[ac29]

Consumers get their apps for ~40% higher prices than if developers could offer them directly (granted, payment processing isnt free anywhere, but Apple charges an order of magnitude more than the alternatives).

[pjmlp]

The alternatives were charging up to 80% when iPhone made its appearance on the market.

If anything the iPhone was responsible for driving everyone down, as developers abandoned J2ME, Brew, Symbian, Blackberry into iOS.