On June 4th Apple announced that they are officially supporting so-called “free trials” for non-subscription apps.
This is great news for small developers, especially for apps that are more of a considered purchase with prices from $5 on up. Now comes the scary part - how will Apple implement free trials in the App Store. The devil is in the details and there seems to be an uneasiness amongst some developers that Apple is making the process too complicated.
This was clearly expressed by Daniel Jalkut in his blog post of last week.
He clearly presents the many options and the pros and cons of free-trial mechanics, making his case for streamlining and how users and developers are affected.
He opines that the "new" Apple solution falls short of what many developers still hope for: true support for real free trials in the App Store.
I hope those that see this post take the time to read his Ersatz Free Trials blog: https://bitsplitting.org/2018/06/06/ersatz-free-trials/
Maybe we can start a discussion as to what small independent developers think, want or reject.
Thanks
One thing I don't like about this mechanism is that my user would have to go through the dialogs required for each one of my in-app purchases and buy the free-trial version of each.
Why can't I just keep up with the original purchase (download date) of my app, let them use all the features of the app for free, then after the 14 days, start requiring a purchase for the premium features?
I have just got my app approved and it is life in App Store. This is a paid app with an auto-renewable subscription. My design model is to allow the users to try it for free before they subscribe. The trial period is managed from the cloud. But when publishing the app in App Store it is right away presented with the purchase button instead of the GET button or Try It for Free button. This is misleading because the users are not ready to purchase the product they have not tried! I contacted the support but I have the impression that I was talking to robots that do not take time to understand the logic. As the consequence, my users are charged right away before being even given a chance to try it; as per the design at the end of a month, they are being presented with a subscription screen to choose from subscribing for a monthly renewable or a yearly! It does not make any sense. Why can't App Store allow us to determine and manage the trial period and keep IAP as a post-trial step? This model is good for new users and for the business