ASPs iPhone App - A swing and a miss?

Many of us with at the DF have iPhones. We use the MPORA and Fuel TV apps quite often. Now ‘Lord Brodie’ and the ASP has finally dropped their first app. And they kindly did it at a $4.99 price. Great. Always nice to pay for something without even having a clue how it will work. Especially on the launch. Sketchy marketing. Maybe a nice trial price of either FREE or even $.99 like many other apps launch with. Why hit your fanbase with full price from the start? Use the idea that crack cocaine dealers did back in the 80′s. Have a highly addictive product and give it away at first. Word of mouth advertising will also help drive consumers back to your product.

From ASP: The ASPtogo application gives the user live scores, heat results, photos, videos and connects to LIVE video feeds of the world’s best surfers going off in the world’s best waves.

“The ASP iPhone application is the latest development we’re activating to bring the world’s best surfers to our global audience wherever they may be,” Brodie Carr, ASP International CEO, said. “With access to literally dozens of high-calibre events for a single download is a pretty good deal and I can proudly say that I’m the first customer.” My question is did ‘Lord Brodie’ drop $4.99 on it too? Guess not.

We paid our $4.99 and downloaded it. So far, it hasn’t crashed which is something that often happens with many new iPhone apps. But, it seems a little lethargic to us. We viewed the photos from the first heat at Snapper Rocks. Ok, how about letting your user save the image to his phone so that he can forward to friends or use as his iPhone’s wallpaper? How about including fan interaction? Message boards or Chat mode? Heat Alerts? Maybe you select some of your favorite surfers and you are able to add an alert that will text you when your surfer’s heat is about to start? Just some ideas.

Some of the user reviews:

Simsonic1 Rates it at 2 stars… “This App is not worth the $4.99…. It’s Subpar…. I can use Safari to go to the contest website to get way more functionality… It gives you no live video. This is unacceptable.”

Powernose Rates it at 5 stars… (Think he was stoned when he rated it) “Finally is hereee!!!!!!!!!!”

cOppertOp Rates it at 1 star… “I don’t know what I was thinking…”

Overall it has an average user rating of three. Some users actually have some very good suggestions that the ASPtogo developers should consider. Could be a great app with some tweaks. Biggest gripe is hitting people for $4.99 intro price. Why? Create a solid product and then charge your price. Also, many other apps have two version. One free or $.99 and then your FULL version at $4.99. You full version would give them ALL access to live video feeds etc. The Vans Triplecrown App from last December gave us live video feed. It can be done.

Final thought, it may be rushed out to be there for the Quiksilver Pro at Snapper. Let’s cross our fingers and hope their developers continue to tweak this app as it COULD be a good one. Right now, it is just another app.

~RS

, ,

Share

Save