Pricing predicaments

Another common complaint on several iPhone blogs and boards is that the App Store pricing structure is arbitrary and confusing. iTunes store has straightforward prices: Songs are $1, most albums are $10, TV shows are $2. Not so with the App Store, where apps prices vary widely.

Setting prices for apps is another business decision for developers, not Apple. But as applications proliferate and developers become more competitive, prices are likely to stabilize.

Improvements and updates

Updates are infrequent due to Apple's inscrutable vetting process. When a firmware update throws an app for a loop, a developer can often have a fix ready to upload in a day. But Apple's approval process is much slower. Users and developers alike complain it takes a week or longer for updates to appear, leaving them with malfunctioning apps in the meantime.