Details wanted about app price and free/paid...

gyroscope

Hi, as you might know, I'm finally going to be putting my first app onto the iTunes store a week/two weeks time. I'll certainly sigh with relief and say to myself " about time too" but better late than never, as they say...

As I've no experience with submitting apps to the app store I have a few questions; some of these might be obvious when I actually do submit the app, but in the meantime, if any of you guys and gals with experience in getting your stuff into the iTunes app store could help out beforehand, that'll be great:

1) I want to have this first app free and I've now decided that this will be for a limited time only. Is it easy to change the price from free to paid say, two months down the line?

2) Similar to the previous question, is it easy to update your app already running in the app store?

3) I live in the UK; when I change the app to a paid app, do I submit my price of, let's say, 69p and Apple round it up to 99c for the US market, or the other way around? (i.e I put the price as 99c and it's rounded down to the nearest something and 9p for UK, and I guess, other currencies too...?)

I know they're probably straightforward and obvious questions but if you don't know, you don't know, as they say! Any answers appreciated, thanks.

PS The tagging on this Forum has still got a mind of its own...
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http://davidgriffinapps.co.uk/

LeonardDeveloper

1) yes
2) yes
3) pleas make more clear! ..... But if I gt the jist of what your saying.... You select price tier one which is 90c usd and apple take ten percent s basically you get 90 percent of 69p (gbp)
4)if you have any problems on publishing check out my tutorial here: http://thermo-apps.com/gamesalad/apple-publishing/

tenrdrmer

For your pricing you just select what tier you want to sell it at. Apple will garge the appropriate price for each market. They have a chart to show what price tier charges what for each market. And yes updating and changing the prices are very simple. With iTunes androids a different story.

Once free you can never go paid on the android market.

Chobbiface

Hello Gyro, congrats on getting the app done first of all.

1)Yes, it's literally the click of a button. You can even schedule price changes - so say you want it free on launch, then to go to paid on the 15th Jan say, it can be done automatically, and vice versa. Great if you're going to be running some marketing and want to inform people apps will be going free on this date or whatever.

2)I haven't submitted an update yet, but again I think it's simply submitting a new binary - update gets reviewed then you can set to autorelease when done. Like publishing the app again but much easier - you don't have to redo all the info on description, screenshots etc.

3)You set price by fixed tiers - so e.g. tier 1 = 69p in UK, 99c in US, this is converted automatically for the different countries

You might also want to have a look at this post about release dates, think a lot of us have messed up on that: http://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/comment/267901#Comment_267901

gyroscope

Thank you very much, Jack, Aaron and Chobbiface; just the info I needed. :-)

Jack - (@LeonardDeveloper): Apple take 10%?? I thought it was 30 or 35%... have I been thinking about something else or has their slice gone down? (Or I misunderstood you...)

Aaron - (@tenrdrmer): whoah, so if I make a game free, and even for a limited period, even when it becomes a paid app, because it was once free, it can't be paid with the android market? Have I understood you correctly?

Chobbyiface - thanks, it's only taken me two and a half years approx. since starting GS! Got there though ( well, in a week to 2 weeks time; I'm on the home run putting the game together now) :-) I'll check out the forum thread link about release dates, thanks again.

:-)

LeonardDeveloper

@gyroscope (David)
Sorry, I don't know where I came up with that..... (it was 1am in ireland :P) apple take 30% of the profits.....
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Answereing the question you asked Aaron, yes that's correct, at the moment if you put it on the android market for free you can't change it at a later period to be paid....
Hope this helps,
Jack

gyroscope

Hi Jack; yes, I did think Apple's share seemed a bit low... ;-) No worries, you should see some of the things I've written on Forums when tired and bleary-eyed!

Thanks for the answer re: the android market; I understand now. I thought Aaron meant that if it was free on iTunes you couldn't put it as paid on Android. (Now I think about it, that would be a bit odd anyway). ;-)