Wolfram Alpha's $50 iPhone App: Too Expensive or Worth the Extra Money for the Premium Experience?
When Wolfram Research released its iPhone app for Wolfram Alpha earlier this week, most of the attention quickly shifted away from the features of the app itself and towards the high price of the app. At $49.99, Wolfram Alpha is far more expensive than most apps in the App Store today, where only a small number of highly specialized apps sell for more than $9.99. Today, we got a chance to discuss Wolfram's pricing strategy with Schoeller Porter, the product manager for Wolfram Alpha's iPhone app.
Early Reactions
On Twitter and in the tech blogosphere, the reactions to the app's price were anything but subtle. We called it "too expensive" ourselves, though others had stronger words for it. MIT's Technology Review called it a "a pricey online calculator for geeks" - a product that's more like the expensive but immensely powerful Mathematica than Stephen Wolfram's original idea for Alpha ("Wolfram|Alpha aims to bring expert-level knowledge and capabilities to the broadest possible range of people").
It is worth noting that the Wolfram Alpha app quickly appeared in the list of top 100 grossing apps in the iTunes App Store (iTunes link) and has been hovering at the lower end of the top 50 ever since. That doesn't make it a breakout hit, but some people are clearly buying the app, even though only a small number of users have left reviews.
A Premium Price for a Premium Experience
There can be little doubt that the Wolfram Alpha team was expecting some backlash. As Porter told us today, the Wolfram Alpha team decided to price the app with the cost of a hardware graphing calculator in mind. At $50, the app costs roughly half of what a hardware calculator would cost. As Porter also stressed, the app offers a far superior range of features thanks to its connection to Wolfram's server farm. The company thinks this price is justified because of the superior experience of using the app over the mobile website.
After using the app for a few days, we definitely have to agree there. The dual-keyboard solution makes entering queries in the app much easier than using the mobile site and accessing Wolfram Alpha from the app is also much faster then using the mobile site.
Porter noted that Wolfram is trying to set itself off from the mass of $0.99 apps that only get used once and are quickly forgotten. Instead, the company hopes that the app will become a regular companion for its users, whether they are using it for help with their homework in school or college, or in their professional life.
At the end of the day, this is an app for specialists. While Schoeller Porter worded this more carefully in our interview today, the basic fact is that Wolfram is charging a premium price for a premium experience. Users who don't need the app can continue to use the website, while those who are willing and able to spend $50 on the app will get a superior experience. For the time being, Wolfram doesn't expect to bring the price of the app down and so far, according to Porter, the team has been happy and excited about how the app has been performing in the marketplace.
The Price of iPhone Apps
This also leads into a broader discussion about the current pricing in the iPhone App Store, where even the most complex apps and games have to sell for under $10 to reach a wide audience. At the end of our discussion, Porter noted that the Wolfram app may lead to some changes here, though we have to wonder if anything is likely to change the current drift towards lower prices in the App Store.
It is also worth pointing out, though, that a lower price point opens up the market for an app to a far wider audience - often to the point where the lower price brings in exponentially more users and more than offsets any potential losses from the lower price.
What Do You Think?
Is Wolfram's price point for the iPhone app a bold move? Hubris? Or would you be happy to pay $50 for the superior experience and ergonomics of the app?
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Limited Mathematica on an iPhone in a way competes with the TI-Nspire/TI-84 graphical calculators @ 100-150 $US. This is a strange market - mainly high school students. In college, computer software like Mathematica or Matlab is more prevalent.
All I know (as a HS math teacher) is that for $50 students will buy this - once they see the power in doing homework, etc.
If not ported to WebOS or Android, this app really pushes high school students to AT&T. Yes, they have the money.
Just asked my 10th grader and she would rather buy this than the Ti-84 but her principal wont allow cell phone use in the school and the math teachers do not want to write up instructions for anything other than the TI-84; TI has a hold on these teachers.
For this school year, apple was offering a free itouch with the purchase of every new mac.
Every kid wants a new computer but there is always a tug between how much do we spend. Right? Now we can look at the cashed saved (cost of the TI-84 ($100-$140) minus the $50 for the Wolfram ) to help justify buying a MAC. From my point of view, Apple should be paying for the Wolfram marketing tab and then pointing this effort towards their trusted educational marketplace.
Hi,
That's a great profile, Frederic Lardinois. I just sent the link to it to a couple of friends. Thanks for the info.
Absolutely. I really think math and science students are some of the people that would get the most real-world use out of the app, and for what it does, the price is actually pretty fair.
Dennis, you're right it's a strange market. You're also right that only HS students would buy this because they are the only onese that could convince their parents to pay this ridiculous amount of money for something they can do for free by visiting wolfa.com or wolframalpha.com or wolpha.com or any of the other sites that are set up for the service. It's just a bad business move on their part IMHO
Erica, I beg to differ. Yes, they are certainly reaching a narrower part of their potential market but, as noted in the article, this app remains one of the highest grossing apps on the app store—hardly a bad business move.
As an iPhone developer, I have been watching this development closely as it could prove that iPhone apps don't have to be dirt cheap as long as there is a market that cares—in this case, I predicted there was. It's still too early to tell, but I think this was the right move.
With Wolfram Alpha being web based, most people will just use the website for free from their mobile browser. A few seconds less to type an equation will not make people shell out money for such a relatively expensive app.
ou're also right that only HS students would buy this because they are the only onese that could convince their parents to pay this ridiculous amount of money for something they can do for free by visiting wolfa.com or wolframalpha.
www.johnvcaruana.com
wolfa.com and wolpha.com are illegal mirror sites, and are not wolframalpha.com.
Kathryn whatever they are their harmless and aid my lazy typing habbits so I love them lol
Kathryn Cramer is not affiliated with Wolfram Research LCC nor Wolfram Alpha. Wolfram has authorized "wolfa.com" under the condition that the owner forwards to wolframalpha.com
I'm not affiliated with Wolfram Research? Really? When did that happen? The company is called Wolfram Research, Inc., by the way.
Of course this wolfa site is not harmless, they are redirecting traffic to them at the expense of WolframAlpha. Kathryn is affiliated to Wolfram Research, Inc. and the wolfa.com authors will soon face serious legal charges for their copyright offense. So I would advice them to desist, the sooner the better for their own sake.
Kathryn consulted for Wolfram Research, Inc. over a year ago. She doesn't work for Wolfram Research, Inc. Nevertheless, both of you should spend your time more productively.
I was just on Wolfram Alpha today, trying to find the northernmost latitude of the continental US. It kept telling me the latitude of Columbus, Ohio, or just not understanding my query. That's the level of cleverness I've come to expect out of Wolfram Alpha. My level of cleverness is shown by the fact I returned to it today -- I should pay $50 to have the site blocked from my browser.