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Apple today followed through with plans to expand its lower pricing tier options for the App Store to Canada and New Zealand. Introduced in 2014, alternate pricing tiers A and B allow developers to charge lower prices in countries like China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, Turkey, and Australia.
With the new pricing tiers, apps in Canada and New Zealand can be priced as low as $0.99 (CAD and NZD). Apple first announced upcoming Alternate Tier A and Tier B pricing options for Canada and New Zealand just over a week ago, when it raised App Store prices in the two countries due to exchange rate fluctuations.
On January 18, the Tier 1 minimum App Store price was raised to $1.39 CAD in Canada and $1.49 NZD in New Zealand. For reference, Tier 1 pricing in the United States is set at $0.99, meaning apps and in-app purchases priced at $0.99 in the U.S. cost $1.39 in Canada and $1.49 in New Zealand. With alternate pricing tiers, developers will now be able to charge $0.99 in the United States while charging a lower price in Canada, New Zealand, and the other countries listed above.
Lower price tiers, Alternate Tier A and Alternate Tier B, now let you offer paid apps and In-App Purchases at $0.99 (CAD) and $0.99 (NZD). Existing apps that already use these price tiers have been automatically updated.
App Store pricing was also raised in Israel, Mexico, Russia, Singapore, and South Africa, with several of those countries already able to take advantage of lower Tier A and Tier B pricing.
Top Rated Comments
Prices of everything is going up here due to our dollar being bad but our salaries aren't changing. That means more money being wasted for the same things we needed before (not just apps, food!)
When our dollar finally goes back to par, we all know damn well the prices of stuff isn't coming back down with it.
Fantastic move by Apple
High earning iPhone users save a whole 40 cents, while the developer takes a 29% pay cut or worse. I'm sure they can't wait to explain that to their families.Hopefully developers follow suit
In the history of software development, can anybody point to any store or mass method of software distribution that has been as lucrative as the App Store? Or any other system that has seen such a low percent of piracy compared to such high sales?
I wonder if this new generation of developer, the iOS developer, has seen a few mobile developers strike it rich, and now have become a tiny bit entitled to this dream of App Store riches. When the truth has always been that you don't get rich with apps that don't become crazy popular (indeed throughout most of software development history even that wasn't enough to ensure significant profits).
If a developer doesn't want to sell an app for .99 USD, or for .99 CAD/AUD/etc, they are free to charge (roughly) whatever they want for it. The truth is that *way* more money is made (overall) when software is priced below the magic 'no-brainer' threshold for consumers. Absolutely this comes with its own issues, but the proof is in the billions and billions of dollars worth of cheques that have been printed for iOS developers.
People have no problem spending $7+ on frappe latte mocha chai tea crap but can't try an app for $1.39?
That reminds me of a Weird Al song about a bad custom ringtone that he bought. "I sure don't need it, and I probably should delete it, but for me that would be crossing the line... cause I hate to waste a buck ninety nine!"