Free With In-App Purchase Is a Sham
The problem is that what Apple means here by “free” as opposed to “paid” is simply that you don’t have to pay before downloading the app, but Apple’s counterintuitive definition tends to obscure what is most important to consumers: how much you have to pay to use the app. The range of allowed use can vary drastically among apps that are free with IAP. Some apps can be used forever for free with no apparent limitations, and the IAP merely unlocks bonus content or features. Some can be used for free in “reader” mode, with the ability to open and read documents, while an IAP is required to edit and/or sync documents. Some apps are free to use fully for only a limited time; in other words, they have a time-limited free trial. At the end of the trial, various outcomes are possible. Time-limited trials are especially popular with auto-renewing subscription apps, which start charging you automatically at the end of the trial. And ironically, some so-called “free” apps don’t allow any use at all unless you first pay the IAP.
At this point, I think the way the store represents this information is obscuring more than it’s helping.
You might be shocked to learn that the window is actually floating. That is, it floats above and covers every other window on the Mac, even if you switch to a different app. And Apple approved this. You can close the floating window, but that quits the app.
By default, the lifetime $39.99 license is selected. It’s labeled “Best choice - no subscription”. The 3 day free trial is available only if you select the $19.99 yearly subscription option. The subtitle of the subscription option says, “Only $5.00/month”, the math of which is way off and would add up to $60 per year if accurate. I don’t know how that window got approved by Apple.
Apple is so picky about payment screens in some cases, but then it approves stuff like this.
Apple is supposed to protect users by making refunds and subscription cancelations easy, but Apple doesn’t actually make it as clear and easy as claimed. Why aren’t there refund and cancel buttons directly on the app’s product page? Such buttons could be right above the Ratings & Reviews section! For that matter, why don’t app developers have to ability to offer refunds directly to customers?
I recently had two cases where customers encountered problems related to Apple’s Bluetooth API and asked Apple for refunds. Even though the purchases were recent, Apple refused and told them to contact the developer instead—even though we can’t offer refunds. Luckily, I was able to work around the bug.
Previously:
- Virus Protection for Phone
- App Store Rules Regarding Trials
- IAP Bait-And-Switch Apps
- Free Trials Aren’t Free Apps
- In-App Purchase Rules
- App Store Refunds and Reviews
- Acceptable Renewable Subscriptions Pitch Screens
- App Store Trials: No More Free IAPs?
- Apple Support Tells Customers to Ask Developer for Refund
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Having a stepdaughter with an appetite for free (often predatory) apps has shone a line on just how terrible the in-app purchase descriptions on the App Store are. At the very least, there needs to be descriptions alongside the often-vague name and price. I have to download these crummy apps myself and investigate them before I can give her permission to download them, and it really should not have to be that way.
Apple's primary business - making hardware - seems to operate under a completely different set of values to the App Store. The hardware business is innovative and successful and commands respect. The App Store business is shonky and predatory towards both developers and consumers. It's difficult to conceive these both coming from the same company.
And they still publish lists of top "free" and "paid" apps, and one glance at those lists makes it immediately obvious that the words are meaningless.
Apple/Google and the gaming industry colluded to destroy up-front pricing in favor of whale-chasing IAP.
Many developers claim it's impossible to earn a living without it, especially making games. I don't know if that's actually true, or it's that comparing the two potential incomes makes it look like the obvious choice is to take the far higher amount of IAP-based money.
I remember an argument some years ago now that Valve will never make Half-Life 3 because their absolute most optimistic sales estimates still would make it less profitable over its entire lifetime than something like a single quarter of what they made (at the time) in DoTA IAP revenue, if it were sold up-front like they always have been.
It seems so far past time for Apple to be the one to lead the charge in fixing this mess that they have had a very large part in creating. But still, even after being absolutely excoriated by a federal judge, they continue to dig their heels in and make it as absolutely difficult and bad for everyone except themselves as possible.
Something important to note in Jeff's post. He clearly had to sort the reviews by "recent" to see the real ones. Notice in his posted screenshot they are in chronological order.
Apple deliberately hides the real reviews and sorts by "most helpful" which conveniently is not helpful at all in telling me the truth. The upvotes are also just bots.
It's so far beyond obvious that the App Store is intentionally a scam, but Apple has lead the entire world in becoming this way. Computer users have been trained that their computer will try to trick them at every opportunity.
@Bart The really tragic thing, is that game developers HATE the whole microtransactions nickel & diming thing. It's really a tragedy to see just how badly Apple ruined the software economy, both by product dumping their own in-house apps, and preventing upgrade pricing, which was for the purpose of ensuring developers couldn't make new OS compatibility a paid feature, thus disinclining people from updating their OS.
I think something along the lines of having a maximum per month charge that's a multiple of the cost for the app would be useful.
I've read a lot of articles about parents letting their young ones play a free kids game only to end up with hundreds or thousands of dollars in charges for smurf berries.
Apple loves this obviously because greed.
>"Apple's primary business - making hardware - seems to operate under a completely different set of values to the App Store. The hardware business is innovative and successful and commands respect"
Hard disagree. Look at the polishing cloths, over priced cables, exorbitant cost for more storage etc. It's the same scam but in physical form.
And as for innovation... AVP, TouchBar, ButterflyKeyboards, dropping ports on PRO models, big fugly cutouts in their screens, laughable mouse, midrange keyboards.
