App Store prices increase in Europe

Apple caused a small stir yesterday when it raised the prices of apps in the European iTunes App Store. Customers were taken by surprise when the App Store went down and returned an hour later with higher prices. The minimum price of an app rose from €0.79 (US$1.00) to €0.89 ($1.15).

Apple spokesman Alan Hely told Computerworld in an email that this adjustment affected only the European App Stores and is the result of changes in the exchange rate. Besides the pricing update, Apple also rolled out support for nine new currencies including Russian rubles, Turkish lira, Indian rupees, Indonesian rupiah, Israeli shekels, Saudi Arabian riyals, South African rand, United Arab Emirates dirhams and Danish kroner.