While the rest of the world watched in anticipation of Apple’s quarterly earnings announcement, Wolfram Alpha quietly introduced their new iPhone application into the App Store on Monday.
As the “official” application for Wolfram Alpha, an answer engine from Wolfram Research, users will have no choice but to pay up for this high-brow app, as it was unveiled with a jaw-dropping $50 price tag.
Despite offering a multitude of neat functions – graphing calculator, calorie counter, international economic index, astronomy guide, etc. – a lot of people anticipate it being difficult for this app to achieve any degree of notable success at such a lofty price. The app, after all, is simply a compressed, portable, carbon-copy of the website, which is accessible as a Firefox add-on.
Wolfram Alpha was initially hyped up to be the “next Google,” but even those behind the search engine never shared those hopes or intentions. And, needless to say, even Google has never had the “audacity” to introduce a $50 app.
Sad but true, the Wolfram Alpha iPhone is getting more attention today from the mobile community for its cost than it is anything else, although some were also surprised that Apple gave the app an age-restricted rating of 9+ due to “infrequent/mild profanity or cruel humor.”
