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How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
Hi guys
I am nearly finished with the iPhone version of Tunepal and I hope to be submitting to the App store this week. Ive been testing fairly heavily for the past couple of weeks it it works very well in all sorts of noisy sessions. The software is kind of like Shazam, but for trad tunes. You record 10 seconds from a tune, which the program transcribes and submits to tunepal.org. It then downloads the closest matching tune to your iPhone, where you can view the ABC and play the tune. It stores all your "tagged" tunes on your iPhone, which you can email to yourself through the program.
In my tests in all sorts of noisy sessions, with different instruments it is just about about 100% accuracte at guessing the tune name.
I have spent at least 100 hours on this project (not to mention all the hundreds of hours I spent doing my bloody PhD ). I will be releasing all the source code as I use some Open Source libraries.
Anyway tunepal.org is and always will be free to use, but I am planning to sell Tunepal for iPhone. I have to pay the hosting costs on tunepal.org and maybe invest in a Patrick Olwell flute, or a nice holiday or something.
Im thinking of charging somewhere between 5 and 10 dollars for it. What do people think is reasonable? How many am I likely to sell?
Thanks for the feedback.
BTW You can view screenshots and follow the project here:
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
Ah, so you want an Olwell, eh, Brian? Ah well, in another 6 years (when you reach the end of the waiting list) maybe I'll get to try it.
I don't use an iPhone myself, but I reckon I can make a useful comment or two ...
If the programme on the iPhone is as good as the normal tunepal, it's bloody brilliant, and worth a fortune. People should be prepared to pay good money for it. On the other hand, you want it to be set at a price that people will think "That sounds cool, and at that price, what have I got to lose?" which suggests the $5 mark to me. Plus, you could always set the $5 price as an 'introductory' price, leaving you the option of hiking the price later, if the product proves to be immensely popular.
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
Note that this has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with perceptions of your app when I say this. I'm going to talk about the App store in general.
2.99 - 4.99 is the sweet spot for apps right now. If you are charging more, you will need to show that it's a major application. Apple set this price firmly by stating that iWorks apps will sell for 9.99 each. That sets some basis of comparison. If it's not as fully featured as that, well, you will end up sitting on the sidelines wondering why you only sold 20 of them.
Your market is already limited to the iPhone (as you need a mic). I'd go for 3.99 honestly.
Now, this is purely from the perspective of general app marketing. Five bucks is the breaking point where people seem to switch from "why not" to demanding what you would pay 50 bucks for on a PC.
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
Bryan
I think tunepal is outstanding, and when you first posted it, I was the one who suggested you port it to an iPhone app -- so thank you for doing so.
Personally, as a point of relative perspective, I think that between $5-10 would be a bit too much -- and I'm only saying this based on what else is out there for much less. Based on recent apps app that I've purchased, I'd say that I'd buy iTunePal without hesitation -- for $2.99-3.99.
Please don't misunderstand me -- I thoroughly respect everything that you have put into this, and yes, I would even buy it for a little bit more than that. But considering the broader demographic, I think you'll actually make more $$$ through a greater volume of sales at $2.99-3.99.
Whichever way you decide, I'll surely buy it... ...and I wish you the best of success because this is an awesome resource, and you deserve some reward for everything you have put into it.
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
Personally, I only use .99 cent and free apps. I might splurge for 1.99, but phones feel ephemeral to me, and I'm unwilling to really invest in something I'm prone to lose, and may or may not have backed up properly.
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
If you offer a free Lite version for people to try, you can probably ask a bit more for the full version.
I tried the Amazing Slow Downer first, before paying 15 bucks for it. Worth every penny. I wouldn't have paid that much without trying it out first.
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
Pricing apps for the iPhone is an interesting game. I have sold several apps at $1.99 for the last year, but a test of a free version that had AdMob (now Google) ads on it showed a higher return than the $2 apps.
For TunePal, it is such a narrow audience, though, that I would probably charge $4.99 for it. If you charge more, people will hesitate, but at $5, they'll buy it.
I don't know that it has a wide enough market to make you rich, by any accounts. But I hope you do OK with it!
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
Hi Bryan
I'm in two minds about this, as I've already told you.
Factors to take into consideration:
- A CD is worth around $20 and people regularly buy these. A few pints easily reach $10 and people regularly buy these as well. So it's not like $5-$10 is unreasonable
- I've seen the app and it's really f**** amazing
- The market for the app is quite limited (number of people at sessions with iphones)
- Many people will want to see a need for it before buying it (and quite frankly the majority of session goers don't actually *need* it - major use cases are a) listing tunes to learn, b) finding if you have a recording of the tune, c) finding the dots)*
- $2-$4 is the range for "frivolous" buys on the app store (I have several of eskin's apps - which I will almost certainly never be using).
