[Macworld]

Post your comments for What?s shareware?s role on the iPhone? here

[jeremyhanna]

What about subscription content? Would the app be free or be available for a small fee, but would the subscription, say for a networked game revenues go to the developer?

[Luis_Alejandro]

quote:
"That might ultimately too cumbersome for some customers to bear, though, as ita??d require them to download the same program twice."
Holly Ghost! Are customer so stupid that they cannot differentiate from "XX Lite" and "XX"?
As for shareware, you can put it free in the App Store and ask for payment in other site... the same actual behaviour.

[esteban]

It's weird that you don't even mention Open Source Software.

[web]

Peter, are you sure that you need to pay the $99 to put freeware on the App Store? I watched the event video and that's not how I interpreted what Steve said. He seemed to be quite emphatic that if you had freeware to give away, they would put it up for free, meaning that there was not going to be a fee. At 1:07:25 in the video stream he says "there is no charge to the user and there is no charge to the developer". I take that to mean the $99 fee is only charged to the developer if the dev is going to make money off the application. Do you have a verification that it's really going to cost someone $99 to give away applications? There's some wiggle room in the way the presentation goes, but it seemed to me that it was free for freeware. But I could be wrong. In any case, if you have a "for money" application then it's a cheap way to get the application in front of a lot of eyeballs.

[pwalessi]

I wonder how they are going to handle point releases of software.
For example, how do I release my product 1.0 for a fee, but allow owners free point release updates, but new customers pay and get the most recent point release?

[funkboy]

web,
I believe the $99 fee is also for freeware developers. They do not charge a freeware developer anything for hosting the program on their servers and, essentially, giving it some publicity by including it in the directory, but it still costs $99 (is it per year? or one time fee?) to get apps up there.

[PotoMac]

Quote

{quote:title=Apple announced:}{quote}
During the beta iPhone SDK program, a limited number of developers will be accepted into Apple?s new iPhone Developer Program and offered the ability to get code onto iPhones for testing. The Standard Program costs $99 (US) per year and gives members an iPhone SDK and development tools; access to pre-release iPhone software; technical support; the ability to get code onto iPhones for testing; and distribution of applications via the new App Store. The Enterprise Program costs $299 (US) per year.

Apple Announces iPhone 2.0 Software Beta
This annual fee is not under anyone's radar, even though this is one of only few written statements in public.

[zensunni]

Luis_Alejandro said:

quote:
As for shareware, you can put it free in the App Store and ask for payment in other site... the same actual behaviour.

Surely, you jest. One allows Apple a 30% cut of the revenue, reducing the developers cut to 70%. The other, Apple's cut to 0% and the developers to 100% minus applicable hosting, credit card/PayPal, etc fees.

Apple is maintaining this level of control so that they can milk every penny and have complete control over the process. If an app is going to be free, they're happy to collect the $99 fee, probably on an annual basis. Heck, they need this to maintain at least some semblance of friendliness to non-profit Open Source. But if you are going to charge a fee for your app, they want their 30% cut for 'maintaining the site'.

There's no way they'll allow paid-for apps to be paid for outside the App Store. The agreement you sign will give Apple sole distribution and collection rights. If you design it to be unlocked via a code that can be paid for outside the App Store, they won't allow it on the App Store. Likewise, I don't think it will be long before we find reports that people who distribute a separate version of their apps for jailbroken (i.e., truly open) iPhones get their certificate revoked.

You're being a bit naive if you think otherwise.

[DataRecoveryGuru]

Apple has told developers directly that shareware will not be allowed (this will prevent developers from getting out of paying Apple the 30% fee for "hosting" the applications).

[Brian_W]

+"Mac and PC users alike have grown accustomed to being able to download
versions of shareware that they can try before they buy. These
applications are usually either feature-limited or time-limited—that is
to say that they’ll stop working after a set number of days once
they’re activated."+



To implement a fully-functional time-based trial without ads, why not offer a free version that registers the customer's iPhone serial number via a connection to a remote (web/database) server? The connection would only need to be established the first time the customer executed the application. If the serial number is not already registered then the application is allowed to begin the trial, storing the trial period information right on the iPhone. If the serial number is already registered but the trial for that application has not yet expired (in the event the customer had to reinstall) then the application is allowed to continue the trial for the remainder of the period. If the serial number is already registered and the trial has expired then the customer is prompted to purchase the full version, which requires a separate download and thereby does not violate Apple's SDK Agreement. Once the customer is registered and the trial information is stored on the iPhone, the application simply works until the trial period expires.

Taking the registration idea a step further, I would think that even if you're giving software away for free, you would want your customers to register. First, to understand the size and demographics of your user base. Second, so that you can offer your users additional products they may enjoy or find useful.

[DataRecoveryGuru]

So using your suggestion commercial software would all be listed twice on iTunes? Once for the time limited demo and once or the full version you must pay for? I don't think Apple is going to allow that.