Happy Birthday, App Store: App Developers Celebrate with Free Content

It’s hard to believe that Apple’s widely popular app store is five years old today. They grow up so fast. To celebrate the milestone, Apple has released five apps and five games for free, although other apps are reportedly also free for a limited time without quite as much fan fare. As one source stated, today would be a good day to go see if the price of an app you’ve been needing just happens to cost a lot less. The announced apps and games include Barefoot World Atlas, Day One, How to Cook Everything, Over, and Traktor DJ. The games are Badland, Infinity Blade II, Tiny Wings, Where’s My Water? and Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP. Since these prices are set by the app developers and not by Apple, there is no official announcement as to how long these apps will be available for free, as well whether or not the price drop—a nearly $20 discount for Traktor DJ—was intentional for the milestone. However, ABC News did speak with the head of one app developer, who confirmed that the promotional price is a nod to the app store’s birthday: “Barefoot World Atlas went free this morning and will remain so all this week to help celebrate five years of the App Store,” said TouchPress CEO Max Whitby. “Today’s promotion is another step down the road to help spread the word [about our apps].” Since the developers are not being compensated by Apple for their decision to reduce the price of their product, what would prompt them to make this offer? First, over the course of the app store’s five-year run, over $10 billion has been paid to its app developers. Also, as authors and publishers have discovered with ebooks, a short run at a drastic discount might mean a small loss of potential revenue, but it can be made up for in terms of boosting rankings and discovery due to increased downloads. Happy Birthday, App Store: App Developers Celebrate with Free Content is a post from: E-Reader News

URL: http://goodereader.com/blog/tablet-slates/happy-birthday-app-store-app-developers-celebrate-with-free-content/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=happy-birthday-app-store-app-developers-celebrate-with-free-content