Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

9to5mac.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 385 posts

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

#371

Post by RamblingCTO »

lzaaz wrote: post #192
decadancer wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cultur…

This is fair. OTOH, you have the single European market (the EU forces games, apps, hardware, etc to be sold at the same price everywhere in the EU in practical terms), which has shafted poor countries-it's disgraceful that a Swedish costumer pays the same price for an iPhone than a Portuguese costumer while making several times as much money every month.

How can you fit that much misinformation into one comment? EU != Europe. Russia is not in the EU. Nor is it completely russian. Only a select number of countries in Europe is part of the EU.

And there is no such thing as consistent, EU-enforced pricing. Get out of here ...

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

#372

Post by ChrisRR »

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…

Of course that's the very Apple approach. Why not give them the option of using their automatic price adjustments rather than making people use it?

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

#373

Post by [deleted] »

decadancer wrote: post #124
BulgarianIdiot wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cultur…

[deleted]

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

#374

Post by FateOfNations »

zimzam wrote: post #152
kybernetyk wrote: post #90

Will this solve the issue that the $49.99 tier equals to a 59.99 EUR price? I get a ton of messages every week by would-be Euro customers complaining why the fuck I am fleecing them with a 59.99 EUR price when the US price is $49.99 and the exchange rate is currently roughly 1:1.

When it comes to differences in hardware prices between the US & EU, VAT taxes are often most of the difference: are there VAT taxes on app sales too?

Yes. VAT typically applies to any transaction where a business sells something.

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

#375

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway290 wrote: post #343
zamadatix wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with appeal to authority on this is the same could have been said last week about why it wasn’t like this. It doesn’t make it any more reasonable it just explains it is the way it is.

They were exactly like this just with fewer price points.

[deleted]

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

#376

Post by zamadatix »

throwaway290 wrote: post #343
zamadatix wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with appeal to authority on this is the same could have been said last week about why it wasn’t like this. It doesn’t make it any more reasonable it just explains it is the way it is.

They were exactly like this just with fewer price points.

Understood but my point was the list changed to add price points not that they had no list at all. Hard to argue the price points are the only ones that should be used because Apple is the best at marketing if Apple themselves are adding price points.

The other reasons for using the price point model are very convincing just not the appeal to Apple having a hoarse of marketing people.

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

#377

Post by JamesSwift »

dang wrote: post #295
JamesSwift wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What could a third party add to a primary-source's press release other than speculation? Sure in some cases there could be some "sources say..." or "when reached for comment Apple clarified that..." but in general I think its going to be a rehashing and speculation in general.

Very often the PR is designed to bury the lede. Third party sources typically highlight whatever is in the company's interest to bury. I'm not saying that was the case here, because I didn't read the articles. However, the pattern is so close to universal that it wouldn't be surprising.

I think in a lot of ways thats what this comment section should do. Much better to have the conversation centered around the primary source IMO.

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

#378

Post by crystaln »

hsbauauvhabzb wrote: post #325
crystaln wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a reason most retail stores use price points and not random numbers. Pricing like this: $7.23 $5.48 $9.21 is just ugly and feels cheap. It's the same reason they have UX standards generally. Why does anyone care about 1 cent on a $5 purchase? Does anyone here care? The new price points seem to provide enough flexibility with less disadvantage. From a business perspective, if I had to guess the increased cogni…

Would it be reasonable to assume that the price points help them and not the buyer or seller? Decision fatigue matters more to me than which product you actually pick if I’m taking a clip of the sale regardless

I guess who cares? Apple does lots of things that helps them. It's a business.

That said, I think it helps both the buyer and seller to have good UX.

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

#379

Post by dang »

JamesSwift wrote: post #377
dang wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very often the PR is designed to bury the lede. Third party sources typically highlight whatever is in the company's interest to bury. I'm not saying that was the case here, because I didn't read the articles. However, the pattern is so close to universal that it wouldn't be surprising.

I think in a lot of ways thats what this comment section should do. Much better to have the conversation centered around the primary source IMO.

That's a good point.

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

#380

Post by x3qt »

RamblingCTO wrote: post #371
lzaaz wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is fair. OTOH, you have the single European market (the EU forces games, apps, hardware, etc to be sold at the same price everywhere in the EU in practical terms), which has shafted poor countries-it's disgraceful that a Swedish costumer pays the same price for an iPhone than a Portuguese costumer while making several times as much money every month.

How can you fit that much misinformation into one comment? EU != Europe. Russia is not in the EU. Nor is it completely russian. Only a select number of countries in Europe is part of the EU. And there is no such thing as consistent, EU-enforced pricing. Get out of here ...

Btw most of the Russia is not Europe even in geographical sense.
Post reply on HN