Whatley Wednesday - Should Gravity come down?

Jan Ole Suhr wrote:You can of course transfer a license for free. Just send me the new IMEI and that's it.

ole at mobileways.de

My sincere apologies. When I visited your website to buy the Gravity application & saw that it was tied to IMEI i freaked out cause I thought that I'm about to change my phone in a few months so I will be throwing away money.
(I think it should be clearly mentioned on the website that the application can be shifted to future phones..Or maybe I missed it-sorry!)

I'd be happy to buy 2 copies of Gravity if I was assured I could shift them to my new phones.. As I said before, I change phones frequently.

Now that I have that assurance I think the price is perfect.

I want to thank you Jan Ole Suhr for finally developing the most beautiful & easy to use S60 application I have ever seen! I'm going to buy asap.

Overpriced ?, no, right lets see what substance less vitriol James comes out with NEXT Wednesday!

By the way, no matter what I thought about the price of Gravity initially, I have to say that this article on AllAboutSymbian was a complete disappointment.

If you guys had to talk about the high prices of S60 applications then the TITLE should not have been targeted at Gravity.

There are MANY other applications even more expensive.

The TITLE of this article is a direct attack on a single developer which will surely bring negative PR to it.

You guys could have named the article 'S60 apps - high prices' or whatever... But naming one app in the title is just trying to bring negative attention to it.

I expect better from AllAboutSymbian next time. Don't turn into a screaming tabloid with flashy titles.

nechbi wrote:In the context of price, I think that a game is naturally more complex in design and should be priced accordingly. The latest N-Gage Game - The Prince of Persia - sells for �8, is a Twitter App (at 60p less) in the same league? Simple answer - No.

I find this particularly interesting. I'm going to get a lot more use out of Twitter than I will out of any one N-Gage game and would therefore value it more highly. Consequently willing to pay more.

I take you point on a per hour basis an N-Gage is more valuable, but it has a limited shelf life.

Personally I put most games into the disposable content category. On the iPhone App Stores games are some of the worst offenders in the race to zero cost software.

Not picking on you nechbi (always value your comments) - I just think this is a great illustration of how different people perceive value.

Unregistered wrote:The TITLE of this article is a direct attack on a single developer which will surely bring negative PR to it.

You guys could have named the article 'S60 apps - high prices' or whatever... But naming one app in the title is just trying to bring negative attention to it.

I expect better from AllAboutSymbian next time. Don't turn into a screaming tabloid with flashy titles.

That's a valid comment and as the editor I carry ultimate responsibility for this. Thanks for taking the time to make this comment. I'll certainly keep it in mind in the future.

I would say it certainly wasn't the intention to be negative about any one application. I would also hope that all the positive comments on value (including my own) would help drive extra sales.

Joseph G wrote:
1. How come Gravity is the only native S60 twitter client? The iphone has so many clients I can't count them all. For S60, we have a couple of java apps and some IM programs with Twitter functionality tacked on.
1. $10 US is way too much, in my mind, for this application when comparable apps on the iPhone only cost $3 or less.

I posted this link yesterday but I'll post it again. It's a chart comparing features of the various iPhone Twitter applications. http://gigapple.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/twitter-table.png From that chart, only two or three (maybe even just one or two) of the available applications are really comparable to Gravity, and one of those sells for $9.99. (I grant that the most feature-rich one, Tweetie, costs only $3.99 as someone noted earlier in this thread.)

There's a whiskey distiller from the USA that has used the slogan "All Goods Worth Price Charged". If Gravity isn't worth $10, then few will buy it, and it will either sell for less or add more features, or wither away. I personally think it will be a success at $10. It's a very nice application. Kudos to Jan.

There's a beta of Twittix out, by the way... http://www.mojosmobile.com/studios/downloads/Twittix_0_90.sis

Gravity is much nicer. I'll gladly pay for it when it gets default networks destination or it's out on the Ovi Store and I can buy it with network billing.

Is it possible to tie an application to the sim and not imei? that way you can have gravity on 2-3 devices and when your sim is out, the app is locked, pop it back in and off you go.

Jan Ole, take heart.

GBP12 for a PDF? fivesimplesteps.co.uk
GBP15 for sync software? A year?? spanningsync.com

Frankly the price seems good to me.

Pundits can say whatever they like. But you are the only person who has actually made something.

