Wolfram Alpha Does The Math, Slashes iPhone App Price (Sort Of)

iphoneIcon-holidayThere’s a lot to love about Wolfram Alpha’s iPhone app. But as regular readers will know, one of them is not the price. At $50, it’s just way too hard to justify the purchase when you can get all of the information online, for free. So just in time for the holidays, Wolfram Alpha is doing something about it: Slashing prices!

The app will be on sale for a much-more reasonable $19.99 starting tomorrow and running through the end of the year. I’m still not sure that that isn’t a little high ($9.99 seems more a bit more in-line with the current app economy, but obviously that’s entirely up to Wolfram Alpha). The company also notes that despite the three-week discount, they absolutely plan to jack it back up to the regular $50 price after the first of the year.

I asked the company to give me some sales figures, but they declined. They did say that the app sales are “robust” and have “beaten our expectations solidly.” Those two things can mean just about anything without some solid numbers, obviously. At the same time, the company noted that it was very much thinking about other discounts/promotions in the future for the app. In other words, it might not be the smartest thing in the world to shell out of the $50 even if you do think it’s worth it.

Curiously, they also decided to remove the iPhone-formatted version of the website a while back in a move that I’m positive was in no way meant to spur app sales. That was sarcasm.

But again, the app is solid, and if you’re looking for a better than 50% off deal on it, check it out tomorrow in the App Store. The company also has a little blog post about some holiday-themed searches you can do with it.