TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

App Cubby’s David Barnard on the App Store:

Great software can and will be made by enthusiasts who work nights and weekends in a labor of love, but the iPhone will never reach its full potential as a platform until there is some semblance of sanity in the App Store.

David wanted to see whether the 99¢ price point was sustainable, and he sold his applications for 99¢ for a period of time. His conclusion was that, for the kind of applications he wants to build (finely-designed, useful applications), that price point is in no way sustainable.

I discussed in December how the App Store’s design encourages this minimum price point, and what affect it may have on what kind of applications are developed for the iPhone. Unfortunately, David’s experiment (and discussions he’s had with other developers) seems to confirm the downward effects it has on quality.

Rather than begin developing small, cheap applications, or give up entirely, he is doing what developers should do: he is embracing his applications’ niche status, and pricing them at what he thinks they’re worth. Instead of developing for the mass market, he will develop for the small group who really appreciates his applications.

In other words, he’s doing what good Mac developers have always done: develop for those who really enjoy using their applications, price the application for what it’s really worth, and forget about everyone else. If more developers do the same, the App Store will be better off.