- The best way for you to maximise revenue is to ensure that every session goer with an iPhone has your app.
I see three alternatives for you which could work:
- light** version for free, pay version for lower range of $5-$10 (bank on most people being convinced that this is something they really need)
- light version for $1-$2, pay version for upper range of $5-$10 (bank on those convinced they really need it paying the price and on everybody else having it cheap to play around with and show their mates)
- single version in the $2-$4 range
- have two near-identical versions for different prices (but maybe the appstore won't let you do that) and let people choose the price they think it's worth to them
I'll buy it whatever the price
All the best to you.
* maybe you should consider allowing recordings of a tune, which would then be tagged - a huge boost to workshop productivity as you don't have to tag the feckers afterwards
** light version limitations?
- just have tune name recognition with no lists or abc's
- be limited in the number of queries you can make a day
- ?????
*** btw does the app have an offline mode - I can't remember?
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
Thanks for all the feedback guys
I think a fiver it is. I keep 70%, Apple gets 30%
At some stage over the summer I plan to add more features, such as display as 5 line stave, ABC import and editing and I'll probably try out a lite version too, but its term term for me now and I have my day job to think of. Hopefully I can incorporate some of the work I have done into my Internet Systems course.
BTW The app will let you play back off line of course, but you have to be online to search by playing. I actually tried the search by playing algorithm on the iphone, but it was just too slow and anyway, you would have to keep all the tunes you wanted to search for on the phone.
One more week of testing & bug fixing, checking for memory leaks and...I'll let you know when its submitted to the App store
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
I have never been abe to puzzle out the page at Tunepal.org. How do you make it work..? Am I on the wrong side of some invisible barrier to understanding? Wrong side of the world, or don't understand some insider references? It opens more in stuff in Win Ex than in Firefox but still no downloadables or pushable buttons though buttons are suggested in the instructions blurb. Will the Iphone app be as impenetrable?
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
PS... I did not buy the Amazing Slow Downer because the price was above my play threshold. Apps under $5 I see as less than a Guinness, above $15 its the app or a night out.
Another way of putting this is, below $5 I will buy it anyway, above that and I will only buy it if I see people elsewhere raving about it...
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
I don't have an iPhone or any intention of getting any kind of mobile phone, but I felt very happy to read about the application you have developed.
The reason being that you have fulfilled a prediction I made a decade or so ago that the day would soon come when people in sessions would be able in real time to download the music for tunes they were hearing.
I realize that this has been possible for some time now with wifi laptops and sites like this one but your app is much closer to what I imagined would become possible one day - quite a bit more sophisticated actually.
Amazing to think that people who would want such a capability - as you can guess I'm not one of them - would baulk at paying the price of a pint for it. The idea would have seemed unbelievable a few short years ago. Information overload is cheap I suppose...
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
I have had a couple of offers of help from readers (thanks), and it seems the problem is my computer not showing parts of the screen owing to internal settings. Everything is set right but still no banana. As a friend said to me about 20 years ago, you need to remember, computers are random devices...
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
Add abc import and editing and/or harmonica tab (for standard and paddy richter tuning) and I'd gladly pay $10. Might still check it out anyway. Let us know when it's approved and live!
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
If I had an iPhone, I'd pay $10 for the gee-whiz factor alone. I didn't know about Tunepal until now and to see this done on a phone is remarkable. I hope this pays for your PhD.
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
If it works well, $5 easy. It would be grand if you can export all those tune titles somehow as a list. Displaying staves too? Marvelous. Even better - have it do voice recognition so you can say the name of a tune, and up pops the dots. Might save some of those awkward times when noone can remember how something starts that was asked for.
How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
Hi guys
). I will be releasing all the source code as I use some Open Source libraries.
I am nearly finished with the iPhone version of Tunepal and I hope to be submitting to the App store this week. Ive been testing fairly heavily for the past couple of weeks it it works very well in all sorts of noisy sessions. The software is kind of like Shazam, but for trad tunes. You record 10 seconds from a tune, which the program transcribes and submits to tunepal.org. It then downloads the closest matching tune to your iPhone, where you can view the ABC and play the tune. It stores all your "tagged" tunes on your iPhone, which you can email to yourself through the program.
In my tests in all sorts of noisy sessions, with different instruments it is just about about 100% accuracte at guessing the tune name.
I have spent at least 100 hours on this project (not to mention all the hundreds of hours I spent doing my bloody PhD
Anyway tunepal.org is and always will be free to use, but I am planning to sell Tunepal for iPhone. I have to pay the hosting costs on tunepal.org and maybe invest in a Patrick Olwell flute, or a nice holiday or something.
Im thinking of charging somewhere between 5 and 10 dollars for it. What do people think is reasonable? How many am I likely to sell?
