Hi. I figured I'd start a new thread since this concerns the ability or
inability of app developers to offer trials for their apps. It's not
specific to the Sendero Seeing Eye app, although those discussions were
the catalyst for this message.
I've seen some people ask why the Sendero app can't offer a short trial,
1 day, 1 week, 30 days, ETC. Some have answered that it's an Apple
restrictions, while others have said it's up to the developer. Let me
say that I am not a developer or an Apple employee. So, what I say is
purely based on my own personal experience.
I think that if Sendero wanted to offer a trial for a short time, they
could do it. Note that I'm speaking of the technical ability, not a
business decision, or the taking into account of overhead. The reason
for this is because if you download an app from the app store and let's
say the app itself is free, you are then presented with options of a
subscription. This could be a monthly subscription, a yearly one, or a
daily one. So, I believe that as long as your app is obtainable and you
have written it in such a way that you can offer these in-app purchases,
then you are good to go. I do not know what all is involved with paying
Apple for this type of subscription, or if this is a way that some
developers get around Apple's restrictions. I'll give some examples below.
1. Book apps. Apps like Nook and Audible don't have actual in-app
purchase capabilities, but if you buy your book on their own site, the
app downloads the book and you can read. If Sendero did something
similar, you could get the free app like you do now, then you would
purchase your subscription from Sendero's web site itself. This way
Sendero would have total control over what kind of subscription might be
offered. This doesn't seem like the best solution because when you buy a
book, you download and it's yours to read as many times as you can, the
book doesn't actually expire and go back to the site.
2. Phone apps. An app like Talkatone is free with ads. If you want to
get rid of ads, you can do so by in-app purchases. Guess what though,
the ads don't go away forever. No sir they don't. You purchase no ads
for a monthly subscription or a yearly subscription. This also gives you
higher quality calls and this way the company has control over what they
offer you and for how long. If Sender did something like this, and I
imagine they are, then they control for how long your device and/or
Apple ID have access to the products the app offers. 1, day, 1 week, 1
month, 1 year, 3 years, ETC.
3. Separate app purchases. This is a bit older now and not as widely
used from what I know. This is where you purchase a lite or crippled
version of the app which is separate than the actual paid version. So,
you might get a free app with ads, and then if you want the non-ad
version, or the non-crippled version, you purchase a separate app which
actually costs you money at the app store. I can see why things like
this are going away. It makes it so the developer has to maintain more
than one app, and it also fixes the price with the app store when you
purchase the paid app. If Sendero did this, the free version might be
good for some, but then they would have to have 2 other separate apps,
one for the year and one for the 3 year. It's also possible that
technically this is hard to maintain or keep track of.
So after all this, it seems that my option 2 is the way they are going.
Like I said, I don't know the business model, or the costs of overhead
in offering a short trial for purchase, but if they could do that,
perhaps some people who are on the fence on whether to get this or not,
might slide in the right direction.
I know I said this could apply to many different kinds of apps and ended
up talking about Sendero specifically, but this same reasoning applies
to many other apps and services. Dice World is one such app. It's free
and you then can purchase no-ads or custom dice as in-app purchases.
So, I hope this helps some of you when thinking about why the Sendero
app offers or doesn't offer a demo. I'm not on the GPS list, but if
someone wants to forward this to them, they are more than welcome. I
know many of the Sendero folks there, and have a lot of respect for them.
Cheers.
--
Raul A. Gallegos
If you "Friend Request" me on Facebook and your profile picture is a
car, I will automatically assume you are a Transformer. - Sheldon Cooper
Twitter and Facebook user ID: rau47
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