[timmy t]

Everyone always talks about people not wanting to move from iPhones or Android phones because of how much money they have invested in apps and music on their current devices.
How much money do people spend on apps? How much on music? Are we talking less than $100 or more than $500?
Just curious what an average amount is.
I have $2.99 invested in one app on my PlayBook and my music is all free so I am not the average app consumer.

[pantlesspenguin]

I purchase music through Amazon MP3, and I can always put that music on an SD card as well as access it via the cloud. I bet I've spent about $300. On Kindle I've spent about $200. Apps, maybe $50. I typically use free apps designed by the company (for example the official Netflix app, the official 24 Hour Fitness app, etc). Other than the official ones I pay attention to if the developer has a "top developer" designation, the app has an "editor's choice" designation, as well as number of downloads and user reviews.

[Ruslan Botsyurko]

I've spent something between $100 and $200 on apps and games for PlayBook and Bold, so this is definitely a reason to keep your platform, but not the main reason for me personally. I wouldn't stick to a platform I'm not happy with just because of money spent on software market. Music doesn't matter, I buy songs via iTunes and copy them to my BlackBerry, don't see a problem in that.

[timmy t]

So if people want to change, their investment in apps is not that big a deal, especially when you are talking about $600 smartphones.
If people can buy them, then I would assume they could live with a $200 loss of apps.
Any reason why the apps are not transferable between platforms. If you pay for them, there must be an email address or something attached to them, especially if they are registered.
I wonder if that is only kept track of by the Apple or Android store itself rather than the app seller. Would be an interesting thing if RIM could figure a way to make it easy for app companies to give people who have bought their apps on another platform a free version of the app for their BB10 devices.
I will fire off an email to Thorsten suggesting this be looked into

[raino]

It's hard to say if people would be ok with eating $200 for apps. One, if you move across platforms, assuming the new one has all the apps the old one had, that's another $200 you'll have to spend. Two, add that to the $600 you've already spent on the phone, and you're looking at a $1000 hit (assuming you don't return to your old platform and its $200 in apps you've installed.)

There was a thread a while back where someone suggested that RIM should either a) give a X amount in App World credit to BB10 buyers (no questions asked), or b) work on giving users free downloads of apps they already own on other platforms (provided the user can show proof of app download). I think the consensus from that thread was that option A would be easier to implement.

[Tre Lawrence]

From Google Play, I have roughly $140 worth of apps. To be fair, several of those were reimbursed (reviews), and some were bought on sale, but all in all, they would cost me $140 if I switched.

From the Amazon Appstore, I have 45 pages of free apps at 10 per page. At the very conservative estimate of $1/app (and I do mean conservative; Docs2Go alone is $15), that's $450 dollars worth of apps. In truth, I use only 5 (Apps2SD Pro, Business Calendar, TuneIn Pro, Tweetcaster Pro, GV CallBack) every day. My kids love being able to play their way through the catalog of free games.

I have been blessed with an opportunity to give to individual XDA Developers... about a $85 for several apps that the developers were kind enough to provide for free. I won't count music (I use Amazon and Google Music, and will continue to regardless of platform), books or movies/TV shows.

So, ignoring those, and ignoring specialized apps that I have reviewed and have access to due to the kindness of developers (Like $50 TomTom), that is more than $500 worth of apps. I know a lot of people with more. As for apps that I use heavily everyday? Way less.

Thus, for some folks, the whole investment thing is a true consideration. Having said that, I would switch platforms regardless of the amount if the right platform appealed to me.

[Tre Lawrence]

So if people want to change, their investment in apps is not that big a deal, especially when you are talking about $600 smartphones.
If people can buy them, then I would assume they could live with a $200 loss of apps.
Any reason why the apps are not transferable between platforms. If you pay for them, there must be an email address or something attached to them, especially if they are registered.
I wonder if that is only kept track of by the Apple or Android store itself rather than the app seller. Would be an interesting thing if RIM could figure a way to make it easy for app companies to give people who have bought their apps on another platform a free version of the app for their BB10 devices.
I will fire off an email to Thorsten suggesting this be looked into

Not a bad idea...

Some developers are cool... I use HanDBase heavily since I was on Palm. The developer let me transfer it to BB and then Android. The same with Olive Tree and DataVault. Most developers are not that kind, and I can understand why to a degree. Some offer "crossgrade" deals.