What's the most you'd pay for a webOS app? 77
Mon, 21 Sep 2009 9:18 am EDT 
This came up during our most recent PalmCast Live, and we thought it'd be worth asking all of you: what is the most you'd be willing to pay for a webOS app? Obviously, the price you'll be willing to pay will be dependent upon the application (Documents to Go is worth more to customers than Bejeweled, and rightfully so), but think of the most complicated in-depth application you can see yourself buying, and then think how many bucks you'd be willing to fork over for that app. Do you see the App Catalog becoming something like the 99¢ wasteland that is the iPhone App Store, or will we be paying $5 or $10 a pop like we did back in the days of Palm OS? Or will we land somewhere in the middle, as with the BlackBerry App World?
Hopefully soon we'll be able to get a definitive answer on how much developers plan on charging. September 24th, perhaps?
77 Comments
As long as I get what I pay for this time. (didn't happen when I paid for the Pre.) (Great OS, poor implementation and poorer build quality)
I was stuck between as long as its worth it & 20. The most I think that i'm willing to pay for an a is 29.99 & it must be something that I need to use on a daily basis like a finance app.
it does depend, but I think if they charge anything over 5 it is just greedy
Possibly if it is a simple app that is targeted at a horizontal market (general appeal and widespread acceptance). What about an app that is 50 times more work and targeted at a very vertical market? (specialized trade, etc.)
An example: an app that is used by a tradesmen that saves them hours of time a month for estimating jobs, or reducing any other common job. Is hours saved a month worth $5, heck yeah. Is it worth $50, heck yeah. Is it worth $500, possibly.
For $5, a vertical app might sell 10,000 copies. For $50, it might sell 8,000. For $200, it might sell 6,000. A developer would be STUPID to put the app in the Catalog for $5, because they probably would make no money for their time. However, if a fairly simple app is in the catalog for an exorbitant price, a cheaper alternative will come to replace it.
To say all charging over $5 for an app is greedy is an ignorant (not an insult, the word means lacking in knowledge) statement.
Simple economics... We'd be willing to pay a given price as long as marginal benefit outweighs marginal cost ;-)
I agree with this completely. Further I'd say that in the case of the vertical app, it's not about it being stupid to not charge as much as possible to best optimize to demand.
Vertical apps tend to be much more involved or require a degree of specialty. Not just anyone's going to write it. To provide the necessary level of continuing support, the developer needs to be paid a bit more so it's not just some "one-off" app.
Part of this is a matter of fewer people buying it. Something that sells 100,000 copies doesn't need to charge as much to recoup maintenance and devlopment costs. But geez, if it's that good and someone with the special training necessary to write it is investing their time, shouldn't they be heartily thanked?
So some very well-written program that only doctors or technicians want could go for $5, but then they'd never see an update or bug fixes.
Broader example: Something that has a lot of overhead to maintain. Some people like to betch about the cost of on-device turn-by-turn nav. But keeping maps updated has a non-trivial cost associated with it. People still get angry when they have to buy $100 of new map data every couple years.
Exactly. The problem with developers not making money, is development and support cease. This is a bad situation with mission critical apps.
Some programs are worth more than others, some take much more programing than others, others are more important tools than others. They should not all cost the same. While I agree some should be $5, if they are good or important to the user they deserve to be more than $5. Docs to Go for example I am sure will cost more than that and will be worth more than that. If developers can not make money on GOOD apps then they will not develop. If they are simple, not useful, games, or just bad then yes they should not charge as much.
It is really hard to quantify this. For an on board turn by turn gps solution through tom tom it could be worth spending $80-$90 for that specialized of an app. For a program that is available across a few platforms (docs to go) i would feel insulted if I had to pay more then the price it is on another platform and would not buy. Make it fair, make it quality, and deliver on good timely updates.
considering turn by turn comes free with the pre, would u really spend 90$?
Some people do if their GPS is the sort that continues working when out of cell tower range, such as for hiking or road tripping. Tom Tom and the like have all the map data stored on the phone so you always have 100% functionality so long as the GPS reads the location.
I guess I would pay up to pay up to $10.00 for a high value application if, i would never "loose" it if I had to do a re-start or make room on my device. I w ould expect to be able to re-install later. Also, if I. paid a premium price for a premium app I would expect at least a year of active support and potential upgrades.
"lose"?
