Premium App Store Plus! iPhone 3.0 Rumors Recycled!
Our guess is that the buildup to this Tuesday’s iPhone OS 3.0 Preview will be filled with rumors, new and old. Speaking of old, Wired has just dusted off the Premium App Store (or App Store Plus) story from back in January. While that story focused on Premium Games, and Wired re-enforces that focus, they all suggest there could be a wider range of content:
This “velvet rope” section of Apple’s store could feature software programs that cost $20 or more, making it friendlier to publishers whose products are too complicated to be created in one developer’s spare time. That change would make the App Store more friendly to game publishers, as well as enterprise software companies such as SAP that would otherwise prefer to focus on the more business-user targeted BlackBerry phones. BlackBerry is expected to launch its own app store, called the BlackBerry App World, later this month.
I would pay $20+ for an app that was worth $20+, and if separating those apps off from the $0.99 fartsnjiggles crowd helps developers pay their bills while making what we hope are the Next Great Apps, more power to them.
The question then becomes, what’s worth $20+ to you in an iPhone App?
March 14th, 2009 at 11:35 am
tomtom gps
March 14th, 2009 at 11:46 am
Soon people will be downloading those $20+ apps on TBP ( The Pirate Bay ) !
March 14th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Turn-by-turn GPS, ala TomTom or Garmin. I’ld easily pay $99 for that..
March 14th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
docs to go
slingplayer
March 14th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
actually, where is slingplayer? They said they’d release it by the end of Q1 and I haven’t heard anymore news… Rene?
March 14th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
It’s possible, the only problem would be that all apps must be approved by Apple, and spending money to build some app and then discover that it will be banned because of some stupid rule isn’t an incentive.
March 14th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
App Store Premium might come with premium level cooperation from Apple, especially for big companies like EA?
March 14th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
A full-blown, full-featured, totally editable QuickBooks app with sync to desktop would be worth $20 or more to me.
March 14th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
I agree with Rene, a premium App Store would come with premium customer (to be read developer) care. Premium apps shop be approved super quick and be only for companies willing to pay a higher developer fee.
March 14th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Tethering. And Cydia LOL!
March 14th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
haha. theyll totally make halo remakes if this passes… hopefully.
March 14th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
TomTom. iWork. Race Driver GRID. Oh my poor credit card
March 15th, 2009 at 3:35 am
I can picture games being in the $20+ range. Especially if its from well known publishers such as activision, ea, bungie(iphone halo anyone? haha)i think higher priced games can bring in the bigger named companys.
March 15th, 2009 at 5:18 am
I’d pay for a decent email client native app that incorporates contacts, calendar events, notes, appointments and email in one editable location. Outlook Mobile, per se.
March 15th, 2009 at 6:25 am
Pocket Informant for iPhone, iPocketBible from Laridian
March 15th, 2009 at 6:54 am
Oh, and support for a BT keyboard and DataViz DTG.
March 15th, 2009 at 8:40 am
OMG, the anticipation is starting to kill me!
Tuesday (or whenever 3.0 launches) can’t come soon enough! I have a feeling that Apple is not going to disappoint…
March 15th, 2009 at 8:42 am
Oops wrong thread (mean to post in the original 3.0 blog).
Anyhoo, I’m also stoked about the possibility of some more advanced Apps (games, Tom Tom, etc.) coming to the Apps Store.
I would also pay up to $99 for an App. if I thought it was worth it.
March 15th, 2009 at 9:15 am
The platform can’t handle apps that are worth more than $20. Apple has crippled too many things for an application to be worth it. Also, every app I’ve tried, whether it was free or paid for has been chock full of bugs. The development plan for the iPhone is, “Hurry up and get it out the door before someone else thinks of this! We’ll fix the bugs later.” That type of mentality will not be tolerated on an app that is $24.95. Or $39.99. Plus, the market is limited for apps that cost that much. Businesses that early on tried to move to the iPhone are moving back to the Blackberry. Push is HUGE, and push is extremely crippled on the iPhone. I have to use a VPN, and I have to enable it every time I want to pull my email. The CEO and every management type below him realized that this was a pain, ditched their iPhones, and went back to whatever Blackberry was selling. So, who are you going to market these expensive apps to?
March 15th, 2009 at 11:25 am
I’d pay twenty bucks for old school Doom. Seriously.
March 15th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
A word processor. iChat mobile edition. Video conferencing. YouTube posting via iPhone. All of these are great 20+ ideas.
March 17th, 2009 at 10:12 pm
When the heck is Apple going to support Bluetooth A2DP. Bring on the Bluetooth A2DP.