Slashdot Mirror
Apple Swaps "Get" Button For "Free" To Avoid Confusion Over In-App Purchases
New submitter lazarus (2879) writes Apple is falling in line with the European Commission's request that app sellers do more to stop inadvertent in-app purchases. Following Google's lead, Cupertino has removed all instances of the word "free" within its iOS and Mac app stores (with the exception of its own apps, like iMovie), and replaced them with the term "Get." The new label clarifies what users can expect when downloading an app. Apps previously labeled as "Free" will now have a "Get" label. If those apps include in-app purchases, a small gray "In-App Purchase" label will appear below the "Get" button.
I just ran into this in iBooks, and was very nervous until I confirmed that other normal books still had prices. So "Get" means "free iBook", too.
why can't we go back to the old shareware system?
Because apple doesn't get a cut of that money. Duh.
Because after 20 years of killing Nazis, I still haven't bought the full version of Wolf3d.
... slow news day, then?
Because it was even rarer for a developer to make any money.
In-app purchases can be used to approximate the old shareware system very closely. Provide the app for free, then unlock the rest of the features (or episodes past the first) with one or two IAPs. For example, Idthesda could put out an app called Doom that contains an 8-level episode "Knee-Deep in the Dead". Then an IAP called "Ultimate Doom" would include 8-level episodes "The Shores of Hell", "Inferno", and "Thy Flesh Consumed", and an IAP called "Doom II" would unlock another 32-level episode. The only difference is that Apple's App Store Review Guidelines doesn't allow "use past 30 days" to be an IAP; only noninteractive content can be provided on a rental basis.
I registered mIRC and WinZip a few years back...after 15+ years. I guess shareware really can pay off eventually.
why can't we go back to the old shareware system?
Because unfortunately for all of us that loathe the free + in-app micropayment model, it actually makes money. There's no way an entire ecosystem built around this model would have sprung up if everyone hated it as much as I did.
There are many, many people who download and play a huge number of free games, and never bother paying, or perhaps pay for a game rarely. Many of those people (like kids) are time rich and cash poor, so don't blink as spending ridiculous hours grinding away. There are a much smaller number of people who get addicted to these games and spend a ridiculous amount of money on in-app purchases... far more than would have ever been paid if they had just purchased the game outright. Those people are the real targets.
My only hope is that people eventually grow tired of these sleazy tactics and refuse to participate. Then again, people still waste money at casinos and buying lottery tickets, so I'm not really holding my breath. I'll just continue supporting developers that sell their games up-front for a fixed price - a model I much prefer.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Is this Apple's response to the South Park episode "Freemium isn't Free" shown earlier this month?
Why can't they write "free" for all apps that don't have In-App purchases, and not just Apple's apps? Is it because Apple can't prevent a developer from turning on In-App purchases later with an update?
An app that's free and doesn't have any in-app purchases, meaning it's 100% free with zero chance of incurring any charges, should still be able to have the "Free" button. Why isn't that possible to do? "Get" is ambiguous and doesn't indicate to the consumer that the app is free. I can see a decline in popularity of truly free apps, and confusion among consumers, from this change. If they all say "Get" then there's no way for the consumer to discern truly free from the rest.
So Apple basically copied what Google did awhile back with the grey "in app purchases" that is there, but purposely doesn't stand out visually. Meh.
You paid for WinZip? That bloated piece of crap? When there's only about three dozen different free compression applications? You don't even have to resort to classical freeware, there are FOSS programs that will do the job quite nicely, with a polished GUI for those who don't like CLIs.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Doom episodes were 9 levels. Ultimate Doom had 4 episodes.
In fact a bunch of games already do this. I know that Capcom has released Ghost Trick and the latest Phoenix Wright on iOS doing exactly what you're talking about. You get the first chapter free and have to pay to unlock the rest of the game. (And, unlike certain other Capcom iOS ports, those two ports are really well done.)
It actually works out pretty well, you basically get a free demo (like you would with shareware) and then you can pay for the full version. The only issue is that due to Apple restrictions, you end up having to download the full game, regardless about whether you decide to pay for everything. I suppose I should be grateful Apple finally discovered how to do delta updates for app updates.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Free* would be funnier.
