When Apple released Logic Pro X as a new, $200 app a couple of weeks ago, I immediately thought that it might finally answer the question of where Apple stood on the issue of upgrade pricing. Instead of adding a mechanism to the App Store to allow existing users to upgrade at a discount, Apple, like Tweetie 2 back in 2009, simply released the new version as a separate app and asked anyone and everyone, new and existing customers alike, to pay in full, and for some, to pay again in full.
Only it wasn't really "in full". Logic Pro X on the App Store, like Logic Pro 9 before it, was substantially cheaper than the full retail version of Logic Pro that used to come in a box. Likewise, when Final Cut Pro X first his the App Store, it's $200 price tag was far, far cheaper than the $1200+ full retail price tag of the Final Cut Pro version that preceded it.
Indeed, the price Apple was asking for both Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro, and other pro apps like Aperture on the App Store, was far closer to their previous upgrade pricing than anything they ever asked at retail. In other words, if you bought Logic Pro 9 on the App Store and then bought Logic Pro 10 again (like I did), you essential paid the equivalent of what was previously an upgrade-level price for the new version.
So, it's not that Apple has failed to create a mechanism for upgrade pricing on the App Store at all - it's that they've succeeded in obliterating full retail pricing. Everything is now upgrade-level pricing, all the time, for everyone. No upgrade sales, just "everyday low prices" for all.
That might take first-time buyer profit out of developers pockets, and irk existing customers who don't think new customers deserve the same "deal", but it also simplifies the process on the store side and lowers the barrier to entry for those new customers.
There are a ton of arguments many have already made about the continued devaluation of software on the App Store in general, so I won't recapitulate them here, but it very well could be that part of the devaluation, or commoditization - or the mainstreaming of software, if you prefer - isn't that upgrade pricing hasn't been implemented for existing customers, but that it's become the new normal pricing for everyone.
That might be annoying for those of us who grew up in a time before iOS, when upgrade pricing was commonplace. I'm not sure it'll even be a consideration for those growing up now on iOS. It'll just be the way things are.
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/wMavZdSiJp8/story01.htm
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