January 31, 2009 by William Peebles
This time it’s the App Store that’s got the Apple fans in the blogosphere all excited. Apparently the portal for selling games and applications for iPhones and iPod Touches is set to team up with games manufacturers to provide premium content via a special section of the store.
Of course, exactly what’s meant by ‘premium content’ is unclear and, as usual, nobody’s being particularly forthcoming with details. However rumour has it, and these are very much still rumours, that the likes of Gameloft and EA Mobile will be invited to join a premium area where they could sell games for 19.99.
The thinking behind this is that the App store is becoming more and more crowded every day. As thousands of amateur and professional developers add their masterpieces, it can be hard to ascertain exactly which are the good apps and which are a waste of time and money. The idea is that a premium area would solve this problem by providing a place where consumers could be relatively sure that they were buying something of decent quality.
To be honest, I don’t buy it. Just look at the iTunes store, their catalogue is vastly bigger than the App Store with, I wouldn’t mind betting, more being added every day – they still manage to lead their consumers to the premium content with banner ads etc. It seems strange that Apple would employ two different strategies for what are two very similar portals.
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