That low Aussie dollar might be good news for exporters but when it comes to Apple's almighty App Store, price hikes are coming our way. According to 9 to 5 Mac, Apple is raising the price of apps, in-app purchases and app subscriptions in the Australian App Store by 15 per cent within the next day or so. An app costing $1.29, for instance, will go up 20 cents to $1.49. Apple sent a notice to developers detailing the price hikes, which also affect Indonesia and Sweden. Australian App Store prices went up by around 30 per cent in April last year, when the lowest-tier paid app at $0.99 jumped to $1.29. But back in 2011, it slashed prices to the tune of 25 per cent, as the Australian dollar rose. Apple slashed the prices of apps in 2011 when the Australian dollar hit record peaks, but has increased prices again as the currency has fallen. While app fees look to be going up for the time being, Apple has given developers two new low-tier price points to play with as well. They are called "Alternate Tier A" and "Alternate Tier B" and will only be added to the Australian store. Apple also said it won't cancel auto-renewing subscriptions as a result of the price increase. Instead, it will notify subscribers via email of the changes. That's a departure from its previous practice of automatically cancelling subscriptions due to a price change, according to 9 to 5 Mac. Edit: I was wondering why the prices were all over the place in the AppStore so I did a little research. Interestingly most apps went way up in price but the ones priced at the $1.29 price point dropped down to 99c.
