This is particularly problematic with apps whose price points make them most suitable to free trials. This is confusing to many users and leads some to a feeling of bait-and-switch, and that they’ve been betrayed by the developer. ![]() Paid apps are listed as free, even though payment is required to unlock core functionality.Let me elaborate by listing several shortcomings and how they affect both users and developers in significant ways. Every aspect of the solution is bolted on to a system which was not designed for, yet is somewhat admirably being used to simulate real support for free trials. In summary: none of the mechanics of supporting ersatz free trials are substantially supported by the App Store. I think it’s particularly important, in the face of all the celebration this week about Apple’s perceived changes to the App Store, to understand the many ways in which this solution falls short of what many developers still hope for: bona fide support for real free trials in the App Store. You might say it’s “a pretty sweet solution” for offering free trials. While I’ve enjoyed many of the upsides of the Omni approach, I’ve also had the opportunity to appreciate the many downsides. It’s a great relief to be able to offer my customers nearly as many trial and pricing accommodations as I can offer directly through my own store. In many ways the change has been a revelation. Since December, 2017, I have sold MarsEdit 4 as a free app with in-app purchases for free trials, free upgrades for recent purchases, discounted upgrades, and full-price upgrades. The approach seemed to be gaining momentum so in mid-2017 as I was looking forward to the release of MarsEdit 4, I decided that I would embrace the same idea. MindNode 5, Acorn 6, and Sparkle all launched as “free” App Store titles that can only be substantially improved with in-app purchases ranging from free, timed trials to paid, permanent feature unlocks. Omni’s approach worked well enough that developers of other apps soon followed suit. Would Apple actually approve such a use? Would customers understand it? Would the App Store Infrastructure reliably handle the approach? The answer, as it turns out, was yes. Many of us who had also been waiting for App Store support for free trials and upgrades waited in anticipation to see whether it would really work. ![]() But we can also offer a free 2-week trial which unlocks all of the features of Pro and Standard, letting you freely choose between them. We can offer our standard unlocks of Standard and Pro, of course. ![]() With the original download free, we can implement any pricing options we want to offer customers through In-App Purchases. In September 2016 they wrote about a novel solution for the long-standing absence of free trials (and upgrade pricing) on the App Store, which is based on providing a baseline free download and unlocking premium functionality through in-app purchases: To my knowledge, the first developers to come up with the idea of using in-app purchases to approximate free trials were The Omni Group. But the practice of offering free trials in this manner is not new, and is not particularly great by any stretch of the imagination. This change to the review guidelines is fantastic, because it will give app developers greater confidence that such a workaround will continue to be approved by Apple. Non-subscription apps may offer a free time-based trial period before presenting a full unlock option by setting up a Non-Consumable IAP item at Price Tier 0 that follows the naming convention: “14-day Trial.” What they did announce is a change to the App Review Guidelines, adding a bullet item to section 3.1.1 describing a kind of ersatz substitute for actual free trials, built on the in-app purchase system: Apple announced no functional changes to the way the apps are categorized, how pricing is conveyed to customers, or how the physical transaction of downloading, trialing, and potentially purchasing an app takes place. The reaction has been a breathless celebration that Apple has finally relented and given developers something we’ve been asking, no begging, for since the dawn of the App Store.īut what really changed? Not much. On Monday Apple announced that they are officially supporting so-called “free trials” for non-subscription apps.
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