It's beautiful and you can charge whatever you want 😊

James
tripleodeon.com

I've been using the trial version for a couple of days now, and really like it.

I saw the title of James' piece and thought to myself, "Oh god, it must be going to cost �20, or something?"

As it turns out, it's �7 ish. Gravity is easily worth this, imo - the interface is superb, and in the time I've been using it I've found it hard to fault. iPhone twitter clients cost less? Interesting, but I have an N82, not an iPhone.

One of my favourite articles around the science of pricing software correctly is Joel Spolsky's "Camels and Rubber Duckies": http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckies.html

Read also Craig Hockenberry's "Dear Steve" letter titled "Ringtone apps": http://furbo.org/2008/12/09/ring-tone-apps/

Rafe wrote:But clearly there is a discussion to be had here. Application stores are forcing prices down and that creates a perception problem.

I suspect the sub $5 app price is not going to be sustainable, long term, for some developers and certain apps. Even with app stores getting the number of sales that supports this is going to be difficult. Yes some software can, but not all.

The ringtone and Java games market are sub $5 too and those markets haven been around for a long time. This is going to be a market of one-hit wonders, a single app makes either almost no money at all, or lots and lots of it, $100.000+, maybe even $1.000.000+ if all those million Nokia's out there have Ovi Store on board. And because this is the mass market, mass market tactics are the rules to play by.

This issue has come up in the iPhone App Store and Android Marketplace. The danger with the race to zero for software is that it kills off complex apps (no point investing in them as returns are smaller than basic apps). This could be potentially very damaging to a platform ecosystem.

Why? If the cheap and cheerful apps generate enough money for their developers, what would be the problem?

There is a need to differentiate between disposable apps and productivity / functionality adding applications. This is difficult in current app stores. It'll be interesting to see what Ovi Store's SoLo brings to the table. Yes I do think there is a threshold past which people wont pay, but I think this varies depending on the type of application / game. Arguably also from user to user (generally I'm less willing to pay high prices for games). The issue is how to communicate this different value to end users?

So yes sub $5 for disposable apps (ones you might use for a week or two), but not for long term function adding apps (which you use for the life time of your phone). Even this two tier definition is an over-simplification.

We now know of two working business models for selling mobile apps: the traditional PDA type of app with demo's, good user support and paid upgrades, and the new one-dollar cheap and cheerful one. The problem at the moment is that putting these two very different kind of apps in a single shop is a problem for the expensive ones. But there should be no reason to think one business model is better than the other.

The mass market solution to such a situation is to segmentise. Create a couple of stores, one for the cheap and cheerful apps, one for the traditional more expensive PDA apps. Very cheap phones do not get the expensive apps-store and the high-end business models do not get the cheap apps-Store, or only indirectly (to add some discretion). Maybe a special Games store with the more expensive games.

Hmm not expressed as well I would like, will revisit this later. Economic theory could shed some interesting light on this. Price optimisation requires a bit of though, but its also certainly possible. i.e. cut app cost = more sales, but only cost such that extra sales gains more revenue than price cost costs. I suspect Gravity has it about right in this instance.

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I'm also aware that this is a controversial topic and some may think AAS are doing a disservice to developers but writing about this topics, and that that we should do more to support developers. However while we are a 'community' site in one sense we also strive to be as professional as possible. As such we will cover hot topics and comment from all angles. Many voices give the broadest view. We're happy to hear from anyone who wants to express an opinion.

JoelOnSoftware has a nice article on software pricing http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckies.html

N/A wrote:
Read also Craig Hockenberry's "Dear Steve" letter titled "Ringtone apps": http://furbo.org/2008/12/09/ring-tone-apps/

Informative read. Thanks.

Joseph G wrote:1. How come Gravity is the only native S60 twitter client? The iphone has so many clients I can't count them all. For S60, we have a couple of java apps and some IM programs with Twitter functionality tacked on.

Joseph G wrote:Nokia really should be spending less time tinkering with Ovi and concentrate on helping make app development easy and cheaper for their platform. The lack of quality applications (still waiting on Facebook... will it cost us $20 when it finally does come out?) and the high price of those that do exist are making me seriously reconsider whether I want to stick with Nokia phones in the future.

