Of course we would all love something for free, but the point is that with this solution becoming commercial, we will receive better support and more frequent updates. Most site administrators that are going to use this are not going to use it on a smaller forum, so the potential for a lot of iPhone users is good, and they'll want support as soon as it is needed.
Not to mention, I'm SURE that there is going to be some major changes needed when vBulletin 4 is released, so administrators that use this will want a timely upgrade option, and you couldn't be sure that a developer do this for free would be able to provide a vB MOD and an iPhone App quickly.
"Ya get what ya pay for"
They are here because this is the place to do something like this, this benefits anyone who immediately buys this solution or buys it in the future, they are getting feedback and bugs reported to the them and are working to resolve as much as possible before the official release.
I've reported a couple of bugs and ensured that they have appropriate abilities to reproduce the issues which helps, so if you are involved in the testing, I would recommend that you talk with Winter and see what you can do to help them help you.
Thanks