*Not free.
For "free" apps? Does that make sense, Apple? I mean, why would I trust you with my credit card? Because actually, I don't. Thanks!
And even more important there are others with polished CLIs for those that don't like GUIs!
When it came to the iPhone, Apple wanted control over the safety, and to a limited extent, the quality of the 3rd party software available. That protects the consumer and Apple. Concentrating all the 3rd party software in one place also made it quickly appear that there was an abundance of it. Further, it's an additional revenue stream for Apple.
Funny, I came from FreeBSD looking for ports + linux and then fell in love with Gentoo.....
However I have been pondering going back to FreeBSD, for what I do it's nearly the same.
Minecraft works just fine once you get java installed.
Nvidia drivers installed without even needing a click-through or license acceptance (way better than Linux was)
You'll want to use Portmaster for doing package work.
My AMD 8-core needed speedstep shut off in the Bios to fix a problem with CPU-pinning that freebsd wasn't doing out of box yet. (This was 2 versions of FreeBSD ago, it's likely fixed now).
Otherwise you'll love it. I was running XFCE4 + chromium and java for minecraft. I installed gcc and gdb + all the other development tools I needed and that was it.
Now they just need to remove the words Buy, Store, and Sale.
Backwards your title is. Confused people will be.
I wish that happened. Realistically if Doom were done like how most IAP games are laid out these days, we have to buy IAP for the chainsaw and everything past the fist and pistol, IAP so we can use the powerups, IAP so that the secret panel unlocks, and when we died, either wait 2 hours, or pay $1.99 for three more lives... then the next few levels would be an entirely different app, and we would have to re-buy the rocket launcher and BFG all over again.
Not really. My girl wanted to refresh her spanish. After playing with a learn Spanish app I decided to upgrade to the full version for her. Turns out that it was only a full version for my device, not my account. I didn't need the app, and so even though we share an iTunes account, I ended up paying $5 for an app she can't use. The developer was good about getting the issue resolved, but it was such an off putting experience I have refused to do any in app purchases since.
What they did was swap the "Free" button for a "Get" button.
Why is it that, in 2014, people STILL get this shit backwards?
When you swap one thing FOR some other thing, the other thing is what you have in the end, not the one thing.
Jesus Christ...
And don't forget having to pay for more ammo.
"Looks like your shotgun is out of ammo. Additional rounds of 100 shotgun shells cost 50 Doom-bucks. You can occasionally find Doom-bucks scattered around the levels (but it will take you days to find it and you have no more ammo so you'll be defenseless), you can pester your friends on Facebook about playing Doom to earn 10 Doom-bucks per friend, or you can buy more Doom-bucks (on sale today: 45 Doom-Bucks for $19.99!)."
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Turns out that it was only a full version for my device, not my account.
The majority of in-app purchases I've seen tied to your account, not your device, and allow you to restore them when you move to new devices. My experience is admittedly extremely limited (a couple of games my mom and brother own) but in those cases you were able to restore purchases from one device to a new device. More recent games even save to iCloud so you're now even able to keep your save games when moving to a new device, something that you weren't allowed to do earlier.
(For some dumbass reason the only way to transfer documents off iOS devices is still only through iCloud. You can't just connect an iPhone via USB and transfer documents off of it. If a given app doesn't support iCloud, your data is device-specific and can't be transferred off in any way. In 2014.)
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
There's no way an entire ecosystem built around this model would have sprung up if everyone hated it as much as I did.
That's a presumption I'm not sure I agree with. I'm genuinely unconvinced that anyone actually likes the model, or likes the game mechanics it produces as a result.
But it turns out that hunting for "whales" is very very profitable. (whales being the folks with obsessive/addictive personalities that shell out hundreds for these apps)
In mo opinion, I think nearly all of us hate it (including the whales). But no matter how much nearly all of us hate it, the whales are simply too profitable to be ignored. They simply can't price the game any other way to make more money.
That it results in an objectively inferior product doesn't matter. Game developer profit motive doesn't maximize quality or fun. It maximizes profit.
This isn't limited to games. Its everything from light bulbs to movies to microwave dinners.
