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The return of the $1,000 iPhone app: BarMax CA

By | January 18, 2010, 9:06am PST

Summary: There’s a new $1,000 App available for the iPhone, and if you’re studying for the California bar exam — it may actually be worth it.

http://www.getbarmax.com/_/rsrc/1263797017327/config/pagetemplates/home/iPhone%203G.pngIt’s hard to forget the first $1,000 iPhone app. I Am Rich did nothing but display an image of a glowing red ruby and quickly became roadkill (and quasi-famous) as the third app to be removed from the App Store.

As it turns out, I Am Rich was the first but isn’t the last $1,000 app.

BarMax CA (App Store, $999.99) bills itself as “the only complete bar exam prep solution (Essay, MBE, Performance Test and Flash Cards) available for purchase in the iPhone App Store.” The application lets California law students prepare for the bar exam.

At ten times the cost of a (subsidized) iPhone 3G the BaxMax was sure to garner its share of media attention, but TechCrunch’s MG Siegler makes the case that the price may be justified, A competitor’s test prep course sells for $3,000 - 4,000, although it includes classroom training.

BarMax is packed with over 1GB of data, including thousands of pages of materials as well as hundreds of hours of audio lectures, and will email content to customers in Word format upon request.

BarMax beats out the previous highed-price app, iRa Pro (App Store, $899.99) a mobile video surveillance app. BarMax CA is only currently available for the California bar but the developer plans to release similar apps for New York, and the five other states by the end of 2010,

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Topics

Apple iPhone, Computer Associates International Inc., BarMax, Smart Phones, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Jason D. O'Grady

Jason O'Grady is a journalist and author specializing in mobile technology. He has published six books on Apple and mobile gadgets and his PowerPage blog has been publishing for over 15 years.

Disclosure

Jason D. O'Grady

Jason D. O'Grady is the creator and editor of O'Grady's PowerPage, which has been publishing mobile technology news since 1995. He maintains an advertising relationship with the following legacy advertisers on the PowerPage:

  • Amazon Associates
  • Google Adsense
  • Tekserve

    • Advertising on the PowerPage is brokered by a third-party agency (BackBeat Media) and he recuses himself from these negotiations.

Biography

Jason D. O'Grady

Jason D. O'Grady developed an affinity for Apple computers after using the original Lisa, and this affinity turned into a bona-fide obsession when he got the original 128 KB Macintosh in 1984.

He started writing one of the first Web sites about Apple (O'Grady's PowerPage) in 1995 and is considered to be one of the fathers of blogging. He has been a frequent speaker at the Macworld Expo conference and a member of the conference faculty. He also co-founded the first dedicated PowerBook User Group (PPUG) in the United States.

After winning a major legal battle with Apple in 2006, he set the precedent that independent journalists are entitled to the same protections under the First Amendment as members of the mainstream media.

O'Grady is the author of The Nexus One Pocket Guide, The Droid Pocket Guide, The Google Phone Pocket Guide, and The Garmin nuvi Pocket Guide (Peachpit Press), the author of Corporations That Changed the World: Apple Inc. (Greenwood Press), and a contributor to The Mac Bible (Peachpit Press). In addition, he has contributed to numerous Mac publications over the years, including MacWEEK, Macworld, and MacPower (Japan).

When he's not writing about Apple for ZDNet at The Apple Core, he enjoys spending time with his family in New Jersey.

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RE: The return of the $1,000 iPhone app: BarMax CA
flowchartx 22nd Jan 2010
Hmmm....not so sure I'm sold that these authors are great instructors simply due to the fact that they're Harvard law grads...There are companies who provide similar courses for around a thousand bucks but who give you an actual e-reader to keep once you're done studying and whose content is created by instructors that take the Bar every six months. I would think that a company who uses instructors that take the Bar that often probably can tell you pretty accurately what to expect on the Bar. One of these companies I've come across since hearing about the "$1,000 app" is a company called Law Bound Prep. Their URL is lawboundprep.com/index.php-They seem to be pretty tech-savvy and geared towards offering complete courses on tech and in a printed format as well. This $1000 app may have decent content, but I'm not sure I'd want to study 1000 pages of simple text on something as small as an iPhone.
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How big is your Market
silentblue 19th Jan 2010
When your Market is small you have to sell high, when your market is big you can sell low.

Business 101!
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RE: The return of the $1,000 iPhone app: BarMax CA
flowchartx 22nd Jan 2010
Hmmm....not so sure I'm sold that these authors are great instructors simply due to the fact that they're Harvard law grads...There are companies who provide similar courses for around a thousand bucks but who give you an actual e-reader to keep once you're done studying and whose content is created by instructors that take the Bar every six months. I would think that a company who uses instructors that take the Bar that often probably can tell you pretty accurately what to expect on the Bar. One of these companies I've come across since hearing about the "$1,000 app" is a company called Law Bound Prep. Their URL is lawboundprep.com/index.php-They seem to be pretty tech-savvy and geared towards offering complete courses on tech and in a printed format as well. This $1000 app may have decent content, but I'm not sure I'd want to study 1000 pages of simple text on something as small as an iPhone.

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