Apparently, Nokia is making moves to make development easier (sorry i don't have any specific URI's to back this up, but various comments, Tweets, Jaiku's etc that i have seen over the last few months have caused this idea in my head).
Also, many people are not aware of PyS60, and it's RAD and prototyping capabilities.
If you have not already done so, download WordMobi to see an example of what can be achieved with PyS60

I'll chime in here, too.

Personally, I think James has an excellent point: in comparison with other platforms (iPhone, WinMo, Android, etc), Gravity is definitely overpriced.

However, how many of Gravity's potential customers have that perspective? How many of us own both an iPhone and an S60, or an S60 and a WinMo device? Probably a small portion. Thus, you can't really take the price of apps on these other platforms into account, as it's not really relative to the buying decision.

If I have an S60-powered smartphone (which I do, obviously), and I'm wanting to use it with Twitter, I currently have a limited number of options:

1. mobile web - surely there are better options here than others (Dabr.co.uk, for example), but it's still a web app, with limited features (no multiple accounts, no autorefresh, takes up my browser (since we don't really have full tab support yet), etc.

2. SMS - again, severely limited

3. Various java apps - I've personally tried jibjib, twim, and twibble, and they all suck in terms of UI and feature-set compared to Gravity

4. Twittix just launched yesterday, and duplicates many of the features of gravity, priced at EUR4.95

5. Gravity, priced at EUR7.25

Sure, it's EUR3 more than its closest competition, but Gravity, currently, is the only way that I can manage my 2 twitter accounts (personal and Symbian-Guru), as well as fully interact and use Twitter, with saved searches and whatnot.

As an S60 user, these 5 are my only options, and frankly, Gravity currently solves all of needs, whereas none of the other options do. Thus, I'm easily willing to shell out EUR725 for a copy (disclaimer: I'm in the beta, and haven't been asked to pay, but sent @janole a donation of EUR725, simply because it has added enough value), as it adds value to my phone and enables me to use my phone for even further productivity than it previously did.

Sure, apps in the S60 world are more expensive than other platforms, that's common knowledge. Sure, when the Ovi Store launches, most developers (specifically the 'independent' ones such as mobileways.de) will likely be able to drop their prices due to the increased number of licenses sold.

However, it's important to keep things in perspective. You can't really say that the OSX version of MS Office is overpriced compared to the Windows version of MS Office, because the Windows version clearly isn't an option for the OSX user (ignoring the possibility of dual-booting for the purposes of this comparison). The price of a competing product is irrelevant if that product clearly isn't an option for the potential customer.

It'd be like telling me that Verizon's touchscreen smartphone is cheaper than AT&T's, and thus AT&T has overpriced theirs. If I'm on an AT&T contract, then Verizon's prices are completely irrelevant to me.

Being natuarally curious (and a bit of a tightwad), i played with various countries to see if I could buy it cheaper via another currency.

The only one that remains constant is in US dollars, and that is $9.95, all the others are changing, so that seems fair then 😉

Getting back to Whatleydude's point (i think), it looks like Mobileways.de picked a price that *he* thought was appropriate and went for it.
As i see things, buying applications for S60 is *still* a "power-user" activity, and S60 Power-users are used to 20-50€/�/$/monetry-unit prices for applications, so something under $10 currently looks like a bargin, and, Yes, compared to iPhone and Android prices, Gravity might seem high priced currently.
Heck, even installing free apps or upgrading the firmware on your S60 phone seems to be a power-user activity, for the amount of people that do it (lets not even get started on the crippled Operator versions of firmware)

Oh, and in case anyone has missed it, there is a rather good counter argument on MobileIndustryReview as well 😉

Sorry in advance if this is a bit long and rambling. I'd considered a separate blog. There is a point if you move on.

I played about with "high - tech" phones such as the Sony K750i and a Motorola Windows Mobile thingy, but never really thought I was getting much out of my phone or subscription. I'd always loved gadgets though. Then one day in a well known 'gadget' magazine my eyes glanced across at the N95. It was lust at first sight. I say lust because I'd never met this beauty just seen it in a gadget porn magazine.

So I bought it. It was expensive.

I immediatley decided that I should maximise my investment and searched blogs, websites etc for what I could do with it. It was brilliant, I discovered applications, people, communities and interests that I hadn't had before. I started a blog because of it, joined forums because of it, Flickr, Jaiku, Twitter and tons of other things. I 'met' (in the virtual sense) people in this post such as Whatleydude and Ricky Cadden (and at this point I should thank munkimatt and gerrymoth my early contacts on forums and Jaiku)

Anyway I'm rambling...

