The Emperor’s New Clothes
A lot has been written about the success of the App Store, over 50,000 apps available, 1.5 Billion downloads in its first year, talk about how it’s unprecedented etc. However I think it’s long past time for a reality check here. This is a no holds barred, deadly serious, but sometimes snarky look at the App Store.
I still think the biggest problem is that Apple doesn’t allow trials. People will pay more for quality software if they can make sure that it meets their needs. Right now, everyone pays 99 cents for applications that look promising and then throws most of them away.
I agree with you completely. Now that I have an app on the store, I'm convinced that the "race to the bottom" has less to do with peoples' inherent cheapness and more to do with the fact that they don't want to take a risk on software that may turn out to be low quality or not fit their needs. I can't honestly say I'm all that different from the most app store consumers in that regard.
After the next release, I'm definitely going to spend some time putting together a thorough web tour of the app. I think every iPhone developer would be well advised to do the same.