Australia’s dollar has been a touch higher than the American dollar for some time, and now it looks like Apple has noticed the change, with a move that now makes Australian purchases on the AppStore exactly what they are in the US.
What does this mean?
An app purchased yesterday at $2.49 now costs $1.99 and a $1.19 app is now 99 cents. The catch here is that the more expensive items aren’t identical to their American equivalents, with 50 cents tacked on to the end of every app over four bucks, so a $4.99 app in the US costs $5.49 locally.
The price shift is a move Australians have wanted practically since our dollar started heading up, an acknowledgement that Apple recognised the value of our currency and reflected it in its pricing structure.
Currently, the pricing adjustment only affects applications purchased from Apple’s iTunes network, with music and movies completely unaffected by the move and still remaining at the prices they were yesterday.
This is great news and certain to promote buying from Australia again. Â It can only be good for the country, well done Apple.
I don’t mind paying a bit extra for decent quality sound. itunes (and others) need to up the bitrate for these tracks, or even give a choice of download quality, maybe even add a wav file option.
Call me old fashion but I’ll stick with CD’s for now.
If only we could get music on Blu-ray (not concerts etc, just music).