Since June 2018, non-subscription apps can offer a free time-based trial period.
The page for App Store app bundles states that "You can create app bundles for paid apps or free apps that offer an auto-renewable subscription to access all apps in the bundle."
Does this imply that App Store bundles are not possible for non-subscription apps that offer free time-based trials?
My opinion is yes, you're correct - I agree w/your statement that their statement implies 'not possible'.
The purpose of a bundle is to sell a single 'product' that enables or can be used in multiple apps. In the case of apps that each cost a certain amount of money, you sell all the apps for an amount of money less than the sum of the individual apps. In teh case of an autorenewable subscription, you grant the subscription to all of the apps when one of the apps makes a purchase of a single autorenewable subscription for the bundle.
Apple has not yet extended this bundle concept to non-consumable IAPs. And it would be difficult because most non-consumable IAPs rely on restoreCompletedTransactions which goes out to a single app, not multiple apps.
You are suggesting someting else - a bundle for "free time-based trials". I assume you are suggesting using the bundle for a subsequent purchase of a single non-consumable IAP after the 'purchase' of a free, time-limited non-consumable IAP, wherein the single non-consumable IAP would apply to all apps in the bundle. If so, you would need to address the question of restoring the non-consumable IAP to every app in the bundle. I supose you could propose a feature enhancement through the Bug Reporter in addition to sketching out how a purchaser could 'restore' the purchase to multiple apps.
For completeness - Apple has not yet extended this bundle concept to non-renewing subscriptions - that would be quite simple to do because non-renewing subscriptions must already have their own restore function.
