Apple Allowing Free Apps to Sell In-App Purchases
October 19, 2009 | Erik Johnson
Apple has sent an email out to developers announcing a big change in their rules on DLC and or in-app purchases that will certainly affect the way indie devs approach an iPhone release. Previously only applications that cost $0.99 minimum could release extra content, subscriptions and/or digital service as a post launch add-on to the title. Now they’re extending this courtesy to all free applications as well.
This will likely bring about a major shift in how the App store works. For one, it eliminates the need for a lite version of a game as a developer could simply release a reduced version of the game for free and those who are willing to pay for the full version will use in-app purchases to gain the rest of the content. Additionally, developers who already offer up their titles for free can now consider potentially creating extra content for their game at a later date and if it’s successful, potentially earning profit from it. Seemingly a huge benefit for indie developers and their approach to launching their work on the mobile platform.
The news ends up changing how top 100 lists work. An app making the change to free and earning from in-app purchases would be ranked only in the Top 100 Free and couldn’t show up in the Top 100 Paid.
From a portion of the email:
In App Purchase is being rapidly adopted by developers in their paid apps. Now you can use In App Purchase in your free apps to sell content, subscriptions, and digital services.
You can also simplify your development by creating a single version of your app that uses In App Purchase to unlock additional functionality, eliminating the need to create Lite versions of your app. Using In App Purchase in your app can also help combat some of the problems of software piracy by allowing you to verify In App Purchases.
