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Apple announces ‘upgrade’ to App Store pricing, adding 700 new price points

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Re: Apple announces ‘upgrade’ to App Store pricing, adding 700 new price points

#121

Post by jsmith45 »

MBCook wrote: post #11

I wonder if more apps will go for, say 50¢, instead of free + $1.00 IAP. I miss the pre-IAP days.

One thing that can be problematic with App sales is that apps will usually have new purchases dry up after a while. But unlike old desktop software where you could release, fix bugs for a while, and then just call done, for mobile apps you need periodically update them, or risk getting unlisted from the stores. Some developers may be ok with that, but others would prefer their older apps to remain available. Those developers now have ongoing maintenance costs, so how can they recover that money?

The old desktop approach of new major versions that people have to purchase periodically is not really feasible on IOS, since old versions would clog up the app store, and there is no way to offer the new versions at a discount to past purchasers, which desktop software likes to do to avoid annoying recent customers when a new version comes out.

So to recover for costs from ongoing development, an app developer will either need to 1) somehow increase the number of people who will purchase the app, 2) add a recurring revenue source like ads to the app (possibly with IAP to disable), 3) make the app subscription based (but only some types of apps can pull this off), or 4) make the app IAP based, and when updating add new features that can be purchased.

Now not every app does any of those. Some will just a single unlock IAP with limited functionality before that. But this is not all that different from the old demo or shareware approach, and the design of the app store makes it generally better to have the demo and full version be the same app, at which point IAP is the way to do that. Without a recurring revenue source though, such apps are likely to either change approach or get abandoned eventually once the costs of periodically upgrading the app exceed the remaining revenue coming in.

----

Also there is the abusive IAP single use item to bypass artificial cooldowns MTX garbage that mobile games tend to be full of, but I really cannot bring myself to accept that as a legitimate business model. Even the Gacha model (terrible as it is) feels somewhat more legitimate, but I have plenty of significant concerns about those too. But I'm really looking at this from the perspective of non-games, or at least not "F2P" games.

Re: Apple announces ‘upgrade’ to App Store pricing, adding 700 new price points

#122

Post by oakesm9 »

Idiot211 wrote: post #112
kybernetyk wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they don't fairly translate the price. They just make up numbers for different currencies. $49.99 translates by Apple's standards to 59.99 EUR - which is roughly 10 Euros too much.

Does that 59.99 include VAT at 20%?

It does, yes

Re: Apple announces ‘upgrade’ to App Store pricing, adding 700 new price points

#123

Post by smcleod »

hackernewds wrote: post #109
smcleod wrote: post #105

Apple needs to make it easier for people pricing their apps fairly for international markets. So many applications and subscriptions are incredibly expensive when they're priced for the USA which has been over valued for so many years now.

That would open up a whole can of worms of users locations being necessary/easy to fake for discounts.

As that may be - it should be the incredibly wealthy companies problem to solve, not the users.

Re: Apple announces ‘upgrade’ to App Store pricing, adding 700 new price points

#124

Post by decadancer »

BulgarianIdiot wrote: post #113
JonathonW wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple uses price points rather than having developers explicitly specify prices because they're currency-independent: you specify a price point and Apple chooses appropriate prices for each of the ~175 different storefronts where your app could be available. Apple then periodically adjusts the international prices as exchange rates fluctuate, to keep them in parity with the US prices at the same tiers. The alternativ…

Thank you for clarifying this. This is such an Apple thing to do. Frankly it doesn't matter what the exact price is. All economics are approximate.

I don't think that's a bad practice. I'm Russian and Steam games are (were) 1.5x-2x times cheaper for Russia compared to Europe and Americas, even before regional passes. I don't know whether that was responsiblity of devs or storefront, but it seemed quite a fair and profitable practice, because the price point you are willing to pay for a game (or an app) is different for people from different economical and cultural backgrounds. You aren't getting a game for 80$ if your monthly salary is 300

Re: Apple announces ‘upgrade’ to App Store pricing, adding 700 new price points

#125

Post by intrasight »

nickthegreek wrote: post #70
timbre1234 wrote: post #38

Give me an option to search for "no ads" in an app, or give me nothing. I've simply stopped buying iOS apps because I'm done with the ad loads.

