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ficbot

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 11, 2008
10
0
I just did up a big list of the apps I bought and how much there were (more than I thought, not as much as I feared) and found that, excluding two bigger-ticket apps, most of my stuff was a pretty good value. There was about $20 worth I would not buy again, and a few games I play very often and was surprised to be reminded when I did my searching that they were quite cheap! I am getting a lot of value for my 0.99 in many cases :) So what would I buy again? What would I not? What was worth it and what wasn't? Here is my list. Feel free to chime in with your own.

1) Big-Ticket apps which were worth it to me: Scrabble and Spreadsheet, which were each $7.99. The cheaper iSpreadsheet program remains in my 'terrible, do not buy' column! The costlier Spreadsheet program is much more useable.

2) 0.99 apps which were worth it to me: Firewords, Imangi, Word Up, Lists, Interval Timer, Spend, Weight Tracker. Firewords and Imangi are tons of fun and well worth it for such a great price. Spend is a nicely done budget program where you can set up categories for the week, month or year and deduct from them as you spend. A simple way to keep track of your money for those who don't need a big production.

3) 0.99 apps which are worthy upgrades from a freebie version: Removem, Moonlight Mahjong, Soleban Solitaire. All of these had very playable free versions, but the full versions had a low enough price and enough added features that I sprung for the full version to support the developer.

4) Freebie games I am enjoying: Aqua Forest, BiiBall Lite, Brain Tuner, Jive Lite, Mr. Trivia, Mancala, Trace

5) Apps I regret purchasing: Activities (does the job but its colour coding is inconsistent and confusing), iSpreadsheet (a terrible, limited program), Enigmo (I don't get it), Spinblox (an okay game but similar to some other, cheaper ones), Tripzee (hard to play since you can't see all scoring options on one screen) and Word Whirl (great game, but other free games are very similar)
 

ViPa

macrumors 6502a
Dec 4, 2007
512
0
camerabag was a worthless purchase IMO

iChalky is pretty pointless too..

mindwave is great

enigmo is great

bloom is AMAZING

jaadu VNC is sick (got it for $5 on sale)

koi pond is cool..but pointless
 

Eric Isaacson

macrumors 6502
Jul 30, 2008
340
0
I can't say I regret buying them but I never play Super Monkey Ball or Radius. I played them a few times and I might get back to them but at this point I haven't gotten my moneys worth.

I agree with you on Firewords and Imangi though, 2 of my absolute favorites.

Eric
 

elbirth

macrumors 65816
Jan 19, 2006
1,154
0
North Carolina, US
I can't say I regret buying them but I never play Super Monkey Ball or Radius. I played them a few times and I might get back to them but at this point I haven't gotten my moneys worth.

I agree with you on Firewords and Imangi though, 2 of my absolute favorites.

Eric

I highly regret buying Super Monkey Ball. I bought it when I got my iPhone 3G on launch day and after maybe 2 minutes with it, knew I regretted it... I thought long and hard before buying, but figured I'd do it because it seemed like it'd be a killer app, but the controls are way too finicky and it's just not fun to play.

I definitely agree that Imangi is a great game. I also like iPhysics Lite (though slightly annoyed to find that this won't be a free update to the non-lite version even though it's paid), TanZen (one of my most-played) and Trism.

I also kind of regret getting NetShare while it was still in the store, mainly because I haven't been able to get it working on my laptop... I'm wondering if this has to do with the fact that I haven't upgraded it to Leopard yet though... I don't use it too much now since I have my Mac Pro, so the upgrade hasn't been a high priority.

And speaking of not working, I also highly regret throwing money away on Mobile Chat, which completely doesn't work.
 

redmeister

macrumors 6502
Jan 26, 2007
272
2
some good suggestions in here that i had not seen/heard about

thx!

(i havent bought any apps yet... just getting my feet wet finally)
 

andreab35

macrumors 6502a
May 29, 2008
825
0
USA
Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5F136 Safari/525.20)

I regret buying iLoveControl when it was first released for cheap. The description wasn't thorough enough, so I stupidly bought it.
 

blairbeckwith

macrumors regular
May 14, 2008
121
1
Ottawa, Canada
Twitteriffic Premium: Not because it's a bad app, and not because it wasn't worth $10 (let's face it, it isn't, but I bought it more to support the developer). The reason I regret it i because I've simply "out grown" Twitter. I don't see the point in it anymore.
 

