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Australians Set To Pay 50% More For Apps After Apple Price Spike (heraldsun.com.au)
SlappingOysters writes: Within 36-hours the price of Apple apps is set to increase in Australia, Sweden and Indonesia. It will bring the price of buying an app out of alignment with the value of the Australian dollar, and leave the country's Apple fans paying 50% more for their iOS software than their American counterparts. It's unfortunate timing, with the recent launch of the iPhone 6s and the upcoming fourth generation of Apple TV.
Those photons are heavy.
Its called the Frustralia Tax and with the Aussie dollar dropping and the cost of shipping the apps to Australia, conversion to Southern Hemisphere, plus the need to support the local very knowledgeable distributors who can quickly come to our aid in our own timezone... well, we've come to accept this discrepancy decades ago.
to the lower Netherlands of the planet. Besides, what are you going to do? Get a dingo to eat the babies of apple's top brass? Or if you are feeling way too roger, make product YOURSELVES and price it 50 - no 100% - higher than locals can get it.
Whoa, this is going to cost them! Oh wait, the App Store prices have hit rock bottom for a couple of years now, so I guess this is not going to cost them hardly anything at all.
Disclaimer: I'm an iOS developer who does barely anything in the App Store. Instead, I develop for clients who at least pay me decently.
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I have an iPhone 5s from work, and one of the benefits of these devices having so little storage coupled with the bloating of applications in the last couple of years is that is that it's just too much of a pain in the arse to install a new app. There is very little to entice me to spend money on the app store. ;)
Now I just wish all those websites that try to push you to their pointless app would stop interrupting my browsing.
No way,, ask Edward snowden your questions here on Slashdot continues,, truth+mercy=justice universal spiritual axioms... See you there
People *pay* for apps?!
Your math is wrong.
AUD1.49/US.99 gives you a headline but not the Noble prize for Economics
"It's unfortunate timing". Is it?
Apple knows exactly how to fleece customers and I use some apps for sure on my iPhone but nothing I pay for. I find many apps kind of lousy in quality and support and whats even worse we still do not have some sort of connection with IOS apps and Mac Apps? Funny that over the last decade, I realized I have gone from being totally immersed in the Apple ecosystem to only really likely the operating systems, the hardware and that's it. I don't hardly use any services, apps, or anything else Apple. All my apps are third party installs outside of Apple's stores, my music still comes from iTunes but don't use any of the video content. I had a Apple TV once but never used it. My streaming comes mostly from Netflix, Amazon, and through Xbox. Apple to me just does not offer much in value anymore in services. They may have been cutting edge a few years ago. But they have been sleepers since then.
They were just holding off until after the TPP was signed.
It’s not all bad news for Aussie app users. 9-to-5Mac says Apple plans to introduce a low-price tier that will enable app developers to charge 99 cents for their apps. Previously that cut-price tier of paid apps was only available in “emerging markets”.
Being that "emerging markets" is slang for developing countries such as Brazil and India, it's interesting that Apple would consider the US to be in this category as well. And yet, they deprive the US of much needed tax revenue to aid them in their development efforts.
I thought the whole problem was that the they are normalizing the price to keep it in line with the US price as the Australian currency is dropping relative to the dollar?
"out of alignment with the value of the Australian dollar,"
Sounds like Apple disagrees.
It is simply the us price converted to aud, plus GST. The Aussie dollar has dropped from parity to 0.75/USD.
Yup, exactly. Not sure why people are bitching about it.
The title of the parent post is totally misleading and shows a clear sign of not having passed basic algebra. Australians are going to pay 15% more for their apps and not 50%.
First $1 AU = 0.70 US. Taking currency conversion into consideration, this means that a 0.99 App in the US store would cost $1.29 AU.
Next, we see that that $1.29 apps are being raised to $1.49. That's a $0.20 AU or a 15% price hike.
Converting that back to US, we see that the equivalent cost is $1.09 US vs the original $0.99 US. This $0.10 US difference equates to an actual 10% markup between the AU and the US markets.
I would have to assume that Apple is passing on their operational overhead costs in the pricing of apps.
Something to think about - developers are permitted to set the price of their apps. In the US, other than free, the minimum cost is $0.99 as that is the lowest tier that Apple permits. Should developers be forced to take a pay cut because they are selling in a market with a poor currency exchange rate or should they be permitted to sell their wares at a specific price they deem appropriate?
Given that Apple is going to reintroduce a $0.99 tier in those markets, should developers be expected to sell their apps at a 30% discount in the US as well? After the Apple tax of 30% on goods sold in the store, the developer makes a $0.50 on an item they originally sold for $0.99. Is that fair?
If developers are willing to take such a hit on their profits at the benefit of maybe selling more at the lower price and gaining a PR boost, then we will see them moving to the $0.99 plan in those poorer performing markets.
Because price parity has never been a two way street. Each corporation likes to set the price to what they believe the market will bear. Any excuse like currency fluctuation allows them to use another reason to up the price. When the AUD eventually rises, you can bet the prices will not be reduced and realigned. That's why "people are bitching about it."
Who cares, chuck another shrimp on the barbie mate
It's PRAWN, you drongo!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Why don't they flee to other Muslim countries?
Unlike in the US where taxes are separate, GST (10%) is included in the app store price.
$0.99 US pre-tax + 10% GST = $1.089 US post-tax
currently $1 US = 1.3713 AUD
so $1.089 US = 1.4933457 AUD
So Aussies are in fact getting a $0.0033457 AUD discount over the US.
us 99c = AUD 1.36 at todays rate. Australia, like most countries, includes tax in the quoted price, so add 10% tax to get $1.49 . The only surprise here is that Apple actually collects and pays the tax.