As long as I get what I pay for this time. (didn't happen when I paid for the Pre.) (Great OS, poor implementation and poorer build quality)
My post keeps re-posting by itself again. Not me. Could b because of the oreo. Oh - and i don't think the iPhone keeps re-posting comments like the Pr? does.
Dude, if you're so upset about your purchase just scrap it and get a different phone. No one wants to hear you whine for the next 2 years.
I have had an iPod touch for a couple years now. I can't tell you the number of times that I have had things repost on forums and Facebook. It's not your Pre and it's definitely not the "oreo effect". Do you seriously think that's what caused it? C'mon man.
WOW. I thought it was VERY obvious that i was joking. Jeeez.
So go buy an iPhone and stop crying about it?
I would pay any reasonable price. I for one don't think a 99
I like how you've pulled this stunt repeatedly on past posts. Get over it.
same....
Also.... anything that would play WM streams....
I'd drop $20~$30 on SlingPlayer Mobile.
[sigh] Still waiting...
+1
I put as long as it is worth it... but I would prefer a $5 general max
A specialized app that I'd use every day and improves efficiency....priceless. i.e. an app that would implement the GTD system and sync with gTasks (anyone?)
I'm not a real power-user-businessman type but I'm not a kid who's just checking facebook all day, either. I use my phone for daily stuff like music, shopping (love that app) and texting, as well as some gaming. I consider myself a pretty average user. I wuld be willing to pay upwards of $20 if the app was absolutely killer, but ordinarily I would be paying no more than $10, and probably more like a few bucks for something frivelous.
I really don't see me buying too many apps, from most of the ones we have already. It will all depends on the quality of the app, and if there are any free options. I wont be paying or a 'better' twitter app when I have tweed, or something like that. It just has to be worth it, simple.
The most I have paid for an app was $30 and that was for apps like DateBk, and the Splash products. Most others have been either free or no more than $5. It is reasonable to pay for the programs you use. As I recall most of the older PALM OS programs were based on an honor system type of thing where you paid if you liked and or used the program.
That being said PLEASE PIMLICO bring the DATEBK program to the WEB OS. I'm dying without it!!!
We're putting together an app for the public safety market (firefighters, police, disaster workers) that we'll be offering for $500/device. Initial feedback from customers is that they're happy with that pricing level for a high-value, mission-critical app.
My exact point from my post above. Certain apps have higher development cost and FAR fewer potential customers. The Cost must be higher or it makes no sense to even bother developing them from a financial standpoint.
The biggest problem with the App Store for Apple is developers can't make money any more, due to the $0.99 pricing. Either prices will go up or developers will quit and you will be left with the half baked apps that are so prevalent there.
Depends on the app.
I'd pay $29.99 for Docs-To-Go, but not a game.
A Really Good game? No more than $10-15. Some would probably pay more.
But pricing is REALLY dependent upon the (perceived/received) value.
Don't want to see a 99 cent wasteland... but if they're good 99 cents apps... :-D
Well, based on the fact that I spent hundreds of dollars over the years on PalmOS software that's now essentially worthless, and based on the new mobile software pricing paradigm established by Apple, I am willing to buy far fewer webOS apps and I plan to keep my software investments to an absolute minimum.
I doubt I'll be buying many "fun" apps, just programs to fix the PIM (calendar & memos), security, and system preferences shortcomings.
+1 on the last paragraph.
For just $30, you can resurrect the value of your hundreds of dollars of investment. Classic isn't perfect, but it works for most of my Tungsten T3 apps.
True, though there are a number of caveats. --[Please understand that I am not upset with you in any way for pointing out this partial solution. Rather, I am quite displeased with Palm for the way they have treated the thousands (millions?) of users who got them this far by purchasing PalmOS devices.]
Putting aside the fact that native webOS is even more unfriendly to legacy Palm OS data (calendars, memos, etc.) than iPhones or Blackberries, and the fact that Palm made the arguably unethical business decision to place all responsibility for a PalmOS emulator squarely on the shoulders of a third party developer, essentially dismissing their entire Palm OS customer base and forcing committed Palm OS users into a $30 partial solution which Palm can distance themselves from... the biggest problem is that, 1) the Classic app needs to be running for notifications to work AND, 2) there is no Hotsync (yet). As a result, any backup to protect data takes quite a bit of extra effort.
I will consider Classic as a partial option once HotSync is working adequately (which is apparently contingent on the 1.2 OS release). I will also look for paid apps which repair the shortcomings of the current webOS functionality.
