iPhone Development Blog

In a previous post I outlined some of the difficult choices developers face in deciding to embrace In App Purchase in free apps to allow users to upgrade to a full version.

The issues include:

• No upgrade path provided by Apple for current owners of a paid version.
• Difficulty in breaking into the free top lists on the App Store.
• In App Purchase requires OS 3.x and wireless access to the App Store.

Some of my clients have solved these issues by offering two versions of their apps on the App Store:

1. A free app with In App Purchase to upgrade to the full set of features.
2. A paid app with all content or functions already enabled.

If you have already been offering your app as a paid version and a free lite version, the only difference with this approach is the addition of In App Purchase to the lite version.

While this resolves most of the developers’ issues, it doesn’t help reduce the clutter on the App Store.

Update: I just noticed that Riptide Games have come to a similar conclusion after their experiments with In App Purchase. They also detail some of their statistics on sales and conversions. Recommended reading.

written by Nick \\ tags: App Store

In the last week a lot has been written about Apple’s change to allow In App Purchase in free apps. Here are some of the more informative articles I’ve found:

Thoughts on In-App-Purchasing For Free Apps
A thorough post by Jeff Scott at 148Apps describing the good news and the bad news for both developers and consumers.

In-App purchases could fundamentally change Apple’s App Store
Seth Weintraub at ComputerWorld postulates that everything will change. The (unanswered) question is how?

In-App Purchase now available for free apps
Marco Arment was one of the first iPhone developers to comment on the change.

Apple relents: in-app purchase for free apps allows demo-to-paid
Another good developer summary by Erica Sadun at TUAW.

Free In-App Purchases Will Change…. Little?
A somewhat pessimistic look at In App Purchase by Arnold Kim.

In App Purchase and the state of iPhone piracy
Much has been written about Apple’s statement that “Using In App Purchase in your app can also help combat some of the problems of software piracy by allowing you to verify In App Purchases”. Most of it has been ill-informed speculations by non-developers. In this post Dominique Bongard goes into great depth about the challenges of using In App Purchase to combat piracy. It’s not from a developers perspective, but from someone who has been involved in anti-piracy monitoring.

Do In App Purchases count towards the Top Grossing list?
This is one of the questions I asked in my original article. The answer seems to be yes. Freeverse analyzed the rankings of three of their games on the Top Paid list vs. the Top Grossing list. And Distmo discovered that several free apps have made it onto the Top Grossing list.

iTunes Connect Updated
On October 22 Apple made an update to iTunes Connect. After this update I was finally able to add In App Purchase to free apps, and it was also possible to change the price of an existing app with In App Purchase to free.

iPhone Developer Program License Agreement Updated
When you login to iPhone Dev Center you will be prompted to accept a new iPhone Developer Program License Agreement. I have not compared the entire document against the previous version, but one thing that I noticed had changed was specifically to allow for In App Purchase in free apps.

written by Nick \\ tags: App Store

I just wrote a blog post on our corporate blog about Apple’s announcement that In App Purchase is now allowed for free apps. This is a huge change and you should know how it impacts you as a developer.

written by Nick \\ tags: App Store