iCombat

I started thinking today about where to price my app and I was reminded of a great article I came across in Apple Insider several weeks ago.  The article is an interview with the developer behind Sound Grenade and it describes the rise of what he calls “crapware” in the app store.  Developed in 20 minutes and containing “maybe 10 lines of code,” Sound Grenade has been in the top 100 free apps for weeks generating over $200/hour in ad revenue.  Applications like iFart or Mood Phone fit in to this category as well, simple apps that leverage the platform to spread virally amongst what is probably mostly high school and college kids.  And these gimmicky apps have done so well that it is hard not to take notice and tempt all of us to consider banging some out as well.

The question “crapware” apps raise for the app store are obvious, why would developers and businesses spend weeks and months and maybe tens of thousands of dollars to build an application that is competing with one trick apps that sell for free?  Surely pricing pressure and excess supply will send the entire app store to the ad supported or near free pricing points.  Well I disagree and am not too concerned that this will happen.  There may be 75 versions of flatulence apps and I already found about 10 copying Sound Grenade but I don’t think that this will last for very long. Read more…