In the mean time, I have resigned myself to carrying a deactivated phone, just to have legacy data access and reliable alarms.
I'm confused by the comment that the iPhone App Store is a "99
agreed. 30 millions + users and .70 cents per download....
it could add up very, very fast.
For the blessed few. There are tons of articles out there about developers making very little return for their time on Apple Apps.
????? why are they blessed? you mean blessed in the sense that they have the programing skills to develop quality products i hope. because if you mean blessed in the sense that they just got lucky, that is ridiculous.
No, in the sense that they are able to stay in the top 100 or whatever is visible. Others are almost impossible to find in the App Store and therefore a high volume profitability is almost impossible. There may be tiny differences between two apps. Enough that it should only cause a 10% difference in income. But if that puts the App at #98 and #102, one will make 10 times more than the other. This is a huge limitation of the Apple Store and one for which I hope Palm finds a solution.
Ok. But this has little to do with the fact that the apps are $0.99 and more to do with the organization/search capabilities of App Store.
As I understand it, your argument boils down to this: The app store acts like a lottery where developers buy their tickets, and hope to hit the top 100. Those that do see great rewards. Those that don't see nothing (or close to it). Your assumption seems to be that if the rewards are spread more evenly to those outside of the top 100, that NO ONE will develop because there will be a bunch of low paid developers with no one really hitting it big. Hence the only solution to getting out the lottery is to have higher price points on apps.
But if you do that, how many people will look at the Pre and the iPhone and ask, "You mean the same app on the Pre costs $10 while costing only $1 on the iPhone?"
I don't have a way out of the conundrum. But I think trying to encourage higher per app prices will not work.
Interesting read:
"The Reality: Not As Many Actual Apps In The iPhone App Store As You're Told"
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090715/1942285561.shtml
:)
Don't mind paying for more if it's actually a major app. If it's just games and minor stuff probably 5-6 bucks.
Since Pre is Linux, I expect that there's a huge open source community. I can see the market for apps driving the price down.
Speaking of Documents to Go....
This is a tough one to do via poll, it may give bad info to developers.
I clicked "So long as it seems worth it, I'll pay"
But, I had only one app on my last phone that I paid for and dozens, maybe a few hundred that were free.
If there is a free option, it will be first for me. If there is a critical app, I will spend the money, but not before I make comparison... even to other systems.
Bruce
I agree with Bruce, this is next to impossible to do via a poll, especially given a broad audience like the one at precentral.
Are you a business user?
Are you a high-end personal user?
Are you a low-end personal user?
Are you a high-school kid who may not have money to buy apps anyway (no offense to high school kids)?
Plus, what value do you personally place on an app (or more specifically, how much are you willing to pay to accomplish a need to goal via an app on your pre)? I am thinking that with the paradigm shift in what phones can actually do, an app that really changes the way you live your life, both personally and/or profesisonally, could warrant much higher dollars.
Myself, as long as it was worth it (completely personal opinion in other words), i'd be in. I don't currently have an upper limit, because I really don't know what the universe of apps will look like. If it turns into the wasteland of apps like the iPhone (seriously, how many of those 75K apps are really useful on a daily basis?), then my views may change. Hopefully the apps maintain a modicum of usefulness...
I would pay $10 for Shazam. Anyone know if or when it is going to be ported to be Pr?-compatible?
its kinda a frustrating venture to buy expensive apps AGAIN!
I paid 20-30.00 for some APPs for my TREO, which now I cant use on my PRE and will potentially have to reinvest to have the APPs again -
I will be a lot less willing now to pay anything more than 10.00 or so for an APP. - I will just do without until prices drop or there is a sale lol
I love the homebrew APPs and make donations to show my appreciation of the time and effort used to provide us free apps :)
I'd pay a pretty penny for something like sling box or docs to go. But a lot of the apps that are out there now are 1-2 dollar apps. Apps I use on a daily basis, classTracker and music remix would definitely be worth more to me, but maybe not to others. Something like myTeather, would be worth quite a bit when I take a road trip (I just got back from a 20 hour drive...both ways...myTeather was amazing). 20 bucks to save me from the dulldrums of driving through the midwest...worth it.
I would also be concerned about how the app catalog handles updates. Does 10 bucks for docs to go get me a lifetime of updates? Or am I forced into paying another 10 in 6 months when 2.0 comes out? If that was the case, 10 bucks wouldn't be worth it (for me).
I donated $30 for Checkbook. I sent other amounts for other things. I'd pay $100 right now for a real Audible.com player.
