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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

#201

Post by lilyball »

dang wrote: post #165

We changed the URL from https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/12/apple-announces-bigge... to a third party article I just googled. If there's a better third-party article, we can change it again. Yes, HN has the rule "*Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter" ( https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ), but corporate press releases are so awful…

Looking at the original press release, I much prefer it to this third-party site. All the third-party site really did was remove a tiny bit of fluff, but it's having intermittent loading issues and is absolutely covered in ads if you aren't using an ad blocker. It also removes some of the actual content!

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

#202

Post by gumby »

hitpointdrew wrote: post #149
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…

You would think a company like Apple could easily build a system that updated exchange rates daily and could do the simple math on any price. Having "price points" seems arbitrarily and stupid.

Price points smooth the exchange rate fluctuation (how often should the prices be updated? Every second? More often?) and selects for prices that have certain cultural"gravity" as well.

I think buyers are more accustomed to and comfortable with "round" or "standard" prices like x.99, x.88, x.95, x.00 etc rather than x.47 or x.31.

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

#203

Post by gumby »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #194
simonw wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could do that, but then users in some countries would have to pay 0.693 of their local currency or whatever. Why should the US be the only country that gets friendly looking prices?

I'm an American. I routinely buy things in GBP, EUR, and JPY and the amounts convert to an arbitrary number in USD. So what? It is displayed to me as 9.99 EUR. I understand I'm not going to have a nice, pretty .99 at the end of my credit card transaction.

Yes, but you don't know that in the App store: you're buying from your "local" store regardless of where the developer is.

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

#204

Post by mynameisvlad »

slg wrote: post #157
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…

>but lead to "ugly" prices in other regions Isn't this change an introduction of those ugly prices? If I'm reading the new rules correctly, Apple now supports prices like 7.39 or 37.40. I guess they don't end in a 1-4 or 6-8, but they aren't the cleanest numbers either. And if that last digit is really the problem, rounding to the nearest 5 is always a possibility.

7.39 should be possible as part of the 10c price step, but how would you get 37.40 out of the system? You could do 37.00, 37.90, 37.95, or 37.99 via the "X." ones, and the first category would all end in X9.

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

#207

Post by hbn »

bonestamp2 wrote: post #85
hbn wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would seem crazy for an ad agency to implement that through an IAP where Apple takes $3k off the top (I assume that 30% rate still applies here?) when you're dealing with high-paying clients that could be told "go to our website to purchase"

I agree, but I guess we could say the same thing for all app and in app purchases.

Eh, not really. The benefit of in-app purchases is you can make a button that users can press that's probably already hooked up to their credit card so they can make purchases without the ask of getting them to type in their credit card number, which is a more conscious action that gives them plenty of time to think about whether or not they /really/ want to make that purchase. Amazon's one-click checkout, ShopPay, etc are not just for user convenience!

Comparatively, a high-profile client spending tens of thousands of dollars in ads isn't doing so on impulse, they're doing it cause it's their job. They'll open up a browser and punch in some banking details if it's the only way to get those ads out.

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

#208

Post by pb7 »

dang wrote: post #165

We changed the URL from https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/12/apple-announces-bigge... to a third party article I just googled. If there's a better third-party article, we can change it again. Yes, HN has the rule "*Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter" ( https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ), but corporate press releases are so awful…

I think this was the wrong move. The original source is better in this case and you are letting your anti-corporate bias and personal opinion affect your decision making as a moderator. What makes this so awful to read to you?

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

#209

Post by chongli »

CameronNemo wrote: post #193
chongli wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have the same thing in Canada. Taxes are not included in the price so that people can be aware of how much tax they're paying and adjust their behaviour accordingly. Since sales taxes are charged on some products but not others, the price-conscious consumer can elect to choose the tax-free products over the tax-burdened ones.

??? If taxes are included in price, the consumer can just look at the price and compare rather than jumping through the additional mental hoop to determine if one item is subject to sales tax, and what its price is in tgat case.

If you have two items and sales taxes are included in the price of one but not the other, the only way you can know which one has the taxes on it is to go look at some government website that lists all of the categories the tax applies to and those it does not.

On the other hand, if the taxes are not included in prices then you will see which one has taxes at checkout and elect not to purchase the item with taxes, preferring the item without taxes.

Furthermore, with taxes included in prices you are more susceptible to unscrupulous vendors charging taxes that should not be applied and pocketing the extra margins. One example of that is with the manufacturer of Niche coffee grinders charging VAT to international customers and pocketing the extra margin.

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

#210

Post by devwastaken »

pb7 wrote: post #208
dang wrote: post #165

We changed the URL from https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/12/apple-announces-bigge... to a third party article I just googled. If there's a better third-party article, we can change it again. Yes, HN has the rule "*Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter" ( https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ), but corporate press releases are so awful…

I think this was the wrong move. The original source is better in this case and you are letting your anti-corporate bias and personal opinion affect your decision making as a moderator. What makes this so awful to read to you?

3rd party sourcing isn't anti-corp. The purpose is to seek a more neutral position. Apple is clearly motivated to say positive things about Apple.
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