Hacker News Reader

Some of the apps are genuinely useful - there's an app that will capture a sample of a song and identify it. I would pay at least a few bucks for that. Maybe not $10, but $5 easily.

But on the store it's free, without ads. I don't get it. That's throwing money away.

Don't they use affiliate links for when you purchase the song from the (iTunes?) music store.

They could've done both...

I think the author addresses the point about value decently enough. He says that you'd better build an app that's worth what you're charging, or you're going to og out of business.

The comparison between iphone apps and desktop apps is strange to me. I don't think anyone would actually want to have photoshop on an iphone. Desktop computers and mobile devices are obviously used in different contexts and thus their software have different criteria for usefulness.

Is a ring tone worth $3? To many people, it is.

What do you all think of our graphing calculator app, Grafly (http://grafly.com)? Is it worth $9.99? We think it is, in that there's nothing like it on any other platform at any price.

Like all the "please rate my web site" posts, I'm interested in what HN denizens think.

Thanks.

It looks cool, but only for a particular small market. Have you figured out how to reach the relevant market yet?

Not yet; that's what we're working on. The initial response was strong, but, like most apps, sunk quickly into the morass as the AppStore became overwhelmed with lots of silly little apps.

What's the market size for physical graphing calculators?

I'm sorry to say, but I don't perceive it to be useful at all. I'm probably in your target demographic - college student in engineering, and I have to tell you that anyone who's going to be doing any sort of work with graphing calculators would prefer to buy one than use their iPhone. Here's why:

- Physical buttons: when you're chewing through problems you absolutely MUST have physical buttons with tactile feedback. Like the calculator app on the iPhone (the default one) the buttons are way too small to even begin operating quickly.

- Battery life. My exams are often 3-4 hours long, and an iPhone would not be allowed as a legal calculator. Even if it were, the iPhone would have trouble holding a charge through the entire exam.

I just don't see much of a market for it. At a lower price point maybe - I see this app as being useful for possibly one-off equations, but nobody who needs this sort of software will use this app as their primary graphing calculator.

Now, what I would gladly pay for is a graphing calculator software that comes with a USB keypad. I have my graphing calculator with me always, but sometimes it's slow and the screen sucks. It would be wonderful to have the friendly physical user interface of the calculator and the power of the PC.

Thanks for that feedback!

The physical buttons argument is a good one.

I don't think the battery life issue is a real one--when you're not actively calculating a new graph, the app is doing very little. I suppose we should actually benchmark using it for 3-4 hours at a time. Can't argue about legal calculators.

Though saying "friendly [physical] UI" seems like an oxymoron to me--physical graphing calculators have some of the worst graphics I've ever seen.

Omnifocus for iPhone was 19.99 and worth every penny. I could of paid 199.99 and it would of been good value. This app lets me offload the kinds of thinking my brain is bad at into something I always carry. You can't put a price on having that in your pocket.

I'd hesitate to say I had any desktop apps more useful then omnifocus iPhone, which effects me more like a neural upgrade from a sci fi novel then a cell phone app. iPhone apps could be like primitive cyborg upgrades with a primitive MMI solution grafted onto the part where the human interacts with the machine part.

I hope people support apps with high prices and really cool stuff gets developed. the problem isn't price or value or anything like that, it's that no one has any interesting vision of what the future of this phone could hold.

"it could of been" is written "it could have been", and "which effects me more" is written "which affects me more". Do you also say those words the same way?

yeah, I can't tell some words apart. Hooked on phonics phucked me up.

I also had speech disorders and couldn't talk so others understood me till I was four. There are still some words I never say right. I could give a shit. I lost enough sleep over it.

Are you one of the idiots who thinks spelling indicates intelligence? All U do correcting otherz is show how 1950s yur thinking iz.

Most spelling mistakes don't mean a thing, but when I read people who write 'of' and 'effect', I assume it's because they don't read a lot. It has nothing to do with intelligence.

When i read people who assume intelligence has anything to do with perfectly mimicing others systematically, I assume it's because they read so much they can't think for themselves, and stick so closely to analyzing the text that they don't engage the ideas.

People making systematic mistakes is why we don't all speak shakespearian. It's how the DNA of ideas evolves. I'z skateboarden on yur sidewak, levin u behind. Yur Rulez u wasted yur life mastezing our obsoletest. Possible realities are like a fractal wave and evolving languages holographically in the 21st century is more useful then rigidly adhering to rules made by 20th century monkeys thinking 19th century ways. Can u deal with it, grandpa?

I don't mind when people use 'u' or I'z, or anything like that. But affect and effect are two different words entirely. People who say 'U' don't mistakenly write 'Me'. It's not a spelling error, it's a meaning error. You mean to say one word, you say another. In my english accent, 'effect' and 'affect' are pronounced completely differently. This may not be the same for you, which is why you make the mistake.

The same with 'of'. You picked another word that means something different and put it in there - you didn't just misspell it.

There is nothing wrong with bad spelling - I'm not very good at spelling either. But it's confusing if you substitute words with other words that mean something different, but in your accent sound the same.

The way I speak, those words don't sound the same, and your sentence becomes very confusing. It's only because I've seen this mistake a few times on the internets that I know what is meant.

if you want to read people with this change in their language, you'll learn to adapt.

When I watch british humor, I don't always get it, but I don't expect them to change to be more like me.

There is a correct way to spell, and there is a wrong way. You, my dear sir, are doing it wrong. Don't expect the world to come round to your way of spelling anytime soon.

Ye pine fore days long gone. I dost hope thou ist right and spellings shant e're change, Marcus.

Noone can think of a word that evolved in our lifetime already?