I want to search for no subs. I dont want to see a result for a $5/week wallpaper app.

What's a "sub"?

Re: Apple announces ‘upgrade’ to App Store pricing, adding 700 new price points

#126

Post by hackernewds »

JonathonW wrote: post #97
black_puppydog wrote: post #66

So, never having bothered with Apple hard-/software I am a bit confused... A developer can't just set a price for something? But then out of the first 10000 natural numbers, Apple semi-arbitrarily select a set of 900 "known-good" numbers that work well for prices? Like, as if the other numbers are somehow bad prices? If you charge someone $7,43 for something, the ghost of Steve Jobs will start haunting you? That's, l…

Apple uses price points rather than having developers explicitly specify prices because they're currency-independent: you specify a price point and Apple chooses appropriate prices for each of the ~175 different storefronts where your app could be available. Apple then periodically adjusts the international prices as exchange rates fluctuate, to keep them in parity with the US prices at the same tiers. The alternativ…

I find it hard to agree with

> developers manually specify prices for each region, which wouldn't really scale for a lot of developers

while this also is more aligned to Apple's goals, unless there's also a proven and generalized (geographically and at all price points, app types) observation where the price looking beautiful as 0.99 massively offsets the actual revenue gains of being 1.23.

> "ugly" prices in other regions (no x.00 or x.99 pricing), unless they had some rounding scheme to make them look nicer,

Re: Apple announces ‘upgrade’ to App Store pricing, adding 700 new price points

#127

Post by MBCook »

asadlionpk wrote: post #14
MBCook wrote: post #11

I wonder if more apps will go for, say 50¢, instead of free + $1.00 IAP. I miss the pre-IAP days.

Isn't this IAP model better for both users and makers?

In theory.

So I have no issue with subscribing to many apps I love to fund development, or maybe paying an extra “tip” through IAP. Or just IAP for more content.

But IAP and subscriptions enabled a few models I hate.

Free game (either with ads, IAP, or both) have flooded the App Store and destroyed the market for quality games. Even the better made ones (like Candy Crush) are still designed to wring money out of people.

On the subscription front there are so many scam apps. Buy a calculator app, and pay $5/week for it because they trick people into it.

I’d be happy with no consumable IAPs in games. Or just no IAPs in games at all. And Apple should probably review high subscription prices to find scams. Realistically is there any reason for weekly subscriptions? Maybe just monthly/yearly only.

Re: Apple announces ‘upgrade’ to App Store pricing, adding 700 new price points

#128

Post by MBCook »

dangoor wrote: post #53
Someone1234 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IAPs don't share over Apple Family, purchased-apps do. So I'm going to say no.

IAPs _can_ share for the family: https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/4/22154178/apple-family-sha... It's the developer's choice, just like family sharing for the original purchase. This was a good move, since so many apps went from paid to free demo +IAP to unlock. I think a lot of devs who previously allowed family sharing for paid apps have turned family sharing on for IAP.

To be fair that wasn’t the case until maybe 2 years ago. So it was a real problem.

Re: Apple announces ‘upgrade’ to App Store pricing, adding 700 new price points

#129

Post by blowski »

le_vision wrote: post #8
ralmidani wrote: post #2

Genuine question: is there a market for a $10,000 app?

Highly niche and specialised apps could set such price points. Medical apps come to mind.

Early on, I remember there being a tactic for apps where the owner wants them to be findable in the App Store, but doesn't want any new buyers, they set the price to $10K. But these days, I think the most expensive apps are $1K - app.cash, vueCAD Pro and Cyber Tuner.

Re: Apple announces ‘upgrade’ to App Store pricing, adding 700 new price points

#130

Post by hackernewds »

seydor wrote: post #92
black_puppydog wrote: post #66

So, never having bothered with Apple hard-/software I am a bit confused... A developer can't just set a price for something? But then out of the first 10000 natural numbers, Apple semi-arbitrarily select a set of 900 "known-good" numbers that work well for prices? Like, as if the other numbers are somehow bad prices? If you charge someone $7,43 for something, the ghost of Steve Jobs will start haunting you? That's, l…

Quoted post unavailable.

> they do it because they can

against the desires of the entire global community of developers. the hallmarks of a true monopoly

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