H”A”ppy Store

Addiction comes in a few forms, some decide that spending a little time playing a game such as World of Warcraft for a few hours a week turns into a couple of hours a day. Some addictions are worse off like alcohol consumption or smoking cigarette’s. To me what hit me hard was being addicted to a substance called the “App Store”.

The App Store was introduced by Apple on July 10th, 2008 and has had over 1 billion apps sold by today’s date. Most people use either the Iphone or the Itouch and has felt the obsession caused by this store. Easily you can change the way you use the device by adding games, maps, music, video, and many other kinds of applications that enhance our use for us. But has this caused some of us to become addicted and become too focused on this device? I believe so.

What appealed to most people about the app store was the price ranges, like Apple’s own Itunes store, consumers had a choice or either purchasing songs by themselves for a small fee for each song (usually 99 cents each) or opt for the entire CD for a marginal discount. The app store doesn’t exactly work in that fashion but it does allow developers to bring out programs such as Toy Bot Dairies as a small series at a smaller discount instead of paying for a larger game costing triple the amount. Some like that idea while some desire to get everything at once.

The app store allows you to purchase over 25,000 different applications that are categorized by type. Wish for an app that gives you a better web browser? (btw no flash as of yet) Or rather purchase a app that let’s you type out blogs? (Like the one I’m using now) Then by all means you can purchase and use them. Prices are organized by the developers but range from being free to most reaching no higher than $10 (There are a few that reach above the threshold).

Issues with this is that majority of the apps are not too expensive which causes most people to blindly purchase apps but there is a catch. Many of the apps that are purchased are deleted off the device moments after being used, why is that? Why would someone just toss something away they just purchased? The reason is quality. Quality is not a word used too often when referring to apps. Anyone with a basic understanding of programming can bring out an app and charge whichever price they wish. Using this method the majority of the apps at the store are just plain bad and allows people to lose out of their hard earned money. Some consumers understand that the first iteration of the application might not go as smooth as people might have thought so they wait for updates from the developers. If the developers are loyal to their fans then they will create updates that allows the program to work as desired.

Now the introduction of 3.0 software for the Iphone/Touch will enable developers the chance to do something that might break or work in Apple’s favor. It allows the developers to do micro transactions for updates such as new maps or items. This can cause frustration to consumers that believe that you should pay a one time fee for their products rather then pay for updates. I agree to a certain point. You shouldn’t pay for an update that is required to make an application work correctly such as adding an option menu when an app is paused, but for adding new features I believe this would be the best way for someone to make extra money because as of this moment the only way for the developer to obtain more revenue is from new purchases.

Addiction comes in all forms but this new form, the app store has grown to overwhelming success that causes many people to check daily for the newest apps or for apps that are on sale from time to time. Will we need to create an App store Anonymous? I hope we don’t need to.

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