Its a limitation of the free market. It produces the most profitable X. It doesn't produce the best X. In general for an X to be the most profitable X it has to at least be adequate, and although the short comings are readily apparent (pointless grind) and could be easily resolved there is no profit motive for doing it. As long as its not so bad that it doesn't trap a few whales in its skinner box its more profitable than anything else they could have done.
Complain to Apple, tying things to your device rather than your account is banned by the app store guidelines.
Separate from the in-app purchase issue, this is a UI improvement. "Free" is important information, but it was not obvious to new users that they should click on that word in order to download the app.
Like a lot of Apple's UI, it was obvious and easy-to-use, *once you already know how it works*. Basically it was usable, but not especially discoverable. "Get" is an improvement on multiple fronts.
az0
Don't forget people who use android emulators so they can farm/level while sleeping.
Bastards.
I has a keygen for winzip ages ago. Made my key and still have it memorized.
This is just another symptom of all that's going badly wrong for software engineers as a profession.
In all other "professional" disciplines (law, medicine, financial, engineering etc) your worth increases with age - except software engineering.
In software engineering you are viewed as "expensive and outdated" once you reach middle age.
You wouldn't get a graduate lawyer to handle your divorce, a graduate med to operate on you, or a graduate to return your business accounts.
Yet graduates are just fine, cheap and dandy for writing that great App idea you have which is going to make you rich and pay for their subways for a couple of weeks.
I'll be pointing this out to my kids if they try to follow me into the profession I thought was a good bet.
The consumers view of software is that it's "valueless", free and their birth right to obtain it without cost.
Which is why they get pissed if they are asked for even a tiny amount of cash to use it.
I get regular hate emails from people who download my Apps, which give them enough to try out the product before they purchase, telling me how much I suck.
My standard response to them is "beggars and buskers make more and give you less. You'd think nothing of tossing 99c in the hat of a stranger on the street yet you can take the time to email me telling me that my months of labor aren't worth the same?"
One person even replied with "I'm sorry for my attitude".
So now it's gotten to the political level and Apple has side stepped the issue with a single word change.
What a cop out.
Those who say Apple gear is expensive fail to realise that the company is including in the cost the huge investment in their software development.
You buy your Mac/Pad/Phone and each year, for about 4 or 5 years, you get free annual software updates and bug fixes.
Microsoft never did that, they charged you and worse...
Giving it away for free, Google, is worse as it just strengthens this consumer perception that software is valueless.
What the consumer doesn't realise is that with Google they are the product which is being sold to pay for their development.
So the cost of software is hidden by the big guys, either in the shelf price of the hardware or the services sold through it.
Don't get me wrong, I don't believe in re-inventing the wheel and we would never have gotten here without free software.
Kudos to those upon who's shoulders we stand.
As an App developer you have 3 choices.
1) Paid Upfront App - too much risk consumers think, it might be crap. Resulting in low install numbers
2) In-App purchase - great except for the winning free loaders who spoil it for everyone else.
3) Advertising - Unless you can get serious volume of installs and session length it's not going to pay.
There is a 4th one, which is services, but not all Apps can sell services.
On a final note I've seen my daily App installs plummet since the introduction of "GET".
I don't blame Apple, I blame the perception of those consumers who think they have the right to someone else's work for free.
Get it?
It depends on the app. Most apps support drag and drop file access through the Application Data section on the Apps tab in iTunes.
Doom episodes were 9 levels.
One of which is a secret level. The canon ending of each episode is ExM8 if I remember correctly.
Ultimate Doom had 4 episodes.
One of which duplicates the shareware episode. The app would ship with E1, and the "Ultimate Doom" expansion pack would contain E2, E3, and E4.
There's no way an entire ecosystem built around this model would have sprung up if everyone hated it as much as I did.
That's a presumption I'm not sure I agree with. I'm genuinely unconvinced that anyone actually likes the model, or likes the game mechanics it produces as a result.
Well it depends. I've played a few games that use the basic model and enjoyed them.
What the good ones do is they let you pay to sidestep the portions of gameplay you find less compelling.