Dingos will eat ALL their babies!
Not Off-topic whoever Mod'd that post, do a search if you don't get the joke.
As to the article, I'm pretty sure that the price increase was actually demanded by Apple users. I've read many times how they like to spend money, unlike those freeloading Android plebians, and the recent spate of low-cost Apps was making them feel too much alike.
I could go for a bloomin onion as well, and a fosters.
You know, there is this thing called a price curve. At $0.99 you sell 10,000 copies of your cool game,
at $0.79 you sell 20,000 copies, or maybe only 5,000. The price of a game does effect how many copies
you sell, so just blindly assuming that developers "take a hit on their profit" because the price goes down
to $0.79 is a very simplistic view.
Don't just blame Apple for all this. Blame the Australian government and their protectionist policies that enable companies to take advantage of customers because they have no alternatives.
Go to Australia and you will see ridiculously priced cars, books, food items, software, tons of other consumer items. All protected from imports in the name of "promoting Australian industry", i.e. protecting them from competition.
Software licenses that cost 2-3x in the US or 10x in India. And books? Are you kidding? Books? No -- it is real. Australian authors "protected" from competition by charging more for books from overseas. As if you can promote Australian writing by taxing foreign books more...
These are the idiots that we put in charge of our interests.
Foster's is piss that they export to gullible people and sell to tourists. They've got a few good beers in Australia. Foster's is not one of them.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
lets see US$1 = AU$1.37, now add on Australian sales taxes of 10% and we get AU$1.507
I am always amazed by computer geeks who can't do maths and completely fail at basic logic. Instead the go straight to the woman magazines "OMG" routine.
No, the issue would be that you need to pay in US dollars. So, you still need to take the hit on the exchange rate.
Something that costs $1.49AUD costs $0.98USD, after you take in to account the current exchange rate of 73c per $1AUD and the 10% sales tax included in the $1.49
The aussie dollar has plummeted against the greenback.
At the start if the year it was 80c,
Mid 2014 it was 95c
From 2011 to 2013 it was around $1.00
Australians are getting apps for 1% less than Americans.
Veblen software. Now I've seen it all...
Ezekiel 23:20
The guy with iphone has as much control over the exchange rate as Apple or you do, "absolutely fuck-all".
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
It seems as though much of the traffic into Australia is via fiber optic submarine cables such as the Southern Cross Cable (3.6 Tbits/sec), but I don't know how this compares to the amount of data shipped in via electron oscillations.
The number of Christians in this discussion are miniscule. Christians were there in the rebel held strongholds of Aleppo and Homs, from where they were driven out by the Free Syrian Army, and fled to Lebanon and Europe already. The ones currently fleeing Syria are not Christians. In fact, a lot of Iraqi Christians had fled Iraq as well.
The vast majority of Syrians are Sunni Arabs. They are definitely 'religious' (read Jihadi): you are projecting the characterestics of the Baath regime onto the population that they mutually despise. The Baath Party was/is (for Iraq/Syria) a party of socialists belonging to minority Muslim sects. In Iraq, that minority was Sunni Arabs: in Syria, that minority was Alawites. As a result, both countries looked secular due to their opposition to the majority Muslim sects, who would define what Islamic means in their respective countries. In Iraq, it means Shia, which is the de-facto definition today in Baghdad, while in Syria, it means Sunni, which is what ISIS has defined, but which even other Syrian opposition forces, be it FAS or al-Nusra or Khorasan have it.
For the vast majority of Syrians, who are Sunnis, there are plenty of neighboring options where to flee. Jordan is one, and they've already taken in a lot, as have Lebanon. But the other countries more to their south - Saudi Arabia in particular - has plenty of space in which to house them. It is a lot smoother transition than anywhere in Europe, or even Turkey, for that matter. For one, the distance is a lot shorter than the distance to Europe, and there are no seas in b/w where they'd drown trying to get there. The people are Sunni Arabs in both countries, so neither language nor religion would be an issue. It's a lie that Syrian Sunnis are secular: most of them owe allegiance to the Ikhwan/Muslim Brotherhood. Only difference b/w Syrian and Saudis are that the Saudis base their Islamic laws on Hanbali jurisprudence, while the Syrians do a combination of Hanafi and Shafi'i. That's peanuts compared to the differences b/w Syrians and Germans/Austrians/Hungarians/Romanians/Serbs.
In fact, Europe's utopian approach to the refugee crisis has been wrong all along. It should have been to put pressure on the GCC to take in the refugees, who are more similar to them, and would assimilate a lot easier, if needed. Give a major incentive to the Saudis and others to stabilize Syria, rather than fund their own Jihadi groups there. Once Saudi Arabia has millions of Syrian refugees, they'll be very determined to restore a situation in Syria where the refugees can return.
Exactly this.
Whether it's the price of apps, of medicine, or anything else: Corporations' whole reason for being is to maximize profits. Therefore, they will always charge as much as they can get away with.
"We need to charge $100,000 per year for this drug, since it costs us a billion dollars to develop!". That's BS. If they would have developed it for $2.50 they would still charge $100,000 if they could get away with it.
Same here: The market tolerates it? They will charge more. It's not like there's real competition. Ok, can't push too far, since otherwise people will switch to Android. But the fanboy-stickiness is strong.
That's why corporations love region locks: They can push the price as high as each market will bear and they reduce competition at the same time.
A more humane approach would be to move them all to the Arabian peninsula countries, and let them handle it any which way