Thanks for the feedback.
BTW You can view screenshots and follow the project here:
http://tunepal.wordpress.com
# Posted on February 7th 2010 by skooter500
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
Ah, so you want an Olwell, eh, Brian? Ah well, in another 6 years (when you reach the end of the waiting list) maybe I'll get to try it.
I don't use an iPhone myself, but I reckon I can make a useful comment or two ...
If the programme on the iPhone is as good as the normal tunepal, it's bloody brilliant, and worth a fortune. People should be prepared to pay good money for it. On the other hand, you want it to be set at a price that people will think "That sounds cool, and at that price, what have I got to lose?" which suggests the $5 mark to me. Plus, you could always set the $5 price as an 'introductory' price, leaving you the option of hiking the price later, if the product proves to be immensely popular.
# Posted on February 7th 2010 by ethical blend
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
Sign me up for $5 ...... er how much of that do you get?
# Posted on February 7th 2010 by bazouki dave
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
I'd buy it anywhere in the $5-$10 range ... IF it works with a mic-equipped iPod Touch.
# Posted on February 7th 2010 by boxist
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
Note that this has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with perceptions of your app when I say this. I'm going to talk about the App store in general.
2.99 - 4.99 is the sweet spot for apps right now. If you are charging more, you will need to show that it's a major application. Apple set this price firmly by stating that iWorks apps will sell for 9.99 each. That sets some basis of comparison. If it's not as fully featured as that, well, you will end up sitting on the sidelines wondering why you only sold 20 of them.
Your market is already limited to the iPhone (as you need a mic). I'd go for 3.99 honestly.
Now, this is purely from the perspective of general app marketing. Five bucks is the breaking point where people seem to switch from "why not" to demanding what you would pay 50 bucks for on a PC.
Yes, I sell apps on the store.
# Posted on February 7th 2010 by Ashkettle
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
Bryan
I think tunepal is outstanding, and when you first posted it, I was the one who suggested you port it to an iPhone app -- so thank you for doing so.
Personally, as a point of relative perspective, I think that between $5-10 would be a bit too much -- and I'm only saying this based on what else is out there for much less. Based on recent apps app that I've purchased, I'd say that I'd buy iTunePal without hesitation -- for $2.99-3.99.
Please don't misunderstand me -- I thoroughly respect everything that you have put into this, and yes, I would even buy it for a little bit more than that. But considering the broader demographic, I think you'll actually make more $$$ through a greater volume of sales at $2.99-3.99.
Whichever way you decide, I'll surely buy it... ...and I wish you the best of success because this is an awesome resource, and you deserve some reward for everything you have put into it.
Cheers.
# Posted on February 7th 2010 by browndog
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
Personally, I only use .99 cent and free apps. I might splurge for 1.99, but phones feel ephemeral to me, and I'm unwilling to really invest in something I'm prone to lose, and may or may not have backed up properly.
# Posted on February 7th 2010 by dereksmootz
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
Ashkettle: "Your market is already limited to the iPhone (as you need a mic)."
Not true. I'm using Dragon Dictation and Skype on an iPod Touch, thanks to a $15 accessory mic from http://www.switcheasy.com/products/ThumbTacks/ThumbTacks.php.
# Posted on February 7th 2010 by boxist
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
If you offer a free Lite version for people to try, you can probably ask a bit more for the full version.
I tried the Amazing Slow Downer first, before paying 15 bucks for it. Worth every penny. I wouldn't have paid that much without trying it out first.
# Posted on February 7th 2010 by heike
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
boxist,
I didn't even know that thing existed. Kind of neat actually.
# Posted on February 7th 2010 by Ashkettle
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
Pricing apps for the iPhone is an interesting game. I have sold several apps at $1.99 for the last year, but a test of a free version that had AdMob (now Google) ads on it showed a higher return than the $2 apps.
For TunePal, it is such a narrow audience, though, that I would probably charge $4.99 for it. If you charge more, people will hesitate, but at $5, they'll buy it.
I don't know that it has a wide enough market to make you rich, by any accounts. But I hope you do OK with it!
# Posted on February 7th 2010 by Reverend
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
Hi Bryan
I'm in two minds about this, as I've already told you.
Factors to take into consideration:
- A CD is worth around $20 and people regularly buy these. A few pints easily reach $10 and people regularly buy these as well. So it's not like $5-$10 is unreasonable
- I've seen the app and it's really f**** amazing
- The market for the app is quite limited (number of people at sessions with iphones)
- Many people will want to see a need for it before buying it (and quite frankly the majority of session goers don't actually *need* it - major use cases are a) listing tunes to learn, b) finding if you have a recording of the tune, c) finding the dots)*
- $2-$4 is the range for "frivolous" buys on the app store (I have several of eskin's apps - which I will almost certainly never be using).
