The big news this morning is that Apple clarified its position on demos and trials in the upcoming Mac App Store and confirmed what we thought would happen all along: developers can’t have demo versions of their apps in the Mac App Store. Only full-featured retail versions will be accepted. Clearly, Apple doesn’t want to offer limited-time or “half baked” apps in its new Store, and it’s forcing Mac developers to go the iOS way with either free or paid apps.
That is going to cause a few problems and headaches for many, many OS X developers. For years, they have been trained to release demo / trail versions of applications, with a paid version to purchase immediately or after the trial runs out. And indeed Apple suggests just that: keep hosting trial versions on your website, because you’ll be able to insert a link to it in the App Store description page of the app. Just as it’s possible now in the iPhone and iPad App Store.
Is a link going to be enough for Mac developers who were hoping for a way to offer trials in the Mac App Store? Probably not. I assume Apple will simply allow developers to put a link to “Developer’s website” in iTunes, not an explicit mention of trials and demos. So, it would be up to the users to click on the link, visit the developer’s website and know about the trial. But, as you can guess, it’s very likely that average users will never do that and will just click on the Buy button to purchase the app – thus not giving the developer the chance to offer a free evaluation version. And what if the user won’t like the app he bought? He will leave a negative review in the App Store.
This is the main concern of Mac developers right now. Student discounts and volume licensing issues aside (other purchase options Apple isn’t considering for the Mac App Store), developers really want users to know a free demo is available somewhere else; they fear, though, that Apple won’t let them do so.
That’s a reasonable concern. But my question is: will the new Mac App Store users really care about the lack of trials?
Think about it: Apple announced the Mac App Store to open up the Mac software scene to users who ignored it was possible to visit developers’ website to buy apps. Most of my friends don’t even know it’s possible to install additional apps on a Mac. With the Mac App Store, Apple is targeting users who became addicted to the App Store purchasing system and have been wondering whether such an easy experience would be possible on “Apple computers”, too. There are so many factors involved when talking about Apple’s strategy with the Mac (the growing sales, the developer community, Lion, the focus on iOS for the past three years) but, ultimately, I think it all comes down to this: Apple wants users to know there’s market of Mac apps. The only way to do that is the Mac App Store, modeled after the iOS App Store. The iOS App Store has been doing just fine without trials and demos.
See, bloggers and developers may have been asking for app trials for a long time now, but it’s not that everyone is desperate about the situation. For as much as I’d love to be able to run trials on an iPhone like I do on a Mac, I understand the large majority of App Store users doesn’t really care about this issue. Users are fine with free, limited versions and paid, “HD” or “Pro” ones. The Mac development community will have to change perspective and follow Apple’s rules to play the Mac App Store game because, yes, it’s going to be a huge change for Mac developers.
When the iPhone came out and when the App Store opened in 2008, everything was so much easier: there had been no iPhone before. There was no “iOS developer” category. But Macs and third-party Mac devs have been around for decades, and by rolling out its own, massive implementation of a unified store Apple is planning to enter the room and say “Hey folks, we’re going to need some fresh air here”.
My point is, I’m with you, developers: I know this is going to cause trouble for you. But I’m wondering if for new Mac users, the ones who haven’t bought any app so far and the ones who, in the end, generate the App Store numbers you see in the headlines, this is going to be a problem at all.
