The Apple rumor mill is grinding again. It is being said in certain quarters that as the iPhone gets an upgraded operating system next week, the Apple App Store will get a Premium Section.

It is also being said that a lot of any new (higher priced) Premium section will be about games. Much was made of the opportunities for game software on the iPhone / iPod Touch platforms at the South By Southwest (SXSW) gathering in Austin over the past several days. This chatter has included at least one developer who said he had given up on writing games for the Mac and was concentrating on games for the iPhone. His incentive? Just that cool $1.5 million in revenue. According to a Wired article, the items in this special section would likely cost over $20.

Developers of apps that would sell in that price range, whether games or other sorts of apps, would probably be happier if their offerings were separated a bit from all of the free and 99 cent apps, which now number in the mega-thousands. Presumably, these applications would cost much more to develop, and their developers would expect every advantage in trying to get a return on their investment.

Such a Premium section would also give business developers a place to showcase more complex products. The App Store has already proven, in spades, that iPhone and Touch users want more capabilities for their devices. In addition, with the new Blackberry App World opening later this month, a showcase for more complex business apps inside the normal App Store might give developers more incentive to write such software for the iPhone.

Looked at logically, there is no reason that the Blackberry line has to be the mobile business platform of choice. The mobile Apple platforms are every but as capable as the RIM products. All that is needed is an upgraded set of business applications that will run on the iPhone and Touch. If business developers could see a clear path to recouping costs and making a profit on the development of complex business apps, Apple could start to give RIM some real competition.

For both recreational and business users, the addition of a Premium section to the Apple App Store makes sense. It is difficult to stand out in a crowd of many thousands of applications. Given better exposure in a special section of their own, premium applications could lure more developers of quality applications to the Apple mobile platforms. That could mean that all of us could have more fun, and handle business better, on the platform that we have grown to love.

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Entry was posted on Monday, March 16th, 2009 at 3:11 pm under Commercial Software, Games, Rumor, iPhone, iPod Touch.  Print This Post

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