6 reasons why you should & 1 reason why you might not want to get the “Best” Bridge iPhone app

Have you ever bought something, only to take it home and find that it didn’t quite do the job you thought it would do, or that it needed some additional widget to function for the purposes that you bought it?

Of course you have: Ever since, as a kid, you got that electric toy for Christmas – You know… the one that didn’t come with batteries included.

Only yesterday I was talking to someone who recently was about to spend £1,000 on a American fridge freezer, only to find out by accident just before the credit card payment was about to be taken that it had to be plumbed in to the mains water supply to function (it had a drinks chiller tap). The extra plumbing would have been an additional cost of about £100.

Quite often retailers misinform by accident, or you as the buyer, fail to be diligent and read everything prior to purchasing.

On other occasions, the seller will deliberating mislead because the upsell of additional widgets creates an effective and profitable markup. In fact, some very smart marketers know full well that buyers will rarely take them up on a “lifetime’s guaranteed satisfaction full refund” when their product doesn’t quite do what it was thought it would do, because they know the buyer will think, “OK, it doesn’t quite do what I thought, but, it is still a great product – I found it useful… all I needed to do was buy this or that to get it to work fully or exactly the way I wanted… I can hardly ask for a refund now after all this time etc.” And rather surprisingly, through some twisted logic, the more expensive the product, the harder it is for the consumer to feel it valid to ask for a refund. Consequently, the marketeer can inflate the price of their product with bravado.

The key to marketing is confusion – the confusion of choice, price, functionality etc, because when a buyer is made a bit confused, he will follow very predictable automated thought processes in order to make a decision. This knowledge is what enables the willing marketeer to develop what would otherwise be a marginal cheap niche product into a leading mainstream global business phenomenon. That takes a lot of deliberation, craftmanship and dedication:

Apps are basically the extra widgets that you can buy that turn a telephone (i.e. a thing that you can use to have a conversation with someone with over distance), into an iPhone… an iPhone being THE most sort after techno-wizardry created, since… well; the telephone. There is nobody. I repeat, there is nobody who, after having bought an iPhone does not then buy an app to go with it. And that is because the iPhone simply does not do what was expected or wanted when first bought. Some argue this app phenomenon is “added” value… Is it? – That is literally the billion dollar question.

The Best Bridge app on the market – ‘iBridgePlus’ (For iPhone and iPad)

Some time ago I wrote a post which largely entailed me moaning like a grouch about the poor quality of Bridge apps out there. It was entitled ‘Contract bridge is going to the dogs – an app review‘.

It was a cathartic experience for me, but I have to say, the alternative; playing bridge with a great app, feels sooo much better!

The 6 Reasons why you should buy the ‘iBridgePlus’ app for iPhone

In the 7 plus minute video below I chat with Gidon Stemmer about his new Apple app for Bridge players called ‘iBridgePlus‘. On the video you will find listed the 6 good reasons why I think this is a must have app for Bridge players! The main selling point with iBridgePlus, is that the user can download duplicate deals and play against other app users. Alternatively, the user may challenge other app users to ‘Head to Heads’ which entails two users playing the same specified number of hands and scoring against one another. In both scenarios, the user is provided with a deadline during which time the deals have to be played.

But please note – A ‘Word of WARNING’:

This duplicate and head to head feature makes the app “highly addictive” – I don’t want to be held responsible for any costs you may face breaking the app habit in some expensive rehabapp clinic!

The 1 Reason why you might not want to get the ‘iBridgePlus’ iPhone app

After the video interview with Gidon was recorded, as I played the app a bit more, I did come to realise that the app was not quite what I thought…

Bearing in mind that developers can change website type and product pricing at the drop of a hat, currently on the app’s website as I write this, one of the bullet points says:

Play ‘Stand-Alone’ against one of the best Bridge Engines in the world – the Q-Plus Engine, with in excess of 2.5 Billion different deals available

The key in this quoted passage is the word “available” – What you currently get for your initial download at £4.99 is only 3 sets of 16 deals (i.e. You get 48 deals not 2.5 billion deals). You also get with this initial purchase, the facility to play as few as 5 duplicate or head to head games with your starting 10 “iBridgePlus Dollar” credits. You are not told with any clarity prior to the initial purchased download that in order to get the additional 2.5 billion deals, you must first purchase 80 “iBridge Dollars” in credit at a cost of £13.99. In other words, the app ‘really’ costs £18.98!

What you get for £4.99 is effectively a “trial” of the app.

Rightly or wrongly, people expect trials to cost nothing these days… so this is my only reason to criticise the app developers… and for not making this clear on their website.

Tell me… would you pay to trial an iPhone app? Personally, if I know something is good I will buy it. If I don’t know if it is good, I want to try it before I buy it… for nothing and with no obligation, be it a new cheese at the deli to a shiny car in the showroom. This said, I am sure Gidon has a strong case to argue.

Tell me what you think in the comments section below. Leave your thoughts and questions for Gidon…

Promotional offer for iBridgePlayer readers only

One last thing – Go download the app and then send Gidon an email (preferably including a nice testimonial or review of your own) quoting the promo: ‘iBridgePlayer01′, and Gidon will double your starting credits, but “schhh”… don’t tell everyone – It’s an iBP thing.

If you liked this post (and app offer), please spread the word by printing this image as seen below and pinning it up on your club’s noticeboard?

Handout for club notice boards