YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR: FREE IPHONE APPLICATIONS HAVE HIGHER INTEREST BUT LOWER RATING THAN PAID APPS.

Our review of the Apple iPhone App Store downloads finds that free applications continue to evoke much higher interest, as measured by the number of “ratings” the top twenty-five free and the top twenty-five paid applications have received, though the rating “score” is significantly higher for the paid applications than for the free applications. The top twenty-five paid applications have received 31,965 ratings with an average rating of 3.8. The top twenty-five free applications have received eighteen times as many ratings as the paid applications—588,718 ratings, with an average rating of 3.0. Games and entertainment dominate both the free applications, which finds twenty free applications in these two categories, and the paid applications, which finds twenty-one applications in these two categories. (Table available). -Stuart Whitaker