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I know that Apple has some 50,000 applications in there, but let's face it, 40,000 of them aren't worth 99 cents.
On the other hand, from the nearly 20,000 WM applications that I have seen, around 75% of them are worth the 15-30 dollars that the developers request for them.
My conclusions: although users that buy phones for playing with it like the idea of buying apps for $1 and throwing them away after 1 use, the quality of a smartphone is measured by the quality of the apps available for it. And this is one of the reasons why I don't even consider moving to another platform at this time, I just can't find there the same useful apps that I have in my WM phone.
As someone that has developped apps in my past (for computers, not for phones), if you want good, professional apps, you need to let the developer make a living out of it. The iTunes store is all about canibalizing the developers. Considering the apps cost 99 cents and 30% of it stays for Apple, this means that if a developer has 100,000 downloads (and everyone here understands how difficult this may be) in 2 years he has made 35K per year, not enough to pay simple bills in the US.
From the side of the average user, maybe he doesn't notice, but he is spending more money than I am, since I download trial versions and only purchase the applications that I really expect to use. So in the same time that I purchase one application for 30 dollars, an iPHONE user has probably purchased 50 applications for 1-2$ each and has thrown all of them away.
So I believe the current model is much more fit to my needs, and surely, to the developer's needs.
I don't believe MS should limit the minimum price like RIM did, but surely encourage the developers to get the right value for their work.
My two cents.
Helio
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