Dear Steve, From iPhone Developer

The App Store has been perceived as quite successful with over 10,000 applications ready for download this goes to show how much people have taken to it.

The problem with it though is the proliferation of free and 99 cent apps. What’s wrong with that? For the consumer, nothing really but in a way it prevents the development of better apps. The “cheap” apps are the ones that are prominently featured by Apple thus get more attention which translates to more downloads.

In order to keep afloat developers focus on developing these apps rather than look into doing more complicated albeit more useful apps. Of course the better the application the more time you need to develop it and the cost goes upwards as well.

If the developers of these more complicated apps don’t get prominent space then it will take a lot longer for them to get their investment back. In this economic climate we’re in, that’s a big risk.

That’s what Craig Hockenberry writes about. He narrates their experience at Icon Factory and how they shelved some great ideas to focus on 99 cent apps just to keep afloat. Here’s an excerpt of his letter.

I’ve been thinking about what’s causing this rush to the 99¢ price point. From what I can tell, it’s because people are buying our products sight unseen. I see customers complaining about how “expensive” a $4.99 app is and that it should cost less. (Do they do the same thing when they walk into Starbucks?) The only justification I can find for these attitudes is that you only have a screenshot to evaluate the quality of a product. A buck is easy to waste on an app that looks great in iTunes but works poorly once you install it.

Our products are a joy to use: as you well know, customers are willing to pay a premium for a quality products. This quality comes at a cost—which we’re willing to incur. The issue is then getting people to see that our $2.99 product really is worth three times the price of a 99¢ piece of crapware.

Read the whole letter here.

So Apple, what can we do about this? I’d really like to see demos become available and prominent space for these more expensive but better apps should be provided.