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Wolfram Alpha iPhone app costs $50 [iTunes link]

31 points| tewks | 16 years ago |itunes.apple.com | reply

52 comments

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[+] hvs|16 years ago|reply
That's a good way to guarantee that no one uses your app. Especially when it is to access a service that no one uses anyway.
[+] caffeine|16 years ago|reply
That's a good way to guarantee that no one uses your app

Exactly. It will therefore appeal to the market of geeks with disposable income - people who enjoy paying for something cool and exclusive. People who buy $500 mobile surveillance bots on ThinkGeek, mainly because nobody else has one.

Maybe the solution to the "race to the bottom" in the App store is simply to make really high quality apps (not claiming that W@ is) and sell them for a really high price.

Though, personally, I wouldn't buy such apps unless I felt safe about being able to back them up, transfer them to new phones, and most importantly that they wouldn't get "removed" from the store at a moment's notice.

[+] amichail|16 years ago|reply
Maybe this is just their marketing strategy? Get lots of free publicity as a result of the high price? Later they might lower it to something reasonable.
[+] maximilian|16 years ago|reply
I use it in class extensively to show students plots of polynomials, and occasionally to find a few roots. Its a great way to get students into using computers to graph functions, etc.

I've also used it to integrate some tough hyperbolic sinh+cosh functions...

[+] jws|16 years ago|reply
Maybe he is co-marketing with Dyson.
[+] protomyth|16 years ago|reply
ok, I'll ask the stupid question, what is my advantage in using this app as opposed to just pulling up the site on mobile safari? I cannot see the difference.
[+] henning|16 years ago|reply
I'm wondering exactly the same thing myself. The app is only 0.5 MB in size so they couldn't possibly be licensing a standalone copy of the evaluation engine the way a chess playing game gives you a copy of the game evaluation engine.
[+] jasonlbaptiste|16 years ago|reply
Between this and their API pricing, I really wonder who makes these genius decisions. Do they talk to customers or people AT ALL? You could have talked to your community/potential buyers easily. Ask HN: How much would you pay for a wolfram alpha iphone app? and Ask HN: How much would you pay for API access? would have resulted in more than enough initial market research.
[+] fnid|16 years ago|reply
Do you know how much money they are making off the API and App? How do you know it isn't a genius decision?
[+] elblanco|16 years ago|reply
$0, the webpage is free, the app should be free unless it makes breakfast for me in the morning.
[+] Dilpil|16 years ago|reply
Great word of mouth advertising: the legendary $50 app.
[+] lispm|16 years ago|reply
CIA analysts? Not sure if that is helping the app.
[+] gojomo|16 years ago|reply
Bring back the $999.99 "I Am Rich" app!
[+] bcl|16 years ago|reply
Maybe if you could talk to it to input the question like the google voice search app. How can anyone in their right mind drop $50 for an app that you could just as easily use the browser for? (and I just tried it, almost exactly the same as their example page.
[+] rebelvc|16 years ago|reply
I'm willing to bet that it will become a top grossing apps. The premium price will make a some people feel like they it is an app they really need. Some will buy it to show off.
[+] adrinavarro|16 years ago|reply
The app looks nice, but nothing amazing, just a native viewer for the website contents.

Hey, I can code this one in two hours. Definitely not worth the price.

[+] mynameishere|16 years ago|reply
You make less than 25 dollars an hour?

ED: Five downmods? Okay. If so-and-so wants a product that costs 50 dollars, and his time is worth 30/dollars an hour, then it doesn't make sense for him to spend 2 hours remaking it. If his time is worth 20/hour, then it does make sense. What part of this is offensive? The Math 101 or the Econ 101?

[+] protomyth|16 years ago|reply
On a side note, it will be telling how many reviews there are based on the fact you need to buy the app to review it.
[+] colinplamondon|16 years ago|reply
Nope- people who get free download coupons can review as well. This is why the first ten reviews after every update for every application are so positive.
[+] fjabre|16 years ago|reply
Yikes.. This feels awkward..

A $50 iPhone app with a name like WolframAlpha - how can these guys lose?