Wolfram Alpha overshoots with $50 iPhone App
The upstart search engine Wolfram Alpha released it’s also-ran iPhone search application to be had for the unbelievable price of 50 bucks on iTunes. Maybe the new kid on the search engine block doesn’t realize that people don’t pay for search, advertisers do.
To be fair, Wolfram Alpha packed a slew of features into its recently released iPhone App. Not only does it provide search results using human-language requests, but a number of other tools not yet seen on the iPhone.
Take the built-in graphic calculator that can help you do your Calculus homework without having to carry around a separate calculator. Of course if you actually have Calculus homework, you probably already have a graphic calculator as recommended by your school.
Or take the stock analysis tool that will allow you to compare a number of companies on the basis of their market cap, revenue per employee and historical stock prices. Though anyone interested in that deep a dive of a company likely already uses some other investment analysis toolkit.
Granted these are functions that someone could find useful during their daily routine. However the average search user doesn’t need to do Calculus on their iPhone and wouldn’t pay for the ability to do so.
Especially not to the tune of $50 per download. To date most of the applications in the iTunes App Store have run a buck or two, with high-end applications reaching as high as $9.99, but little more than that.
Obviously the search engine is overshooting the market for iPhone Apps fairly dramatically here. It almost makes you question whether it’s a PR stunt or the company’s actual monetization strategy.
Some say the amazing thing about Wolfram Alpha is its amazing potential, after all the rough edges are smoothed out of course. The question is how many consumers will want to pay so much to help the company get there.
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