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Wolfram Alpha kills its mobile site, pushes $50 iPhone app
Remember all the hoopla about Wolfram Alpha's powerful-yet-extremely-expensive iPhone app? The $50 pricetag got more attention than the app's capabilities - doing everything the Wolfram Alpha website can do, and basically giving you a graphing calculator on your iPhone. It just seemed foolish to pay $50 when Wolfram Alpha already had a perfectly serviceable iPhone optimized version of its website. ... but now it doesn't.In an effort to boost sales of the app, which has fallen out of the App Store's 100 top grossing list, Wolfram has replaced the mobile site with an ad for the iPhone app. Closing the ad gets you the non-optimized desktop version of the site, which is hardly convenient to use on the iPhone.
It seems like Wolfram is hoping die-hard users will shell out the 50 bucks to get their functionality back, but I suspect they might stop using the site altogether after that sort of mistreatment.
[via TUAW]
Comments
7
Subscribe to commentsDavidDec 4th 2009 11:57AM
Er, did you happen to read the full original posting:
"Update: Since there seems to be some confusion: yes, the regular website can be used once you dismiss the pop-up ad by tapping the "X" shown on the top-right corner of the ad. That seemed obvious to me, but obviously I should not make such assumptions."
The update was posted before you posted this article :(
Jay HathawayDec 4th 2009 1:04PM
I did indeed read the update. The regular website is still available, as I pointed out in my article. The mobile-optimized website is what's gone.
skoopmanDec 4th 2009 1:34PM
$50 bucks? No thanks. It's free on the Internet but you charge an exorbitant fee for smartphone use? $5-10 seems reasonable to me. You've lost my business and my interest...
SimonDec 4th 2009 2:14PM
I wonder what happens if you visit the old mobile site with a non-iphone?
AllanDec 4th 2009 2:41PM
Use Opera Mini - works fine!
DeoWulfDec 4th 2009 3:42PM
Dr. Wolfram may be a genius and philanthropic, but he does like to make money. I'd say this is fairly in keeping with the Popular Science article about him in the last issue. It's kind of an annoying move, but he didn't make all the money he needed to create WolframAlpha by giving away stuff.
Unfortunately, this also blocks those of us who don't have an iPhone. Using Alpha just became trickier on my ZuneHD, and I don't have any alternative (not that I'd pay $50 anyway).
Atanas BoevDec 5th 2009 10:29AM
This would probably go as a classic example in tomorrow's economy books. $50 is too high, and everyone will expect it to go down soon. Secondary, the target group (science fair geeks) would love to save $50 by using some complicated hack (i.e. remote desktop to home PC) just to prove the point.
$50 for dlisted / egotastic mobile app makes far more sense :)