Any Audible.com app/reader should be free! We pay Audible every month, and can't use the service with a Pre, (so, I'm still using my Centro for this , and video, and streaming radio stations, and making voice memos...opps, I digress),
Audible was a "staple" on all Treos and Centros, I didn't think it wouldn't be available for the Pre. sigh.
@ToddK Psst...There are 5 (at least) streaming music apps available in the homebrew section. ;)
ALSO...If I'm not mistaken, audible content is available through the iTMS correct? Since the Pre is an *cough* "iPod" to iTMS (8.2x for now anyway) All you need is the Audible Download Manager to xfer them to the Pre through iTMS??
http://www.audible.com/adbl/site/softwareWizard/SWOption.jsp?BV_UseBVCoo...
I paid $50 back in the day for Pocket Quicken on Palm OS, and would happily do so again if they ever come out with a WebOS version.
For Documents To Go, I'd go as high as $30.
Those are the two biggies for me. For everything else, anywhere between $1 and $15 is likely a winning number. There are few apps I need so badly that more than $15 would be justified.
i'd pay out the wazoo for sling player and anything that would play WM streams....
dd
How can you people say youll pay for anything after already buying the device. We pay enough for the service and use of the phone that all APPS SHOULD BE FREE and AVAILABLE TO ALL. FREE IS THE ONLY WAY/
I just called your employer and told them you just volunteered to work for free for the rest of your life, and that they can re-allocate your salary to someone else. Thank you! And good luck with all those bills...
I guess you don't expect to have many applications available, then. How should someone (not employed by Palm or Sprint) expect to be paid for their work? If not paid, why would they bother creating any applications?
With open source (aka "free"), you'll see a limited number of high quality applications. If you're willing to pay people, you'll see a much larger number.
Hey, you already paid for your computer. All software to run on it should be free, right? That's just a selfish and silly argument. Hey, you already paid for your car. Gas should be free.
cpuvicman, palm has sold us a phone, of excellent quality, and has in no way suggested that "they" will charge you for the use of their phone or updates to the OS. That is what we paid for. Many developers though think that the pre and Web OS in general needs an extra feature here and their. For me I use my pre for all sorts of business related ventures and need to remember a lot of passwords. Many of these passwords are many many characters long, and difficult to remember I am more than willing to pay for the ability to encrypt these passwords with a program and save them to my phone. creating a good stabile program is something I could potentially do for myself but the hours and hours of work are well made up for by a one time payment for this third party software.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, I don't buy a computer and expect it to have every application I'm going to need on it. So why should I buy a cellphone (read ultra-portable computer) and not expect to shell out a few extra dollars for the applications I need for my device to do everything I would like.
I do on the other hand hope palm does not charge for periodical updates to the OS like the iPhone, I paid for the use of their OS and hardware, and would not like to be charged over and over for it's continued use.
It's a simple cost-benefit ratio. If I will save time I will save money. It's also a supply vs demand vs competition. Palm is open source. If I create an awesome app that I want to charge at $50 per copy, but Joe Schmo makes the same app but maybe a little less pretty for the same functionality and a cheaper cost, we all know which people will use. Obviously ratings come in to play. If that slightly unattractive app is rated very high, misgivings included, it will win over the hefty $50 app.
For me, it's somewhere between 5 and 10 dollars. I don't want to spend as much as I would for a full desktop version as any mobile version is limited in what it can do compared to it's full desktop version. As the average cost for regular software on the desktop is somewhere around $20-$50, I don't want to spend as much for a limited version.
I have been paid $12,000 for a Palm OS app which was used in quantity 100. So, that's $120 a copy, and the customer was ecstatic with the price.
I think the highest price we ever charged for a Palm OS app was $250 per license. THAT customer was happy too.
The price depends on the cost to develop, the number of potential users in the market, and the cost of marketing.
Not every app will EVER go into the app catalog. We are already working on vertical market apps that will _never_ be in the app catalog. Fortunately, we can do a custom IPKG feed, install Preware, and the customer can download their own updates from our feed.
Those apps will -not- cost $5, or 99 cents.
You're seeing a bimodal distribution in the answers to your poll because there are two populations. "Consumer" users and "business" users. Business users will pay almost anything if the app solves a critical business need.
"My Bowling Scores" is a 99 cent to 5 buck app.
Generate real time invoicing and inventory management for my in store delivery and stocking guys with off-line storage because they don't have cloud connectivity everywhere. That's not a $5 app.
