> What if I pour so much time into this super-premium app and then it doesn't sell?
The advantage of being able to set the price dynamically will let you experiment. What I've found is that holding the quality of the app constant, you can experiment with the pricing. You might get 10 sales at $5 or 50 sales at $1. If you believe your app really does provide $5 worth of value, it will probably sell. If it doesn't you can experiment with the pricing. It's only "super-premium" if users think it is.
>> Whereas I can do five .99 or 1.99 apps
I'd discourage going this route. For most people this will make more money ... Wait! Don't stop reading. What it won't do though is increase the quality of the applications you put out. You'll end up with 4 or 5 mediocre apps in most cases that roll on getting a few bucks a day. You might get lucky and have an app with better sales, but it's not the same as a rockstar performance by one app. OP's example is a good illustration of this.
>> win just by showing up, not by building a [great] app.
Nope, that's unfortunately not how it works. Sorry. You can win by executing on idea that you have validated. It's much like a startup.
>> how you find ideas like that
You see a need and you fill it. I think that's the best way to put it. Since I can't really help you find an idea, I can tell you this much, you should validate your idea first if you want to reduce risk.
Thanks for your comments. I just wanted to clarify something:
win just by showing up, not by building a [great] app
This is explicitly NOT what I said. I don't think you can win in the long run without creating something great, but great and super premium aren't the same thing. I've bought apps for $1.99 that were great that I would never have paid $19.99 for because they just didn't provide that much value. So what I was trying to say was that if you're going to try and create something worth $19.99 in value, you can either pick a saturated area and try to be the super premium offering, OR you can pick a completely underserved but hungry niche and create something good that solves a need.
The advantage of being able to set the price dynamically will let you experiment. What I've found is that holding the quality of the app constant, you can experiment with the pricing. You might get 10 sales at $5 or 50 sales at $1. If you believe your app really does provide $5 worth of value, it will probably sell. If it doesn't you can experiment with the pricing. It's only "super-premium" if users think it is.
>> Whereas I can do five .99 or 1.99 apps
I'd discourage going this route. For most people this will make more money ... Wait! Don't stop reading. What it won't do though is increase the quality of the applications you put out. You'll end up with 4 or 5 mediocre apps in most cases that roll on getting a few bucks a day. You might get lucky and have an app with better sales, but it's not the same as a rockstar performance by one app. OP's example is a good illustration of this.
>> win just by showing up, not by building a [great] app.
Nope, that's unfortunately not how it works. Sorry. You can win by executing on idea that you have validated. It's much like a startup.
>> how you find ideas like that
You see a need and you fill it. I think that's the best way to put it. Since I can't really help you find an idea, I can tell you this much, you should validate your idea first if you want to reduce risk.