[Ross]

Anyone notice that OOiP is dearer on the Aussie App store, even though the $AUD is stronger than the $USD? Does this occur anywhere else? Is it all taxes, etc, or are we Aussies just willing to pay more?

[PresNevins]

Unfortunately it's an App Store thing, the developers doesn't really have much of a say in it.

The international prices are auto-calculated based upon the US price, and some countries' settings are more skewed than others. From what I hear the UK is pretty close to parity, but a lot of the settings seem to be based on some arbitrary price point that may have been accurate many years ago.

Here in Japan OOiP is 2,300 yen, or about USD $28, so I feel your pain! (And OmniGraffle is just over USD $70, whee! :rolleyes:)

[Ross]

That is interesting, because it differs quite markedly from what Apple is telling me. Below is a quote from a support email in answering this question when put to Apple:

"The developer can set the price to anything they like in each country that the App is on sale. The developer has selected the AUS$ price not Apple. I have received numerous requests or reports about the same issue and most of our customers have commented on similar pricing discrepancies between Australia and US. Often there are tax and import regulations that make prices different on top of differential pricing based on what the market will bear."

So, is it simply a case of blaming each other? Why can't we buy from an overseas app store? What, actually, is the story?

[whpalmer4]

From all indications I've seen (google "app store pricing tier") your support contact at Apple is mistaken. In any case, wouldn't you tend to believe the individual who actually deals with this stuff (Ken) over a person who does not (the support rep)?

Hard to see why Apple would go to the trouble of allowing a developer to set the exact price for every country — that just isn't the Apple way!

Here's another thread from a few months back: http://www.mactalk.com.au/56/96475-p...app-store.html

[gopi]

Here's an older pricing tier matrix I found through Google:
http://www.app-machine.com/hmcms_med...eis_Matrix.pdf

If you choose Tier 40, your app is:
US$39.99
€31.99
£23.99
¥4600
AU$47.99

Want to charge AU$32.99? Choose pricing tier 27, which also sets your American price to US$26.99

You could probably create a different app for each country to choose different prices, but that's about it.

[PresNevins]

Thanks for the pricing tier chart!

I didn't so much mind the pricing skew for JPY 115 iPhone apps, but the higher tiers for Mac Apps get wacky real fast. I don't even wanna see tier 73! :D

The reasoning behind Apple forcing use of the local iTunes stores is probably just because they're using the same storefront for selling music, which immediately gets into all sorts of inflexible rights of who gets to sell what where. Because otherwise who would care? Maybe the current prices were accurate back when iTunes was music-only?

I guess they just don't have a system in place to periodically bump the exchange rates back to non-silliness.

[PresNevins]

I just noticed today that the Japan iTunes store has dropped its tier 1 prices from 115 yen to 85 yen! I've had an account since the day it opened and I've never seen that number before, so it was like, "What?" :D JPY 85 is USD $1.07, so that's rather a bit fairer than the $1.45 we were paying yesterday.

The other tiers were also adjusted, making OmniOutliner USD $21.50, which is way better than the $28 it used to be. And OmniGraffle is USD $54.38, only $4 and change over the US price. Not bad. A purchase is no longer completely out of the question, yay!

Has the Australian pricing changed too?

It'd also be nice if they plan to periodically re-adjust the pricing tiers to match reality like this, but even this one adjustment is very welcome.

[michaelaye]

Here in CH the swiss consumer protection agency wrote a letter to Apple about this last October, had some phone calls with them since, and since last week finally the 99 Cent apps cost 'only' 0.99 CHF (even so the CHF is stronger). Before it still was 1.10. CHF. Slow progress, but progress...