Free iPhone Apps: Is it a Thing of the Past?

In recent study it has been revealed that almost 30% of iPhone users around the world delete the non-pay or free apps after the first install. This revelation has indeed left every iPhone developer, who creates free software for the iPhone platform into a dilemma. There are more than thousands of iPhone applications that can be downloaded from the Apple Inc’s App Store on to an iPhone for absolutely free. This was in fact a very tempting offer for all iPhone users. But, now it has become a trend among smart phone users to get new apps and then vacate them after the first installation.

Different media, app developers, corporate personnel and iPhone users from all over the world have made diverse comments on this matter. A spokesperson from the Pinch Media said that “Paid applications generally retain their users longer than free applications, although the drop-off is still pretty steep”.



The long term controversy regarding the popularity of the Apple iPhone and the RIM BlackBerry however went in favor of the device that provided more number of free applications. The recent revelation from the study is quite astonishing for everybody and experts think that it is probably a prelude of what the condition of free apps would be in future.

Pinch Media further said that “Users stop using the average applications pretty quickly. Long-term audiences are generally one percent of total downloads”. Despite of this weird trend, developers are still continuing to design free apps for the Apple’s iPhone, RIM BlackBerry Storm as well as for Google Android.

But the question that spoke into every reader’s mind is that, what is the point in doing so if anyway users delete the apps after a while? However, developers can really take advantage of the situation and determine a price for their apps. It has also been proved that dropping the price of an app increases its demand by almost 130%. While on the other hand raising it decreases the demand by 25%.

Even when researchers are doing their best to get to the root of this unnatural trend, 60% of iPhone users are continuing to enjoy the luxury of downloading free apps from the App Store and installing it onto their iPhones.