App Store!! App Store!!
For all its marking guile and savvy, Apple has proved itself a little short sighted when it comes to its app store. Its lofty projections of an average selling price of around $10 per app were somewhat made a mockery of by the survey carried out by Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray.
Munster’s survey took in the opinions of 20 iPhone developers at WWDC. The results will have brought a tear to the collective Apple eye: around 71% of app store apps would be available for free. The 29% which would be charged for would be available at an average price of $2.29. Apple’s planned 30% revenue cut to pay for its expenses (and no doubt its fair share of profit) looks in jeopardy.
But this news is music to the ears of the consumer, and anything that pleases iPhone owners is likely to please Apple in the long run. Free apps will, ultimately, increase the perceived value of the iPhone unit itself, so the profit lost on the app store will be made back on the handset and its call plan. Besides which, Apple aren’t short of a little bit of profit so this minor setback for the app store shouldn’t concern them overly.