- The best way for you to maximise revenue is to ensure that every session goer with an iPhone has your app.
I see three alternatives for you which could work:
- light** version for free, pay version for lower range of $5-$10 (bank on most people being convinced that this is something they really need)
- light version for $1-$2, pay version for upper range of $5-$10 (bank on those convinced they really need it paying the price and on everybody else having it cheap to play around with and show their mates)
- single version in the $2-$4 range
- have two near-identical versions for different prices (but maybe the appstore won't let you do that) and let people choose the price they think it's worth to them
I'll buy it whatever the price
All the best to you.
* maybe you should consider allowing recordings of a tune, which would then be tagged - a huge boost to workshop productivity as you don't have to tag the feckers afterwards
** light version limitations?
- just have tune name recognition with no lists or abc's
- be limited in the number of queries you can make a day
- ?????
*** btw does the app have an offline mode - I can't remember?
# Posted on February 7th 2010 by Tirno
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
Thanks for all the feedback guys
I think a fiver it is. I keep 70%, Apple gets 30%
At some stage over the summer I plan to add more features, such as display as 5 line stave, ABC import and editing and I'll probably try out a lite version too, but its term term for me now and I have my day job to think of. Hopefully I can incorporate some of the work I have done into my Internet Systems course.
BTW The app will let you play back off line of course, but you have to be online to search by playing. I actually tried the search by playing algorithm on the iphone, but it was just too slow and anyway, you would have to keep all the tunes you wanted to search for on the phone.
One more week of testing & bug fixing, checking for memory leaks and...I'll let you know when its submitted to the App store
Bryan
# Posted on February 7th 2010 by skooter500
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
Bryan,
Best of luck with the launch of your new app!
Pricing apps is quite an interesting puzzle, at least it has been for me.
Cheers,
Michael
# Posted on February 7th 2010 by Michael Eskin
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
If it is an "easy" thing to do you could widen your market by porting it to other apps such as Vodaphone and Blackberry
# Posted on February 7th 2010 by deeor
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
Thanks for keeping us posted, skooter.
Sounds too good to be true - but if it works as described I'll be lining up to buy one...
# Posted on February 7th 2010 by FiddleTramp
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
I have never been abe to puzzle out the page at Tunepal.org. How do you make it work..? Am I on the wrong side of some invisible barrier to understanding? Wrong side of the world, or don't understand some insider references? It opens more in stuff in Win Ex than in Firefox but still no downloadables or pushable buttons though buttons are suggested in the instructions blurb. Will the Iphone app be as impenetrable?
# Posted on February 8th 2010 by cag
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
PS... I did not buy the Amazing Slow Downer because the price was above my play threshold. Apps under $5 I see as less than a Guinness, above $15 its the app or a night out.
Another way of putting this is, below $5 I will buy it anyway, above that and I will only buy it if I see people elsewhere raving about it...
# Posted on February 8th 2010 by cag
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
I don't have an iPhone or any intention of getting any kind of mobile phone, but I felt very happy to read about the application you have developed.
The reason being that you have fulfilled a prediction I made a decade or so ago that the day would soon come when people in sessions would be able in real time to download the music for tunes they were hearing.
I realize that this has been possible for some time now with wifi laptops and sites like this one but your app is much closer to what I imagined would become possible one day - quite a bit more sophisticated actually.
Amazing to think that people who would want such a capability - as you can guess I'm not one of them - would baulk at paying the price of a pint for it. The idea would have seemed unbelievable a few short years ago. Information overload is cheap I suppose...
# Posted on February 8th 2010 by Jeeves Tones
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
I have had a couple of offers of help from readers (thanks), and it seems the problem is my computer not showing parts of the screen owing to internal settings. Everything is set right but still no banana. As a friend said to me about 20 years ago, you need to remember, computers are random devices...
# Posted on February 9th 2010 by cag
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
Add abc import and editing and/or harmonica tab (for standard and paddy richter tuning) and I'd gladly pay $10. Might still check it out anyway. Let us know when it's approved and live!
# Posted on February 9th 2010 by abrasfield
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
If I had an iPhone, I'd pay $10 for the gee-whiz factor alone. I didn't know about Tunepal until now and to see this done on a phone is remarkable. I hope this pays for your PhD.
# Posted on February 9th 2010 by bigpalooka
Re: How much is reasonable to charge for Tunepal on the iPhone?
If it works well, $5 easy. It would be grand if you can export all those tune titles somehow as a list. Displaying staves too? Marvelous. Even better - have it do voice recognition so you can say the name of a tune, and up pops the dots. Might save some of those awkward times when noone can remember how something starts that was asked for.
# Posted on February 9th 2010 by reenactor