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Pricing And Cat Herding

Loved reading this thoughtful post on right-pricing the iApp. The parable the prefaces that post is priceless. Among a bunch of other things, I learned the word abandonware. Andy Finnell makes his case against $0.99 iApp thusly :
There will be an iPhone app bust. The current prices simply aren’t sustainable. Either developers will crash out of the market when they discover they can’t make a living off their current prices, or the gold rush developers will lose interest and leave when they realize they can’t make a quick buck off the store. The developers left standing will be the ones who set reasonable prices for their applications.

I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is. I currently have an iPhone app in development, and when it comes out, I will price it $9.99 or higher.
Knowing nothing about the marketplace or the potential pool of iApp customers, I am wondering if there may not be a spot for an officially appointed or better yet, a self-styled evaluator and cat-herder of iApps who could cause the most promising apps to bubble up to the top. This would separate signal from noise well enough for the best of breed apps to make it even at $0.99 a pop.

Either that or a wsiwyg app builder that allows the most technology challenged among iPhone users to turn out their own apps - there has got to be money made from creating such an editor. Short of those options, it would be hard for the Little Timmys of the world to retire on the proceeds from their iApps.
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