markgamber

macrumors 6502
Jul 2, 2005
451
0
Redneck, PA
I haven't regretted any but I haven't purchased many, also. Beejive, Missle Command, MLB at Bat, LED Football, Backgammon & Bloom & they're all pretty good, IMO. MobileChat was a huge turd but Apple refunded my money.
 

spyker3292

macrumors 65816
Jul 7, 2005
1,026
13
Michigan
Well... hmm... I'll start with what I like
-X-Plane
-Cube Runner II
-Fieldrunners
-Galcon
-Lux Touch (it's free... but I'll be buying the dlx asap!)
-Trism
-Linerider
-Jaadu

Hate
-mobilechat (I want beejive, just I'm kinda cheap)
-monkeyball
Err.. can't really remember. I deleted most of them.
 

Nadav

macrumors regular
Nov 10, 2007
177
0
I regret buying Billy Frontier when it first came out and was cheap. I also regret purchasing Spore since it has absolutely no long term replay value.

I do think most of the other apps I bought were worth it. I mainly buy games from EA, Sega, and other big companies since they usually produce great apps.
 

gospel9

macrumors regular
Sep 20, 2008
225
0
The Converter..
It was so slow and I did not like the interface one bit.
The free a2z replaced that for me until I bought Equivalence.

I also regret buying Ambiance... when I already have aSleep, which is better in audio quality, and it crashes less than Ambiance. (i have used both extensively) And now there are so many more of these apps... I don't even know if aSleep is the best anymore.


I also regret buying Pianist. The piano was simply too small on the screen for me (although I don't play the Piano). But really I simply could not use it whatsoever. Don't get this if you are not a true pianist...


I also regret buying Internet Tuner. Last FM and iPod is much more useful to me. Do NOT get it unless you have a specific station you want to stream and that you know it supports it!

iNap... it just don't work. Idea is good but very poor execution. The GPS signal can get lost easily and there's no ability to edit your locations you saved. Do not get this.


Where To? (The EXIT app).. simply useless. Not good enough to be practical, and it's also not very smart even though it's a google maps front end, it's not a very good one. Do not get this.




I guess that's it for now.
 

speedracer3000

macrumors 6502
Sep 29, 2008
250
0
Regrets:
Rotary Dialer - this was one of the first apps I bought when 2.0 came out, opened it once or twice, haven't even bothered to make a call with it, completely useless

Monkey Ball - played a few times and haven't touched it since

Tuner Internet Radio- it offers the ability to add your own stream which is why I bought it but none of the stations I really want are supported and many of the stations on their list don't even play. Very disappointed considering the price.

AP Top 25 - sluggish and completely useless.

Asphalt 4 - good graphics but I just like the other racing games more

Endless Walls - got it free during promotion, can't imaging paying even a penny for it
Like:

RSoccer09 - fun soccer game, a nice change for a game that doesn't actually use the accelerometer and plays more like a console game

Netshare - worked well for me until I got PdaNet

Texas Hold'em - got it the day 2.0 came out and still the game I play the most, a least once or twice every day

iChalky - I actually like this app, it's fun to abuse the poor thing
 

littlewaywelt

macrumors regular
Dec 4, 2007
243
0
iRadar - total rip off

iRadar is the first app I purchased where I really felt hoodwinked.
It's an app that's supposed to alert you to photo radar spots and red light cameras.

At $24 I assumed that it would be one heck of a robust app. There were no reviews since it was new, so I took a chance. It's barely worth $1.99 let alone the $14 they've reduced it to, which happened a couple of days after I reviewed it.

The app is a single page and has no integration with other iPhone things you so commonly see in so many apps. No maps, no lists, no favorites, no way to browse or see what's around you. It's a horrible waste of money.
 

markgamber

macrumors 6502
Jul 2, 2005
451
0
Redneck, PA
I requested a refund, but even after telling them I had uninstalled/reinstalled, etc, they still told me to try doing that to troubleshoot it... and I really don't feel like having to fight over it.

Pfft...screw that. Email them back and tell them you've reinstalled the app, restored the phone, tried it in different places with 3G and wifi and nothing works. Make sure to mention that, from what you've read, this is not an uncommon experience, that you're using something else that does work and you've given up on the app and the "developers" and you want your money back NOW. That worked for me. And I was considerably more colorful about my description of the app and numbnuts behind it. Oh...and don't forget to include the order/invoice number so they can find it. Originally I was going to forget about the $3 and consider it a right to bitch but I'm a dev too and clowns like this give all devs a bad name. I figured if I could take another $3 out of their grubby hands, good for me.
 
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