the appstore door is open

Not officially launched yet, but if you search for likely keywords (try ‘photo’) in iTunes Music Store, your results might include some applications.

app store

Click through to “see all” and you’ll be presented with a heap of apps you can download and install – yay! I’ve only been getting the free ones, but there’s loads in there to buy also and not stupidly priced either – I think this is going to be a hit. How do Apple keep pulling this stuff off?

Apple’s iTunes rip-off

I remember waiting with huge anticipation for Apple to launch iTunes in Australia – the rumours got thicker and faster until it finally arrived. The store finally launched with tracks selling at $1.69 each.

At the time, as I recall, the aussie dollar was about $us0.65¢ so we were effectively paying about $us1.10 while the US pricing was only $us0.99¢ – that seemed a little unfair at the time, but no-one seemed too fussed.

Roll forward to today: the aussie dollar is sitting on $us0.95¢, but tracks are still the same price, which means we’re actually paying a little over $us 1.60 per track! That’s quite a bit more than our US counterparts – certainly enough to make most CDs better value.

With the parlous state of the US economy and their sliding dollar, I’m sure we’re not the only market where iTunes is starting to look expensive.