In App Upgrade now less attractive
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
The dust seems to be settling somewhat, and while there’s been no official announcement from Apple about upgrades to apps now longer appearing on the front page of iTunes, enough developers have been receiving emails from Apple support confirming it that we can now assume that it is so.
So, how does this change the App Store landscape.
Free to Pro In App upgrades are now much less attractive
With the recent news that free apps could have In App purchases, lots of people had predicted that this would be the end of the lite version, and that you would be able to make one version of your app, with an In App option to upgrade to a pro version. Not any more, or at least not until Apple dicks around with the AppStore again.
It’s like this – I make a restricted version of my app for free, with an In App option to upgrade. I only get one set of release marketing on the AppStore, and I get a load of poor reviews (free versions often get loads of bad reviews for the most spurious of reasons) which drag down my full version, because it’s essentially the same app.
Or, I make a lite version and a full version. I then get two different sets of AppStore marketing and the only people who get to review my full version are the people who’ve paid for it.
Of course, In App purchases are still going to be great for applications whose model supports it, such as new levels for games etc, but as a way of tying together a lite and pro version of an app, it’s nowhere near as attractive now.
If we draw back a bit this might indicate that the App Store free lunch is over. I don’t mean for developers (for whom it’s been over for a while), but for users. Users have had it wonderfully good in the Appstore – pay peanuts for an app, which then just gets better and has more functionality added over time, all without paying a penny more.
Not any more.
Instead of free upgrades, developers will now look to follow tweetie and others, and turn significant upgrades into new applications, simply because it’s going to be a lot harder to make it work economically otherwise.