It was great, I learnt a lot, made friends and tried a number of things, but it took effort. Lots of it.

Funnily enough many people I knew & met had N95s. Did they use its email capabilities? Its GPS? Photo stuff? not really. Did they supplement these with other supporting apps? No

When the accelerometer was revealed did everyone rush out to try it. Hell no. In fact did people even update the firmware?

No No No (etc) and No. All the bloggers, mobile enthusiasts and nokia staff did (and a few people like me) did, but your average punter was content in telling people they had the cutting edge phone without using it. Probably they would upgrade to the next big thing because they were gullible 'normobs'

Then along came the iPhone.

Being an educated guy (even if I am a normob) I looked at the spec and the limitations and realised that the N95 was probably better (certainly better when it came to photos, mms and things) than the iPhone. But something began to happen

I knew people that had bought the iPhone 3g, and unlike my N95 colleagues they seemed to be finding things every day. Some bought and some free, but almost everyday. None of my N95 user freinds did this, no matter what I showed them. I started to like the look of the iPhone.

In short (for the first time this post) I bought an iPhone. I pledged that it would be used alongside the Nokia but it quickly became my only phone.

Why?

Not because of the UI (though it is brilliant) but because of the store.

To the post and comments itself.

Should Gravity Come Down? - Yes, but it needs a real market place so that a consumer can make the choice and the oppourtunity to buy is increased.

Does another OS make a difference? - Yes. I changed, many others are doing so. The growth and continued growth of free and priced applications just makes it great.

There is lots of other things that I wanted to say, but I'm tired and rambling. Simply though a store and simple interface would do Nokia wonders. I have a number of Twitter apps to look at. Are they as good as Gravity? Who cares. Competition will make an app available and it might be free. The fact that someone has reported that an iPhone app may only be used on average of an hour is a testement to choice and variety, not failure. If Nokia or Android adopts a good store, Bingo. I'd for one would like (a) freedom (b) a decent camera (c) Video and (d) MMS again. The easy ability to see user views and opinions is excellent, but I still go to a blog to see what is what.

I could go back to Nokia, but ease and choice more than anything so I'll await a store with choice from them, Android or Windows.

That is the view from a Normob. I know I've been taking the p##s of those who bandy the words about (such as Whatley) but I take no offence. I know, they know and you know that normobs are what the market needs. Take Spinvox for instance. Much better than Apples Visual Voice and a genius idea. Without ease of use it would be nowt and JW knows that and it drives him, hence this excellent post

Rant over. Love to the bloggers, dudes, gurus etc that make my online life, explorations and general ranting such fun. And best wishes to Gravity.

waveydavey001 wrote:The fact that someone has reported that an iPhone app may only be used on average of an hour is a testement to choice and variety, not failure.

I think perhaps it's more a testament to very high proportion of geegaws or "ringtone apps" to office suites and the like available in the iPhone App Store.

It might be the best Twitter client for S60 devices but... like someone said, do we really NEED to spend 7� on this?? Come on, we all have web access via pc or fring, and we're able for the same things.

Carlos Silva
Nokia-Blog.net
s60blog.com

Nokia Blog wrote:It might be the best Twitter client for S60 devices but... like someone said, do we really NEED to spend 7� on this?? Come on, we all have web access via pc or fring, and we're able for the same things.

If you use this application, 7 days a week for, e.g., one year, maybe several times a day, then 7� is not very much to ask for, I'd say.

This article is utter rubbish (as are all James Whattley diatribes in my opinion) and I'm sorry that AAS saw fit to give it page space.

The only person who has the right to determine the price of a piece of software is the author and he has made a trial version available to allow potential customers to decide whether the software is worth the price.

If consumers think the price is too high they can exercise their right not to buy it but indulging in this sort of "it aught to be cheaper" twoddle is frankly insulting to the author.

It doesn't matter what price level the author chooses there will always be people who will shout that it's too expensive.

Its now been five days since Gravity went on sale, and Jan Ole Suhr is still working on it, releasing new updates, improving it, adding additional features, listening to users requests, and implementing them. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize, that Gravity, is well worth its asking price, PERIOD..!!

Give the sole developer, Jan Ole Suhr credit where its due.!

Thats all Im saying on the subject.

xerxes wrote:This article is utter rubbish (as are all James Whattley diatribes in my opinion) and I'm sorry that AAS saw fit to give it page space.

