I have a few questions for iPhone users, if you could answer them I would appreciate it. (Please don't answer if you don't use one)


1) Do you buy iPhone apps?

2) Do you buy them at iTunes exclusively?

3) Have you bought them at an independent website?

4) Have you purchased any that provide you with good useful information? (meaning an app that provides you with practical knowledge about a given subject)

5) Does the price of a app that would provide practical info/knowledge create in your mind a perceived value? (In other words if it's .99c it must suck compared to the $5.99 app)


Thanks in advance for the input.

Unless you're jailbroken, you have to buy apps through the App Store on the phone or iTunes on your computer. There are independent sites with info about apps and links to iTunes, but you can't buy them directly from independent sites.

Pretty much everyone buys an app or two, and for the majority of people you must use the app store, although Google and/or word of mouth is much more likely to locate one for you.

Most of the "knowledge apps" are absolutely terrible frontends to crappy websites and not worth it at all, so their price model is going to vary wildly depending on how common what they offer is, and how profession specific it is. For casual usage, developers tend to target the "why not?" 0.99-3.99$ prices, whereas domain specific stuff like typesetting, engineering, astronomy, maps, calculator bundles, data-mining type stuff usually sits in the more traditional software prices in the $20-50 range.

There is no clear price->value correlation with most of those, for most people I know anything over a dollar or two triggers their more critical evaluation and usually results in them not buying it, but they're looking for throwaway stuff most of the time. For long term usage of something you care about, I can do the ballistics math in my head or a generic calculator easily enough, but the pre-programmed ballistics calculator my friend bought was $20 and he's quite happy with the value. He wouldn't pay $20 for a sex-offender finder though, which is apparently the app du jour.


I'd also highly recommend targeting both Android and OSX/iphone.

Dunno if this is relevant to you Rover, but one of my friends is the owner of a company called Beamberry - basically he wrote a pdf viewer for the blackberry, sold it as an app, and turned it into a company that does apps for all sorts of phones.

He made a point that you can't charge the same as you would for a computer program because your maximum market (say, the number of people with an Iphone) is really a fraction of the size of the number of people who have a PC and most people plan to have a new phone in 2 years compared to people who buy a computer without an expected retirement date.

He found for every time they dropped their price just a dollar they got a 10 to 15% increase in sales.

Don't ask why I remember this crap, I shot a video for him nearly a year ago and while I can't remember when my mom's birthday (Sept 21st ... oops) I vividly remember this nonsense.

1) Do you buy iPhone apps? You can there is more free ones than pay ones.

2) Do you buy them at iTunes exclusively? Yes*

3) Have you bought them at an independent website? Nope

4) Have you purchased any that provide you with good useful information? Bro, there is something like 50,000+ apps of varying nature. "good useful information" is too objective to really say. There is some great things and some dumb ones.

5) Does the price of a app that would provide practical info/knowledge create in your mind a perceived value? Price means nothing, Pandora for example is free and amazing.

I have like 8 pages of apps and 95% are free/pre-packaged ones. Some I use on occasion but I use my free ones the most. If it's over a buck or two I have to really have a use for it, mostly b/c I don't want to invest tons of money in apps when I may jump to the next greatest thing tomorrow. I do have some apps that I paid 5.99 to 9.99 for and those are the ones I use for work and only rarely.

I work for a small company and about 4 months ago, we all were switched to iPhones, mostly for the email capabilities. I used to think they were a waste and a "fad", but now that I have had it for a while, I really love it. The only complaint I have is that the ATT coverage sucks vs Verizon.

The only complaint I have is that the ATT coverage sucks vs Verizon.

Verizon is just the opposite. Pretty safe to say the best network in the country, but they have the worst selection of phones.

I have no end of trouble with AT&T's data service. Often, I'll have five bars of signal and 3G, but won't be able to load any websites or send even text-only emails. Infuriating.

AT&T data services has been decent inside the city here, but once you get out of the immediate metroplex it drops to nothing for a hundred miles in some directions. I've been growing increasingly dissatisfied with them, not least of which because they can't stop fucking up my bill. I've only been a customer for 6 years, is it really that hard to take my money?

I have no end of trouble with AT&T's data service. Often, I'll have five bars of signal and 3G, but won't be able to load any websites or send even text-only emails. Infuriating.

How old is your SIM card? Typically thats a sign of your SIM card and our switch aren't friends. Get your SIM card changed (free at a corporate store) and SHOULD, fix your problem.

It's only a few months old (less than 6).

I have the same frustrating problems more often than not I find turning 3g off fixes me which sucks b/c then I use slow ass edge but at least things don't hang up or get dropped. It only happens in the fringe areas though, in the cities I don't have signal problems. Sometimes I can reboot my phone and the problems go away, I really wish someone other than AT&T would carry the iphone I'd switch in a heartbeat.

I use PCCW (http://www.pccw.com/eng/) or Three (http://www.three.com.hk) in Hong Kong and have fantastic service, including on the MTR (http://www.mtr.com.hk) subway system. There is always four bars and service no matter what direction I go.

AT&T, on the other hand, performed terribly in New York. There is no agreement with MTA to allow service to work in the subway system, signal is lost frequently and quite intermittent. Crossing a block across the street will cause a complete disruption of a four-bar signal. I'm not an RF engineer, but it doesn't take long to realise there is something wrong with the picture when Hong Kong coupled with its tall mountains and rugged landscape with nearly the same amount of land space as New York is unable to at least match a modicum of what Hong Kong has been able to achieve.

Even China's sole 3G UMTS provider (yes, they have an official license to run real W-CDMA compatible with 3G phones) China Unicom (http://www.chinaunicom.com.hk) provided me flawless service.

Taiwan's (Republic of China) Far EasTone (http://www.fetnet.com.tw) performs admirably and flawlessly, including within the MRT subway system.

(My iPhone 3GS is legally unlocked and purchased direct from Apple Hong Kong (http://store.apple.com/hk) as it is an offence to sell a mobile phone set tied to a subsidy carrier lock.)