Free iPhone Software

What could be better than free software for the iPhone? Well, that is surely free software on a free iPhone, but let's concentrate on software now, shall we? After previous rumors that most fully-featured applications on App Store will not be free, now a WWDC survey of iPhone software developers suggests that up to 70% of planned iPhone apps may be free, while the average cost of a third-party for Apple's smartphone will fall well below $3.00, which also seems pretty impressive to me...

First of all, I should say that, according to research group Piper Jaffray, the App Store could become a huge software market, with a transaction volume that can go as high as $1 billion by the end of 2009, so think about it! Although Apple will only get 30 percent of those money, that's a lot of cash, so excluding free apps from the App Store is not a good idea, after all.

Gene Munster, analyst with the same Piper Jaffray group, after chatting with about two dozens of Apple developers, found out that half of them were at the WWDC because they plan to focus exclusively on iPhone and iPod Touch applications, while the remaining half are also writing Mac OS X software, in addition to iPhone and iPod Touch software.

A surprising fact is that also half of the developers Munster talked with are into "Enterprise apps," with 15% to tap into the location-based services of the Apple smartphone, 10% into entertainment, 10% specifically video games, and another 15% to aim at the Enterprise market.

Gene Munster said "We see this as a positive indicator of the potential for Enterprise adoption of the iPhone. We found the average cost of iPhone apps on the App Store to be $2.29, with 71% being free," and I must agree with him, since it all makes sense. In the end, it's going to be a huge volume of software sold on App Store, and that's good for everyone - developers, Apple, but especially for us, the end users.