have to show revenue. Placing ads in apps for 3~5 year old kids is not an option. One thought was to place ads in screens off the main game (Settings, etc.) to at least capture a minor revenue stream. I have that build but haven't released it yet.

The problem with the expectation of everything being free is what it does to the ability to innovate and explore. Apps don't cost zero to develop. As much as it hurts me to think it, I am not sure I can justify attempting to innovate at the early education market because there's virtually no money in it for the vast majority of developers. Even paying for logo and graphic design is impossible when your revenue is zero or near zero.

For me at least there seems to be far more traction and revenue in the specialized utilities segment.

On the other hand, it is hard to pay the iOS software world attention when we can charge $250 to $350 per hour for mechanical, electronics hardware and software development in certain verticals.

Re: The market for paid iOS apps isn’t dead

#37

Post by diminish »

ruswick wrote: post #11

Marco seems to make this unjustified and unelaborated assertion that price has no bearing on popularity, and the only differentiation between prices in free vs. paid. I'm not sure why this would be so for the App Store. Purchasing software, like purchasing any product, is necessarily a balance between utility and price. I, as a value-oriented consumer, have a finite amount of money that I wish to conserve, yet want t…

i believe, utility and price decision makes more sense for prices larger than impulse buying seed (>>$120). From $120 to $5, $5 to $1, $1 to 10cents and below 10cents have all different consumer behavior dynamics, for a cosmopolitan american buyer. So apps below $1 and $15 are all different stories for consumers. For <1$, visibility, jumping to leaderboard matters more. For a $15 product utility mattes more, but still an impulse buying decision can be forced.

Re: The market for paid iOS apps isn’t dead

#38

Post by draugadrotten »

andrewtbham wrote: post #6

Here is my app. Location based time tracking. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/onsite-time-tracker/id470803... Here are my sales https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Asp1Qlg4fVlzdFk...

Thank you for sharing - for me ,this was an interesting view of the economics of a niche app.

I happen to be a user of your app myself, which makes it even more interesting. I downloaded your app as part of your free promotion that you mention in the spreadsheet. I have since recommended your app to several colleagues, of which several paid for the app, so your promotion was probably successful.

I also use a similar app, "TimeSheet". This app is ad-sponsored. I found this app by browsing the app stores lists of most popular apps, and because it was free, this was the app I started using.

Seeing the economics of your app seems to be barely viable, I would offer some food for tought.

You have minimal expenses already, so you can't boost profits by minimizing expenses. You can however do what you seem to be doing and just "wait" until the app is profitable. Your app has a decent focus and is streamlined to do one thing and do it well. You can improve the app by doing customer interviews, but that will be costly and may not provide a ROI. You could change the price of your app. If someone is using your app, it doesn't matter if the price is $1 or $5, it's peeanuts for anyone using it as a business app. This would hurt the "I'll try it out-downloads" though. You can expand your user base by promoting your product more. This seems to me to be the most attractive option. What are your own thoughts about increasing the revenue stream for the app?

Re: The market for paid iOS apps isn’t dead

#39

Post by draugadrotten »

cageface wrote: post #33
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect try it out would only reduce sales further, it adds a delay in the process and gives the customer more chance to change his mind. It might help for expensive software but for something that is a few dollars I'd see it as a negative as a developer.

What's happened in practice is that the market is moving towards free apps + IAP to make money. I think this tends to ruin most games but for a lot of other categories I don't think it's a bad model.

As a consumer, I like this model when it's done right. I like being able to "test drive" an application and then paying for the app.

For example with a business app like Grafio, I want to test drive it to see if it works for me. Then I can pay a significant price for the app - if I am using it in a business setting my time is worth hundreds of dollars per hour and the prices of apps are not really a significant expense. I would want development of Grafio to extend further towards supporting my business needs, which is Visio import/export, and I would gladly pay for that feature.

I dislike when the free app is missing important functionality (this defeats the test drive aspect) and I dislike when the in-app is a subscription. I find it obnoxious when apps have too many in-app purchases. It becomes an annoyance to have to pay $1 to read, $1 to write, $1 to save. Just ask $3 for "full functionality" from the start. Don't be silly.

I like when the app is fully functional and I can choose to pay different amounts to support further development.

Re: The market for paid iOS apps isn’t dead

#40

Post by SG- »

itry wrote: post #30

The Site has an almost unreadable font for me. Its ugly when in normal size: http://browsershots.org/http://www.marco.org/ (Check the Firefox 22 shots) And gets worse when I increase the font size: http://i.imgur.com/jU1swoq.png Why is that?

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