[fnayr]

That's fine. If they lower their price quickly back to $.99 Apple can ban them (and has stated they will ban developers engaging in blatant price manipulations). If they don't, no one will buy it, and if some poor schmuck does he will get a refund on an accidental purchase.

[nayefc]

Looking at previous pricing points though, it seems they changed their prices rapidly up and down. Isn't this blatant price manipulation? They're not banned yet.

[fnayr]

Yeah sometimes Apple doesn't catch them all. But they have banned developers in the past for this. If someone reports them, they have a high chance of getting banned.

[S4M]

That's weird, if I wanted to manipulate the price to make it look like my $0.99 are a bargain, I wouldn't set the initial price at $999, as it will become obvious, but at something like $5.

[spinlock]

Why would apple want to ban people from dropping the price of an app from $999 to $0.99? Are they just trying to make sure that people who buy at high prices don't feel bad about their purchases?

[blhack]

Because raising it to $999 temporarily is just a cheap, and obnoxious, way of getting free marketing.

It's trying to game the app store.

[josephagoss]

I guess its because moving the price up and down a lot is a way to get people to buy it for cheap and review it, and then rise the price to catch people off guard. Apple might see giant price changes as a attempt to trick and fool people.

Instead of allowing it, a outright ban is a much better idea.

EDIT: see the activity here. http://appshopper.com/games/the-fleas-2 .

When its cheap they hook people in and get reviews on sites. then they rise it around the place trying to trap people. Instead of Apple giving these people the chance to correct course and set a fair price, they just ban which is far better. Never give scum a second chance, they always try to find a way.

[wahnfrieden]

Why would you want your customers to feel cheated? It also leads to more refund requests, which have a processing overhead.

[gdilla]

Right, and Apple debits your account for the purchase price (not the net 70% amount) when a user demands a refund. So a lot of this and you can actually run negative.