Comments on: Forum Review: App Sniper for the iPhone

By: Alex

Alex — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 11:45:14 +0000

That would be a very good idea Martin.

By: martin

martin — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 18:11:31 +0000

There should be a web service for this that emails and/or texts you when the app goes on sale.

By: Manta Research

Manta Research — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 03:32:39 +0000

Yes, agreed. If you only need to monitor 2 or 3 apps that you're interested in, it's not as useful. Our first version started with the ability to monitor 32 apps and we were quickly told that was too few (including in the review above). We've since increased that to 60, but we're still getting feedback that it's too little so we're going to be increasing it to 100 in this next release!

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 23:10:08 +0000

Well unlike so many other apps in the App Store, it at least serves a purpose, I'll give it that.

I guess I just don't buy enough apps myself, and didn't consider people having very large lists. There's currently only three I'm considering...LOL! ... so, I guess if I was interested in 10 or 20, you no doubt have made your point.

By: Manta Research

Manta Research — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 22:32:28 +0000

Hi Steve,

The general idea is that developers are changing their prices all the time, often for a very short period of time. You could check your list of X apps periodically, but how much time will you spend doing it, and what percentage will escape your notice because either you didn't identify the sale or you didn't check often enough?

AppSniper is only 99c. Is a dollar worth you saving 10-15 minutes of your time and energy every day? The larger the list of apps you're interested in, the more time this will save. Since it's automated, you can even put in apps that you're only casually interested in "if the price is right" because it takes no additional effort to monitor it.

Finding out what's new on the App Store is also a hassle because app updates get jumbled together with new releases, so it's hard to find out what's really new vs an update. AppSniper makes this simple by presenting a list of "New" apps that are truly new.

There's other features as well which can help you make an informed decision when deciding on a purchase, which would be difficult otherwise. For example, the price history graph will show you the apps price movements over the past 90 days. This gives you a good idea if the current "sale" is actually a worthwhile sale, or whether it's the developer just flip-flopping prices making it seem like a sale.

The new upcoming version offers additional features to simplify app monitoring, including the ability to watch for version updates, review top 100 lists for each category and subcategory etc.

If you look at the testimonials on iTunes, many users have saved tens of dollars using this so there are definitely people who are finding it worthwhile.

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 16:20:16 +0000

I think if it were matter of saving tens or even hundreds of dollars, then I could see the purpose in this. But we're talking about the App Store here. To bother with this, and to wait and go without an app until I can save a buck or two, seems beyond ridiculous to me.

Write all of your wish list apps in Notes, then check their prices periodically. There, I just saved you $1.99