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Comment by alex_c | Hacker News Reader

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alex_c·

A minor point: outside the US, Android prices are listed as (some examples from featured apps):

~CA$1.96

~CA$5.08

~CA$3.05

~CA$1.01

It's completely irrational, but I actually find myself less willing to buy for "untidy" prices. I didn't fully understand why Apple has its tiered pricing system, but now I do.

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That's relatively new, but I was glad when they changed it. To be clear, it's not "outside the US", that's Canada -- the point is that prices are now listed in local currency, including in the US.

Back to the point: while I'm pretty comfortable with translating Canadian dollars, British Pounds, or Euros to US dollars, that's about as much as I can do in my head. I'm much happier seeing ~US$1.17 than ¥99, and I'm much more likely to buy the app.

So while I can see your point, I think it was definitely a change for the better, and it probably resulted in increased sales.

I think the point was that iOS apps have a set of fixed prices in each area (in local currency). Here in the UK the cheapest non-free app is 59p (corresponding with a 99c app in the US store), the next is £1.19 ($1.99), and so on. This makes for a better user experience because people can think in terms of the price brackets.

Here is a summary of the price brackets: http://www.mcmnet.co.uk/news/the-app-store-explained-news

Huh, that's odd. My algorithm is "if x < 5: buy()". Presumably the apps I want to buy are all apps I need, so less than $5 is quite well into the "no brainer" category.

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