It is finally time. http://www.iapp100.com/ has been officially launched!
Matt Patterson and I have been working on this project for some time now. He already had the iPhone, and I just had an iTouch not wanting to go to AT&T – but already both of us had thought we need to make finding Apps for these devices easier. Although we are always wanting to make it better and have it do more – we felt it was time to let the cat out of the bag.
The idea is pretty simple. We wanted a place to be able to review an App, easily search for Apps by rank or category and also find out what Apps that just came out or had dropped in price. One frustration was that Apps from the Apple iTunes App Store is that Apps can go on sale for a week – but you would never know it unless you just happen to look at that App. We wanted to make it easy to see what was on sale – so you could capture the deal!
We have a lot of really exciting plans for this site – and we will keep you up to date on the progress. You can keep track by visiting the homepage of iApp100 or follow us on Twitter @iapp100. Please give us feedback for the site – we just want to make it as useful as possible.
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I could not believe that it has only been 1 year since the grand opening of the Apple iTunes AppStore. I guess it’s just been in the media and growing so fast it seems like it has been around much longer. 50,000+ apps are already available in the store. That is some major growth! Be looking forward to later this week for an annocement of a project I and some friends have been working on. I am quite excited about it!
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Apple is about to hit a billion apps download from their iTunes App Store. Although I am not a fan on searching through the store to find apps (I will hopefully have a solution for that soon) - I love the idea of the app store. I have not yet taken a look at the Windows Mobile or Blackberry app stores yet that are being created to hopefully get some of the Apple success, but I will soon and make a post on those.
Apple wants to celebrate the billionth app – so they are going to be giving out a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card, an iPod touch, a Time Capsule, and a MacBook Pro. You can be entered to win if you download an app from the store, or you can enter free at their website.
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I exclusively buy my music on iTunes well before I even had an iPod. I love getting quality music very easily. When Apple started offering the “Plus” music that was DRM free with better quality – I knew it was just a matter of time while they tested the market with the new pricing when they would move all pricing to the “Plus”.
This is a snip from the Wall Stree Journal:
Under Apple’s new pricing plan that will take effect in April, Mr. Schiller said songs will cost 69 cents, 99 cents or $1.29. He said the “vast majority” of the songs will cost 69 cents, though people familiar with the matter said the most sought-after songs — which generate most of the sales on the service — will likely cost $1.29 as both Apple and the major record labels try to boost revenue growth. Wholesale prices charged by the record labels are likely to change to reflect the new price points; spokespeople for Apple and major record labels declined to discuss their agreements.
Reading this, I was actually excited. No more DRM, which I didn’t have a large problem with, and possibly songs at $0.69. I have YET to find one song that I recognized for that price. All I did see what anything that is new or popular move to $1.29 immediately. What “vast majority” could Apple be talking about? Was the person who said that a large polka fan?
Lastly, I thought I would be excited since they no longer offer the older version of some of the songs I had – I was wondering if there is a free upgrade after seeing the link in iTunes. Nope – a nice $0.30 to upgrade the songs they still have. It would cost me about $60 to upgrade my library. Hmmm…no.
I did use Amazon’s music service before (only to redeem my PepsiStuff points), and found the downloading difficult. Once downloaded – it had a nice app that automatically imported the song into iTunes. But with the 5 songs I got, I had to already contact their support to authorize a song for another download that didn’t work. Apple’s smart – they know I will just suck it up and pay the extra 30% for each song that I want. For others though – will this increase music priracy for those that were ok with paying $0.99 a song?
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In a post written by Wired they claim that with the new iPhone OS update they are also going to release a new update to the AppStore as well. The rumor states that Apple will give special placement of a developers App if it sells for $20 or more. Since Apple receives 30% of each App sale, you can see why they would be motivated to do this. The thought it Apple doesn’t want these premium apps being lost in the background tocheap popular apps, since their sales will probably be less than a $0.99 app.
I have always thought it would be a very good idea for Apple to redo their AppStore since I get very frustrated on finding iPhone Apps inside iTunes. That is why I am working with some others to help make that process a lot easier. I will get into that in another post.
Just like in grocery stores or in the retail stores, vendors will pay for premium placement either at eye level or on the end of the aisle. I think it only makes sense for Apple to set applications apart from others to help with better high-end sales. I just hope they don’t make it too hard to find the other great inexpensive apps!
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