Open Radar

 
We've been in the business of app making for over 10 years, and we are witnessing companies like ours complaining of a decrease in revenues, closing shop and/or moving to other platforms, as well as we are noticing an overall decrease in quality of apps on the store, an increase of scams/copy cats, and a growing frustration among users *and* developers.

We think there's a problem that needs to be addressed. This proposal is certainly not the solution, but we think it goes in the right direction.

# Paid upgrades:
Some context: we work on apps that have some depth and non-trivial features. These are built with time and iterations, versions after versions, years after years. In the current App Store model, we either (A) sell it once, and give free upgrades, or (B) we sell new versions as entirely new apps.

(A) is not sustainable, we cannot work for years on app upgrades and give it for free to users. This does not scale, because the market size for our apps is limited. Even more so for niche apps. This translates in a high number of abandoned apps, because developers aren't paid for working on upgrades, in turn generating user frustration.

(B) is badly perceived by users because they have already paid once for the app, and they don't understand why they should pay the full price again. Even more so if they just bought the previous version when the new one is released. Another problem with making a new app is that all rankings are lost, and success of the new version is highly compromised.

# Free app trials:
In the current situation, users must buy apps to try them. This means there is a shift towards low prices (making developer unsustainable), and at the same time users tend to buy multiple apps that they don't need or that don't fulfil their needs (bringing user frustration). 

In contrast, with App Trials (free, time-limited), users would be able to try an app and see for themselves if it's good for the task. This would limit the number of copy cats, scams that currently plague the App Store, and at the same allow for honest app pricing based on what the app does, its intrinsic value, its quality, etc. Just like what the Apple Store are for selling Apple hardware, user can try before buying (very good user experience).

# Conclusion:
Paid upgrades would allow bringing additional effort into existing apps and make a sustainable business out of it. Free app trials would bring value-based pricing and a more honest & healthy developer/user relationship. This would bring back quality as well, instead of focusing on new users acquisition, which is harmful over time for the ecosystem (devs increasingly invest in marketing/lobbying instead of investing in the product itself).

If on the other hand, App Store fails to address the problem, it might become more effective for developers, in the current situation, to move towards other platforms like Android to reach sustainability. And this is not good for Apple users & ecosystem.