All this talk about the App Store is bugging me.

Developers claim that the App store is flooded by 99 cent applications and as such there is no room for more expensive applications for reasons three:

1. The most popular paid applications are almost always 99 cents and they’re only popular because they’re cheap.
2. Development costs prohibit the creation of more complex full-featured applications because the sale price would have to be proportional to the money spent developing the application.
3. Price wars, or the applications as juxtaposed gas stations simile.

None of these arguments float.

The most popular paid applications…

The top 25 “Top Paid” applications vary in price from 99 cents to $9.99. Many of the “Top 25″ fall somewhere in the middle of this range. By these facts I will infer a low price is not required to sell a bunch of apps or they would all be 99 cents and would maintain no reflection on developer costs.

Development costs…

I’m not a developer, I have written code but mostly for the purposes of system administration or to scratch some itch. I don’t know what development costs look like, frankly I don’t care. The reason I don’t care is because when I browse the App Store I’m your customer. Perhaps if you invested less time in figuring out the best way to game the App Store and spent more time figuring out what your customers really need or want you could sell an application for more than 99 cents. Do you know what every successful business has? Happy customers.

Price wars…

Everyone wants the best deal, the best quality at the lowest price. There are more iPhones walking around than ever, and many of them are not Apple computer users. You have a whole new market to attend to that doesn’t think like the average Apple computer buyer. They may see Apple computers as incredibly expensive and they know nothing of Apple software and the tradition of producing simple high quality applications.

Visibility…

It is hard to judge the value of an application from a few screen shots, or even reviews. This is why you as a developer need a better strategy. If you’re building a complex application, build a website for it please. Show me what your application can do. Show me how much you care about it and why it’s great. Apple doesn’t just send out a press release when it builds a new product that they’re excited about, they put it on a stage and talk about how awesome that product is.

The demo…

Instead of a “demo” in the sense that I get a feature reduced application I would like to use the full version of your application for a limited time, maybe for a week or two. This may be different for games where you could finish the game in a week or two, perhaps an unlock strategy would be better for games. Play a game for some amount of time or reach some level and purchase to get the remainder of the game content.

Customers…

As much as the App Store needs some work, I really think what developers are missing is they’re selling to customers. I don’t care what your application costs, just sell me something that makes my life better. If the price is right, I’m buying.

Who can argue with an extra hour?

A study published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association by Christopher King and colleagues from the University of Chicago has found a relationship between sleep quantity (hours spent asleep) and calcium build up — or calcification — in the arteries that supply the heart muscle with blood.

Red Hat shakes off economic meltdown:

In the third quarter of fiscal 2009 ended November 30, which had the global economic meltdown smack dab in the middle of it, Red Hat reported software subscription sales of $135.5m, up 17 per cent, with training and services sales of $29.9m, up 52.1 per cent.

Open Source is *in* and transparency is the new black. Even economically we see the trend towards understanding every facet of what your products are and how they work. So you have to ask yourself “Is my business mortgage backed securities or is it an open business method?” There is no “meltdown” except for that which we let meltdown.

Some interesting questions have been raised in response to news of the news industry.

* Slashdot asks: Are Newspapers Doomed?
* The New Yorker details the many mistakes of the newspaper industry.

The New Yorker asserts that the consumer changed while the newspapers did not. I agree with this in certain respects. Consumers have embraced technology and technology has allowed information to become freer. The game has changed for the consumer, what once they considered valuable is now free.

James Surowiecki of The New Yorker writes:
> The difference is that today they don’t have to pay for it.

Consumers have choice and when the competing product costs nothing it is natural that they will chose the least expensive reliable source. So where does that leave the news gathering institutions?

James Surowiecki writes again:
> It would not be shocking if, sometime soon, there were big American cities that had no local newspaper; more important, we’re almost sure to see a sharp decline in the volume and variety of content that newspapers collectively produce.

A transition must be made and a balance must be struck between traditional production and electronic distribution.

A classic