App Sales: The Way to Score Some Great Apps on the Cheap

Most anyone with an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad realizes that there are a lot of apps available for free in the App Store. Some of them are very good, including such well known ones as Pandora, Lose It!, and Google Earth, etc. Go up to $0.99, less than a twenty-ounce Coke at a convenient store, and you find some other quality apps. But what happens when you find those apps that are $4.99 or $9.99 or more that you want but don't want to spend that much for?

Apps go on sale in the app store all the time. Electronic Arts and Gameloft put top-rated games, such as Madden NFL 11, on sale for only $0.99 during the holidays. As of this writing, Runkeeper Pro, which is regularly $9.99, is free. The key to finding deals like these is to know right away when they go on sale. I have a lot of apps on my iPhone. Most of them I got when they were free or when they were $0.99. There are two things I use to help discover apps on sale:

1. I read the AppAdvice blog, which nearly every day posts free iPhone and iPad apps.
2. There are apps for that...for tracking sales, that is. The best ones not only show you what apps went on sale, but let you keep a wish list of apps you want and notify you when those apps are on sale. I have used BargainBin With Push (free), which lets you create a wish list and say the price you are willing to buy each app at. If an app meets its target price, a local alert will notify you. I'm currently using AppShopper, which has the added benefit of a web site for maintaining your wish list and what you currently own. It sends you an email when an app on your wish list goes on sale.