iPhone Apps and Content

There is a post on Gizmodo about how they are starting to see single band apps pop up on the iPhone store. The person who wrote the article thought this is lame. It is easy to see how this could end up in 100s of apps being on the store and an average fan buying dozens of these apps.

I am not surprised this is happening. It is a result of the business rules of the app store and of the apps. A customer can only be charged once per app. That means that there is no other way for the record labels to charge you every time the content is updated. There is no way to charge people through a single app. The content provider is forced to send the customer back to the app store and buy a new app.

I am not against the record company charging me for new content when it comes out, I just don't like the idea of needing 40 apps to listen to the bands I like. I already blogged about how apps have short life spans. So putting out new apps sounds like a good thing. This is new and it seems like there is a lot to be worked out in this business model.

As a customer, if there are songs I can get on the app, I want them in my iTunes collection also. I would want to be able to listen to them in other context also. Not just in that app alone.