"App Rentals" Coming to iOS?

"App Rentals" Coming to iOS?

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Sounds like a pretty good idea.
...as long as apps still offer the limited-function "free" version too. Sometimes that's all I want and I'll play it again months later.

Sounds like rentals would replace free, but that's just my impression

The problem being that nobody really knows how it would work or what the "rental" would be... Paid, free, or otherwise.

Quite frankly, as a developer, I would rather not "give my App away" for free, even for a limited time use. I put a lot of work in developing it, it's a great product, and I want end users to purchase it and get a lot of use out of it.

_Stormin said:

The problem being that nobody really knows how it would work or what the "rental" would be... Paid, free, or otherwise.

Quite frankly, as a developer, I would rather not "give my App away" for free, even for a limited time use. I put a lot of work in developing it, it's a great product, and I want end users to purchase it and get a lot of use out of it.

Click to expand...

The problem is, not all apps are great products a lot of apps are crappy. I for one do not want to rent a crappy app. I think the way they have it now is good, why fix it if its not broken? Just my 2.

^ I think rentals are a good idea, especially for more expensive programs. There have been one or two occasions in the last year when I would have loved to use LogMeIn Fusion. But I'm not going to fork over $30 for something used so infrequently. But I might have ponied up a few bucks for each of the days when I needed it.

That said, I agree with others here that this new option shouldn't necessarily come at the elimination of the free model. I actually think the two will coexist nicely, really, as different companies will use different models depending on their markets.

From the users' point of view, the one thing missing with Apple Apps compared with Android ones is you can't get a refund if you don't like the App or if it doesn't do what you wanted - or even if it doesn't work.

A 'free' version of the App helps with that - but of course the 'free' one will be a cut-down version, which may not have the feature you want to test.

Perhaps a 'rental' of the full version might overcome this. You get the full version and try it out. If it does what you want then buy the full version.

On the other hand, it is not as if we are talking of hugely expensive software, like that on Windows systems. If the App cost a couple of pounds and the description looks as if it might do what you want, then give it a try. Even having said that, the Android Market lets you buy an App for a similar sum and still get a refund if you delete it from your system within a short time - so you really can try an App without risk.

If the App costs £1.99 to buy, how much would it cost to rent? I suppose this would add up over time but it might seem a lot of technical overhead for very tiny amounts. That sort of comment might explain why I am not as rich as Apple of course

_Stormin said:

The problem being that nobody really knows how it would work or what the "rental" would be... Paid, free, or otherwise.

Quite frankly, as a developer, I would rather not "give my App away" for free, even for a limited time use. I put a lot of work in developing it, it's a great product, and I want end users to purchase it and get a lot of use out of it.

Click to expand...

While YOU think that your app is great, your point of view is obviously highly biased. Others may not agree that your app is great. But if you really stand behind your work, it should be trivial for you to release an app for free for a very limited time in order to have people try it out. Like for say, 2 days? If people really do find it useful, and can see getting a ton of use out of it, then they'll buy it.

I personally never buy apps unless I read tons of good reviews first. And even then, I'm never truly sure. Take Apple's Pages for instance. Plenty of people love it, but it's not really a very good app if what you're looking to do is export to an MS Word document. The formatting gets completely messed up, so I'm not even sure of why they'd even introduce the option to export to a "Word" document in the first place if it's half baked. That's just a small example, and I could go on but I hope you get my point.

If one could get their money back, it would be a totally different ballgame.

Doug

Shikarnov said:

^ I think rentals are a good idea, especially for more expensive programs. There have been one or two occasions in the last year when I would have loved to use LogMeIn Fusion. But I'm not going to fork over $30 for something used so infrequently. But I might have ponied up a few bucks for each of the days when I needed it.

That said, I agree with others here that this new option shouldn't necessarily come at the elimination of the free model. I actually think the two will coexist nicely, really, as different companies will use different models depending on their markets.

Click to expand...

I can see where your coming from, it does make sense for the high end apps.

I only like this rental idea if it is implemented with pricier apps. There's NO way rentals will replace free apps because, believe it or not, there are people who don't buy apps that cost more than $0.00. Renting isn't a term associated with borrowing something without some form of payment or exchange of personal data(?)