The iTunes App Store is the place to purchase or get Free apps for iPhones and iPads. However, can you get discounts on apps? You can but iTunes is not really designed to help you find discounted apps. But there are a few apps that are really good for shopping and discovering if, and when, apps are discounted... sometimes discounted to FREE.
There are a variety of apps for this but I use two; App Shopper from Normalkid LLC and App Price Drop from Apple Sliced. They are very similar but subtle differences mean I can't rely on one to do everything.
App Price Drops is really good at showing apps that have discounts right now. I can scroll though all apps that have a discount. The Sort By: option, at the upper left of the screen, allows me to see the most popular apps with discounts, or I can see all apps that are now Free or all discounted apps. I love finding Free apps. The Show: option let's me only see iPad apps if I want. I can narrow the list down even more bu using the Category: option at the upper right and look only at the category of apps that interest me.
NOTE: Universal means that the same app works on the iPhone or iPad and uses the screen appropriately for each. iPhone apps work on the iPad but they still look like iPhone apps on the big screen and don't use the terrific resolution on the iPad screen.
App Shopper, to me, has a few more features that I like a lot. First, like the iTunes store, I can see the most popular apps overall or within categories. I frequently start looking at the Top 200 Paid, Free or Grossing apps to see if anything new has emerged to please the crowds. I don't automatically purchase or get new or highly reviewed apps. I'll typically put an app into Wish List which is a check box at the upper right when reading about the app. I can either Buy the app immediately, choose Want it which puts it into my Wish List or choose that I already own the app. What is really good is that a notification is sent (if notifications are left on when you install App Shopper) when any Wish List app has a price change. Sometimes discounted apps go back to their regular price so be ready. There is even a "What's New" option to show apps new to the App Store or apps that were recently updated.
App Price Drop has a similar notification approach where you can set an Alert for any app you wish. Alerts is an option at the bottom of the screen when looking at an app.
NOTE: When confirming App Shopper, I saw that it is no longer available in the App Store. App Shopper's web site confirms this and it is a temporary situation due to a conflict with some rules Apple created for iOS 6.
Below are more shopping apps in the iTunes App Store.
Have fun using these apps to find the best Free and discounted apps available for your iPhone or iPad.
Update: App Shopper has returned to the iTunes App Store.
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