Vertical markets are different.
Yeah seriously. People don't realize that there's an SAP client in the iPhone app store that costs like $500.
Having a hard time seeing cheepy apps in the app catalog. Either its going to be 5 bucks or freebie. pricing too cheap devalues the appearant quality.
An issue for me is the limited space on the Pre for applications. If I can only load fifteen apps then I'm going to be a lot less adventurous in trying out new ones. I'm not going to want to spend $30 or even $5 if I have to unload another paid-for app to get it.
The Preware app has spoiled me. I almost did not download all of last week's App Catalog updates because I had to remove a bunch of high-value (to me) homebrew apps to do so.
it's a wasteland of bad apps now. Making apps more expensive is NOT going to make me buy them. It's just going to drive me to competitors.
The "most" i'd consider paying is not the same as what i'd be willing to pay normally which is nothing.
there are very few apps i'd pay. I will Always be looking for the free option.
I think there needs to be a balance. Yes, we need some free apps. This gives the developers a chance for people to try their products and see their work. If it is something like an app for twitter, mySpace, facebook, aol etc... it better be free. If someone is going to pay it should be the sitse you are going to. With the adds on these websites that should pay for them. Or do like AOL AIM does on iPhone, free well written program with ads. If you just can't take the small ads at the bottom, pay $3.00, poof they are gone. If it is a useful personal app, maybe up to $20-30. Not close to the price you would pay for the "full" program for your computer. Business apps, what the market will bear. Specific apps for small user groups, again development versus marketability. Just because you may only sell 5000 apps does not mean it should be high priced if it an easy app to develop IMO.
If an app has enough value to me, I'm willing to pay whatever it's worth. It really depends.
Any price that's justified by what the app does. But I buy only apps I need, not throwaway stuff so the $5 and under apps are of no interest to me.
I'd pay $30 or maybe more for an Agendus like application that integrated well into webOS natively. I know I can run it on classic, but thats a bit of a pain, and it doesn't really make use of the webOS features. Oh and this Agendus-type app would actually have to be mostly bug free too.
Well, maybe there should be another poll:
"How many Pre users were Palm users before?"
Because I think that the Palm users are already used to the $3-5 for "quick apps", themes, icons sets, etc., and $5-10 dollars for launchers, games, smaller productivity apps, and then $20-$30 for the "big time" productivity apps\serious functionality.
It's the Pre newbies\Smartphone converts that will be more into the "CrApple" model of quantity over quality (and 6500+ fart apps, 2000 copies of mafia, etc.) So a sweetspot somewhere in the middle should work.
What are Android and Blackberry charging in their stores?
"14 'fart' apps a day in the App Store"
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/12/ifart-and-pull-my-finger-battle-to-...
Granted this story is from the end of last year but clearly points to the trend going on in CrApple land. Extrapolated.. 14 farts apps a day x 245 days since then = 3,430 fart apps.
I tried to find a listing of all available apps but is seems Jobs is hiding this data well lest the truth be known about the "real" number of apps.
Out of the 300+ apps in WebOS we have like 5-6 dupes? That's about 19 dupes per 1000 (just over 1% of the total) which would mean at 8000+ (the probably TRUE number of real, non-dupe apps in iTMS) we'd have around 80-something dupes. ;)
Documents 2 Go is NOT worth more than Bejeweled to the Average user. Again, this is the #1 Palm Community for developers, tech-heads, and insane business people that rely 100% on their phone (and would off themselves if they ever lost their phone), but this is the worst Palm Community for the regular user that just wanted a cool phone to play with. Will I ever sync my address books, calendars, and various other important documents? No, I'm not dumb enough to rely so heavily on my cell phone. Will I cram my Pre full of simple games, and fun apps? Absolutely! Focus more on the common user (since there are more of us), and start pushing Palm to start releasing "average user"-friendly updates (like text forwarding, video recording, customized alerts, etc).
The only app i be willing 2 pay 4 is sling player mobile! $30! So thats the most!
It's Linux Isn't this supposed to be free and Free Of the Corporate Phat Catz Robbing the General Public To Further There Gain????
Wrong "free", osirus.
Thank you very much,I have read it now.
And welcome to my site,
micro sized security cameras
Micro Surveillance Cameras
Interesting conversation :)
A great audio books site with over 60,000 audio books and books on CD to choose from:
http://www.theaudiobookstore.com