Apple recenly added a new sort / finding path for iPhone apps: Top Grossing Apps. It is far from perfect and not at all based on your habits or your friends' (it should be Facebook Connect enabled)... But it sure is revealing. Take a look at the top twenty grossig apps and we learn a few key things:
1. 12 of the top 20 apps are games. And most of the games are well known branded games like scrabble, UNO, madden football, etc. People want to game on their devices and are used to paying bigger dollars on other devices or formats.
2. Per the above bullet, brands dominate the top 20. 16 of the apps are prominent brands... users are more likely to pay for familiar names - as though it includes reliabilty among a crowded space with a failed rating system.
3. Pricing is not the much talked about 0.99. While there are a few sub dollar apps, only 8/20 are under 4.99 (which is the most common price point in the top twenty).
4. Other than games, content (family guy videos, Espn radio and CNN news) and applications (like tweetie) make up the remainder
