How Much Is Your iPhone App?

The care and feeding of my iPhone is an interesting illustration of the role of competition and the ability of suppliers to price-discriminate. I wanted apps that would translate words (no need for full phrases or sentences — that’s done nicely on itranslate.com) between German and English, and between Dutch and English. There were expensive ones, but the Dutch/English app was $24.99, while the German/English app was “only” $19.99. That was far beyond my price range, so I shopped for cheap ones. The cheap German app was $0.99; the cheap Dutch app $1.99. The German apps at each level of complexity were more numerous than the Dutch, so it’s not surprising that with more competition they should be less expensive. I wonder if this is the kind of difference pervades the sale of iPhone apps?