China Apple Store Randomly Dominated by 1 Yuan Applications

$0.16 US, £0.10 GBP, $0.19 AUD or 1 yuan isn’t rather large amount of money – but it seems to be just enough for these app developers.

As ITHome reported, one morning they woke up and all of a sudden a ton of applications we’re listed at the low price of 1 yuan. There has been no official release from Apple as to why this change has been put into place, but it is rumored that it is to draw more ‘genuine’ users – seeing many previously free apps adopt the 1 yuan strategy along some big name offerings.

Some reports claim that this 1 yuan (3 yuan for some applications, too) implementation may succeed in fostering more genuine users, with less bot downloads – but may also draw people toward jail-breaking their phones in order to install them for free either way. Only time will tell however as this is all a big guess.

Some large scale applications have also implemented the 1 yuan method, seeing games such as Plague Inc., Limbo, Fire of God Vegas: Prometheus Rising among many other well developed mobile platform games being listed for the almost-nothing price. This may mean mean that more ‘freemium’ models will be implemented – seeing users be able to purchase in game points, gold or experience for real life money, alongside seeing them sit through annoying ads unless they pay $5 US or so to have them removed permanently.

There have been no announced plans as to if this will be released to the Western world, nor an official release from Apple regarding the subject. We will continue to report as more information comes to light.

Images courtesy of ITHome and Mobiloud