WWDC08 Survey: 70% of Apps May Be Free

by Eric March on June 11, 2008 at 1:00 pm

For those of you who may have been worried that the majority of applications that will be released through the App Store would send your wallet screaming in terror, a straw poll taken at the WWDC suggests that things may be otherwise.

According to the informal poll, as much as 70% of the apps that are slated for distribution through the App Store may be released free of charge. This makes a great deal of sense for network-based apps such as eBay’s Auction, or social networking applications, since most of them already have or will have alternate revenue streams to keep them afloat. However, 70% is still a surprisingly high number, and will certainly cover a lot more than just network-based applications.

Even more encouraging was that the average planned price for pay apps according to the poll weighed in at a positively anemic $2.29, with some (such as the high end commercial apps from Sega, Pangea, and others) reaching $10, but most staying at or below $3. It’s pretty clear that the high profit margin developers receive on App Store release, the wide distribution profile, and the high visibility and ease of reaching their client base, has had a dramatic effect on pricing. Compare, for example, pricing for Palm or Windows Mobile applications, which often run between $10 and $40, with a small percentage either higher or lower. This is largely due to the fragmented distribution model for these applications, which can be distributed through independent channels or centralized repositories like Pocket Gear, PDA Street, or Handango, where only a small percentage of the sale price goes to the developers.

The survey went on to reveal that about half of the attendees to WWDC08 were considered “enterprise-level”, which was broken down into 15% of them working on location-based services, 10% entertainment-oriented, 10% games, and 15% enterprise applications. Furthermore, as much as 70% of the apps that are bound for the iPhone will not be ported to rival platforms, largely due to the difficulty in doing so on platforms that do not share the iPhone’s feature set. For more details on the survey, check out Apple Insider’s report.

(via Apple Insider)

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