So if there were a game about farming and cooking, where normally you'd spend a lot of time farming initially because the stuff you can make with the plants the starter seeds produce is only good for grinding for better seeds, but 'end game" is a mix of farming and cooking with a clever economy that lets players specialize in one or the other and trade their output with each other, and I like the cooking mechanics but find farming dull I might hit the cash shop up for some better seeds so I can bypass the farming grind and spend more time on the cooking.
Similarly if you have a game with a ton of "gear sets" and I've found 2 of 3 pieces of a legendary set, I might consider buying the third from the cash shop (or buying premium currency to then trade with a player in the AH) rather than grinding for it because the gear is a means to an end, and I'd rather spend time it would take to get that last item exploring different areas of the game rather than repeating the same one I've already done ad nausium.
I don't play the ones that are all boring grind but you can pay to bypass the grind, the ones that provide no means of getting the "premium" items other than the cash shop, or the ones with gratuitous time gaiting where you can pay to bypass the time gait.
Whenever an app has a cost, the button is a price, but when it's all zeros suddenly we need a word?
That is what games do now.
I don't own a smartphone. I'm not a gamer. But, here is what I'd like to see...
1. A requirement that it's pay-to-play if it is so.
2. A special wallet in which you load money on to, so there's no way to possibly overspend past a certain amount when it comes to in-app purchases.
3. A running total of in-app purchases to date.
Similarly if you have a game with a ton of "gear sets" and I've found 2 of 3 pieces of a legendary set, I might consider buying the third from the cash shop (or buying premium currency to then trade with a player in the AH) rather than grinding for it because the gear is a means to an end, and I'd rather spend time it would take to get that last item exploring different areas of the game rather than repeating the same one I've already done ad nausium
In which case, the game is defective by design and the AH work around is a ridiculous scam.
What purpose is there to making getting the complete set of gear a "repetitive grind ad nauseum" in the first place?
To motivate you to LITERALLY pay the developer extra money so that you don't actually have to play the game anymore.
Is that what "engaging, compelling, and fun gameplay" is? Where you'll pay not to have to do it anymore?
They redefined the word "free" to avoid confusion?
I'm not sure I necessarily agree with your conclusion. The free market produces a wide variety of products at nearly all price points, from extremely inexpensive to ridiculously high end products. Search through any app store and exclude the free crap and stuff with micropayments, and you'll still find a lot of great products.
It's like this with most categories of products I can think of. Just because McDonalds is highly profitable at serving low-cost, low-quality products doesn't mean you can't find a great steak dinner or high quality sushi meal. Sure, most people go for the cheap stuff on a day to day basis, but for nearly every type of product out there, you generally also have the option of paying extra for higher quality, or just for something different. The only time I can think of that this typically isn't the case is when we see a monopoly or cartel that's quashing innovation and breadth of services in a particular market segment (ISPs / cable companies, for instance).
You talk about "the best X" or "objectively inferior", but that's an impossible standard, because "best" is entirely subjective. People have different things they're looking for in products. Many people measure best completely based on price, which explains the glut of "free" apps. Some consider overall product quality or polish. Some people simple consider the *most* expensive to be best, which explains Monster cables. Other people consider aesthetics, or innovative features. Some people choose based on a brand name. How about the methodology or philosophy used to create it (i.e. free & open source software).
Anyhow, I think this news just signals a natural maturing of both a new market along with the regulation and rules of commerce within that new market. In other words, we see some sleazy developers trying to push the ethical boundaries of what can be done with in-app purchases, and you see a pushing back with regulations or customer complaints, forcing the app store curators to tighten things down a bit. This is a natural process within any marketplace, as we try to find an appropriate balance between free commerce and rules to protect consumer interests.
The fact that we're seeing pressure to be much more explicit about in-app purchases, and clearer rules about how those purchases can be authorized means the general public are starting to get wary of "free" apps. That's a good thing, right?
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
It's time for having 3 categories. Paid, in-app-purchases, free.
Seriously.
With a low number of exceptions, in-app purchases are just todays scam/trick to get your app into the "free" section of the store, without it actually being free.
I want a section for genuinely, 100% free apps, simply because there are quite a lot of them out there and because it would be the honest thing to do and because I mind being tricked a lot more than having to pay for something.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
...Free isn't in Apple's vocabulary... or store.
They rename the button. Great. Will prevent abuse. Not.