The only person who has the right to determine the price of a piece of software is the author and he has made a trial version available to allow potential customers to decide whether the software is worth the price.

If consumers think the price is too high they can exercise their right not to buy it but indulging in this sort of "it aught to be cheaper" twoddle is frankly insulting to the author.

It doesn't matter what price level the author chooses there will always be people who will shout that it's too expensive.

On the whole, i agree with this, Oh and you spelled his name wrong, he wont like that 😉

xerxes wrote:This article is utter rubbish (as are all James Whattley diatribes in my opinion) and I'm sorry that AAS saw fit to give it page space.

The only person who has the right to determine the price of a piece of software is the author and he has made a trial version available to allow potential customers to decide whether the software is worth the price.

If consumers think the price is too high they can exercise their right not to buy it but indulging in this sort of "it aught to be cheaper" twoddle is frankly insulting to the author.

It doesn't matter what price level the author chooses there will always be people who will shout that it's too expensive.

Hi Xerxes,

Thanks for the *constructive* feedback and criticism.

FYI, I have a fully paid up version of Gravity running on my N95 8GB. As I said in the original piece (that I'm not sure you read, given the way you so spectacularly missed the point), I think Gravity is *the best* S60 app for Twitter to date.

I'm sorry to hear you have such a low opinion of my own work by the way, but it does give me some happiness knowing that you've read them all.

I mean, after all - surely if you didn't like them - you wouldn't read them, right?

😉

Cheers,

James

James Pearce wrote:
Regardless, this has generated huge PR for them. The only thing worse than being talked about is... etc etc....

Yup. EXACTLY.

Epic Fail on some parts on this point huh?

😉

JayTay wrote:I'd like to know what James thinks of the price of other Symbian pay-for apps. Are they all over-priced too?

Hey JayTay,

I'd say so, yes. But again, only due to the reasons that I stated in the piece. Other app stores released on other handsets demonstrating the [lower] price threshold that exists in the marketplace today.

As I said:

"A year ago, �7.25 would�ve been fine. No doubt it would have been seen as a bargain in fact."

And again - give it 6wks and we'll see if I'm right re: the Ovi Store

Thanks for commenting 😊

Rafe wrote:That's what I have become accustomed to in the Symbian world...

My point exactly.

Jan Ole Suhr wrote:You can of course transfer a license for free. Just send me the new IMEI and that's it.
I might be having a word or two about this "top story", but right now feeling just far too bitter and sad about it. Not the right time to comment.
ole at mobileways.de
P.S.: you don't need to say "they" or "them" 'cause mobileways is just me 😊

Hey man,

I tried @-ing you on Twitter a few times in the week but you did not respond.

The 'Top Story' that you refer to (and have referred to since) is simply an opinion piece re: the price of your application.

It is by no way meant as an insult to you personally or in fact the quality of your application.
Consider it more of a commentary on how much the market has changed so much over the past 18mths since the advent of (competitive) app stores.

Also, for the record, I had no idea it was just one person behind this app - an amazing feat if you ask me and something you should be congratulated for.
I'd like to think that this piece, along with the masses of ongoing conversation on and off Twitter has given more power to your elbow in regards to your programming skills.

Rafe has my contact details. I'd love to chat sometime about some of these thoughts in more detail be it over email or IM or whatever. I'm sorry you felt sad and bitter, that was not my intention at all. Anyone that knows me will tell you that that really isn't my bag at all.

I think you've done an awesome job.

Cheers,

James.

Unregistered wrote:I heard that Spinvox is just a call centre with indians typing out the voicemails? Not speech recognition? Is it true?

Just so no one thinks I'm not shirking my duties, let me say that there is no truth in that whatsoever.

Aside from the scalability issues that having 'Call Centres in India' presents on the kind of carrier-grade scale that SpinVox operates in, there's also the fact that I've actually been to our Advanced Speech Group House setup in Cambridge, England where I've seen some of the *awesome* technologies that go into converting voice into text every day.

Cheers,

James

PS - 'Unregistered' - is that your name on all sites? I think I've seen you before.

MWEB wrote:Overpriced ?, no, right lets see what substanceless vitriol James comes out with NEXT Wednesday!

Again, yet another comment built on constructive criticism.

Really, I expect more from the AAS readership.

*sigh*