With the release of Mavericks, the new version of OS X, and the iWork and iLife suite for free with the purchase of a new iOS or Mac, Apple is sending a strong message about the value of their ecosystem to customers.
Free software isn't a new thing by any stretch of the imagination, nor is a free Operating System regardless of what the tech press says. The really interesting part is the software Apple is giving away for free is incredibly, incredibly complex.
Pages, Keynote and Numbers are applications that are not in any way small. They require teams of people from designers, to user experience architects, to engineers to do all manner of things from quality assurance, testing and documentation before it become a real, tangible product that people can actually download and use.
iMovie and Garageband and iPhoto are also incredibly complex programs that require incredibly smart people to develop and maintain them. They're the results of tens of millions of dollars of investment to conceptualise, design, engineer and preserve in the marketplace.
Free things by their very nature have no cost to the user. But many may take it to mean something is without value. One of the things that's become steadily more apparent as a mobile developer is that the market for charging for mobile apps is getting smaller and smaller. On the iOS App Store, where there are no refunds and no trials, getting someone to dish out even a single dollar for an app is quite difficult. They've been trained by the system to expect it for free.
Recent estimates are that more than 80 per cent of the total apps downloaded on the iOS App store are free. Tolerating an awful app that is free may come at a time or mental cost that is far greater than a few dollars for a more polished app that offers a better experience.
I can think of countless people I know or have encountered in work with clients or online that use apps that are abysmal because they are free, instead of shelling out a small amount of money (to purchase an app that requires the ownership of a multi hundred dollar device to run) because for whatever reason they believe software is something you shouldn't have to pay for.
A common trend picking up in developer circles now is to offer an app that is seemingly free but has in-app purchases. A cursory examination of the 'highest grossing' apps show mostly games that sell consumable items to get around artificial barriers. Candy Crush Saga is pulling in an eye watering amount of money because the game stops you from playing it at calculated points. If you want to keep playing, you've got to pay, or hound your friends on social media. The ethics of these pseudo-gambling mechanisms aside (and the problems that can happen when kids rack up multi-hundred dollar bills) people tend to go where the money is.
If you're someone who has serious ethical concerns about going 'free to play', the market trends are disturbing. Training users to expect software to be free means developers are going to use other mechanisms to be rewarded or paid for the time and effort they put in to build these apps.
I personally think there's still a market for good quality, well thought out paid apps. If users vote with their dollars that free upfront is all they're willing to part with, then developers will resort to in-app, or ads, or selling information.
In the long run, that will cost a heck of a lot more than free.
Dan Nolan lucked into making pretty things for the awesome supercomputers we all have in our pockets.
