Mac App Store - Developers underpricing again

> As for development time and cost, the group seemed pleased. The developers noted that Apple has made it easy to re-use code for a native Mac app. The panel reported that port time was less than four weeks, and that adjustments like the keyboard and HD support took most of that time. Additionally, the developers had created high-resolution graphics for the iOS apps, and were able to make them work with their Mac counterparts with minimal fuss. As Markus points out, the quick development turnaround contributed significantly to the 1:1 pricing model. I’m glad that porting iOS apps over to the Mac seems to be relatively easy for many developers, but I think that the iOS development community is continuing to sell itself short with this race to 99 cents. And that attitude is going to force good Mac Developers into a fight for perceived value in their apps as the Mac App Store gets flooded with low-cost iOS ports.

I’m completely convinced that most iOS apps are underpriced out of the mistaken belief that people won’t pay more than a dollar for anything. Several developers have proven that wrong. (Take a look at the Highest Grossing top apps on the iPad, and you’ll see what I mean.)

It’s all about perception. People pay $3 or more for their morning coffee drinks. The message you send to people when you sell your app for 99 cents is that your app is worth less than a coffee. If you tell people that, they’ll believe it.

Apple keeps trying to set expectations with its own apps in these stores. With the iWork apps on the iPad, they charge $10 each. For the Mac App Store, they seem to be charging just under what the retail box copy set would cost. Some developers have gotten the message, and iPad apps are generally a bit more expensive as a result. But for the most part, everyone looks at Angry Birds and assumes that all that success was due to price.

I guarantee if Angry Birds had been $3 instead of $1, it would have sold nearly as many copies. Because it’s a great game, and in the end, people pay for great products, and they tell their friends. Who better to turn to than Apple for that lesson?

If you apply a little logic, you immediately see that the 99-cent price of Angry Birds must have had little or nothing to do with its success, since there are literally hundreds of thousands of other 99-cent apps that didn’t sell one one thousandth as many copies.

Yet ironically, App Store Developers keep running to the bargain basement in hopes of striking it rich with volume. Well, if every developer does that, genius, how’s your 99-cent app going to stand out from all the others?

Like PC manufacturers making Windows boxes in the early 2000s, iOS developers are going to learn the hard way that only one company benefits from a price war. (Microsoft, in the PC case, Apple this time with iOS.)

I’m not saying you can charge $70 for an iOS fart app. I’m just saying that most apps are certainly worth more than 99 cents. Angry Birds would probably not have succeeded to this degree if it had been $30. But $5? Who knows? I would have paid it.

Mac Apps, even more so than iPad apps, should be priced higher than their iPhone/iPod Touch equivalents. Because they shouldn’t be equivalents. It’s fine to make a Mac version of your iPhone app; just make sure you take advantage of all the benefits of being on a full desktop OS while you’re at it. Don’t do a lazy port; add value to the app, and you won’t have to charge the same as you do on the iPhone.