Lonely Planet has come forward to (almost) explain why it slashed the price of its glossy iPad app in half within days of its launch in the iTunes store.
A string of users turned on the company in the reviews section of iTunes, most notably to complain about its initial $19.99 download price.
Lonely Planet dropped the price to $9.99 after just two days as the number of negative comments increased and the average rating for the app remained at a lowly 2/5.
Avoiding any mention of the poor reviews, officials are giving another explanation for the drop in price.
The company says it priced the book fairly in the first instance as it is trying to "re-imagine" the quality of its print books onto new digital platforms. However, it adds:
"It [iPad] adds value through interaction and multi-media as well as the ability to share. But we understand the potential of the iPad to reach out to new audiences for Lonely Planet and, as such, we’ve made a decision to reduce the price to enable us to achieve that goal."
Lonely Planet says the appearance of some overwhelmingly positive reviews of the product in iTunes before the launch date of the iPad may simply be due to some early downloads of the app by reviewers.