Recently Apple made a small improvement to the App Store by creating a new section: try before you buy. This change is believed to have been made in order to ease the rampant application piracy outside of the App Store. But why iPhone apps are being pirated?
I had a conversation recently about application piracy on the iPhone and one of the reason invoked was that it was difficult to evaluate application functionalities and quality before buying it. So one of the way to fix this is to find a "lite" version of the application. The thing is those versions are most of the time not available from the developer. Going to the developer's web site to have a look at a video demonstration could also help make a better buying decision but this could be not enough. This is where iPhone application piracy comes in too often for certain people.
Application piracy is very easy to do on the iPhone because Apple doesn't try really hard to fix the problem at the root. The change they made on the App Store recently is a step in the right direction but this not enough. So people downloads pirated software in order to try them out. Well, I know, they also pirate software because they just don't want to pay the price for well done application.
Could Apple bring a real fix to this problem of application buying process and fight to some degree application piracy? I think so and here is how: allow free trial period for every applications in the App Store. The benefits could be many: ease the buying experience, sell more applications, get rid of the "lite" versions from the App Store and make everybody happier. Let's explain each of those benefits in detail.
Ease the buying experience
A user wants a travel logging application and search the app store. The search returns 23 applications. Which one if the best? User reviews helps the process of filtering the best from the worst. But, what if three or four applications have a very high ratings from the users? Each of the application could be downloaded in trial mode to the user's device so he can try it out. This is a great way to help user make a really clear buying decision.
Sell more applications, faster
Lots of users won't buy applications for a specific need for many reasons: too few user reviews, the application just came out on the market, etc. If potential buyers are allowed to try the software, they are more likely to make a decision rapidly instead of holding it.
Clean the App Store from "lite" versions
One of the many problem on the App Store is application discoverability. Why? In part because there are too many of them. Apple is really proud of the number of applications in the App Store but let be honest: too many applications are simply "lite" versions of fully featured one. Allowing a trial period on every applications would render useless the need to create those "lite" application versions.
Developers will be happier
Let's face it, developing for the iPhone is more and more complex: too many versions of iOS to test against, too many different devices and form factors are all contributing to the development process increased complexity. If developers can skip "lite" versions of their applications, they can work on something else, like improving their currently shipping full featured apps!
Users will be happier
No longer we'll see this kind of user review: "This is the worst 5$ spent on the App Store". A satisfied user will more likely write a better review of the application. And you know what? More satisfied users writing very positive reviews helps bring up the perceived quality of the applications found in the App Store. Overall, everybody is winning. This is a snow ball effect.
Any unwanted side effects?
This proposition has a downside: all those throwable software at 0.99$ will suffer. At this price, trying a software may not be a big deal for many so this bring sales to the developer. Having a trial period would certainly reduce sales to some level. But, this is why the try before you buy would be an opt-in option for the developers.
How the process could be handled?
From the user point of view the process of trying a new application could be really simple: from the application's page on the App Store, the user could hit the "Try it" button and the download process could start right off the bat. At the end of the expiration period, the user is presented with an alert message asking if he wants to buy the application. In the affirmative case, the application just stay on his device and an iTunes transaction is initiated with the required authentication. In the negative case, the application is simply deleted from the device. Plain and simple.
From the developer point of view, the process could also be really simple: upon submitting an application to the App Store for approval, an option like this could be offered: "allow trial mode for this application" with a trial period of 4, 8 or 24 hours choices. This way, the developer don't have to build a special version of the binaries. The trial process would be external to the application binaries. This process is probably the same for video and movies rentals by the way. For applications requiring subscriptions in the cloud or relying on cloud services, the developer could provide trial accounts to complete the whole trial process.
As you can see, this is a very simple proposition that could greatly enhance the App Store as a whole. Apple, are you reading this?
What are your thoughts on all this? Leave a comment!
Tuesday, August 10, 2010 at 8:42 | tagged 
Reader Comments (2)
I really like your idea on the option for the trial period and this would give users one less reason to pirate software.
Also, for more expensive apps, it would be even more useful as I'm currently not buying a car GPS app like Tom Tom and Magellan as I'm not sure which one is the one I really want. This trial before you buy would simplify my decision making.
It would not stop pirating of iPhone apps, but it would help greatly those that are on the pivot point of pirating or not pirating. There will always be compulsive downloaders that install tens of apps per day in a download raid... those will never change.
Thanks for your comment. Yep, in a numeric world, software piracy is inevitable. Sad.