The App store

[josephine]

Hi brell- can you get

temporary

or prepaid credit cards in Iceland? This would solve the problem if you don't want to register a

real

credit card with Apple.

[brell]

Thanks, Josephine, but I'll just register with my CC.

[brell]

0C50020A610 wrote: This drove me nuts... I don't use credit cards or other forms of online money exchange, and iTunes Store (which drives the App Store) would not register me without a credit card.

There was an article in MacWorld a couple of months ago (ish) on how to get an app store account without having a CC. Unfortunately that requires creating a new Apple ID.

I actually called Apple and found what worked for me. You do need access to a CC#, but it's temporary.  You do your registration and enter the CC# (I used my sister's.. with her permission), and the registration goes through. Then you edit your profile and remove the CC data... changing the payment option to none.

Then you have your access to the free offerings in the App Store and the iTunes Store.   

Hope this helps, Brell.

Hmm. I just signed in and I still cannot download any free trials. There is only the link

Buy App

.

[RobSeegel]

0010070E0E620 wrote:
Hmm.  I just signed in and I still cannot download any free trials.  There is only the link

Buy App

.

That's odd. There's a number of things that are free and are labeled as such. When you click on these one time, the Free text changes to

install app

. On the right side of the page, there are four sub-sections. The third one is

Top Free

There should be plenty to experiment with in there.

[brell]

I don't see anything with the name

Top Free

.  Should it be in the

Quick links

?
Anyway, what I am talking about is the option of downloading a free trial of an app to evaluate it before one buys it.  This option was very clear before the App store.

[RobSeegel]

If I scroll down from Quick links, I see the following sections on the right side: Top Paid, Top Free, and Top Grossing. Each of these sections, has a

see all

link.

As to your specific question about trial versions, it looks like that *isn't* possible through the app store. That's probably limited to individual developer web sites now. The App store appears to be intended for when people are ready to spend money or at least find games, not try them out. I suppose it could be possible for the game synopsis (which you click on an app name) to provide a link to a trial version, or at least to developer web sites where a trial version might be, but that's it. I did see a number of games that were available free as some sort of promotion for other games that weren't free. I saw other games, like Braid (a beautifully rendered and fascinating game) offered at a reduced price also for promotional purposes.

At first, I was thinking that perhaps a developer could upload a free (trial) version and pay version, but I don't know about the app store rules or if that would even be possible. I did see a number of games labeled as

Lite

under the free area.

This may go a ways into explaining why Vern opted to go the way he did in packaging the game. By splitting the game up, he could drastically reduce the price where someone might be willing to try it out for the lower price point, and then if they liked it, they could get more by purchasing Part 2. I believe the ability to load custom mansions is only enabled if someone gets both parts.

The app store is still new and probably evolving. I think folks are still figuring out how to make best use of it for both marketing and selling their games. It's no longer a simple directory of links.

[brell]

526F6253656567656C000 wrote: If I scroll down from Quick links, I see the following sections on the right side: Top Paid, Top Free, and Top Grossing. Each of these sections, has a

see all

link.

Thanks. I'll check it out.

526F6253656567656C000 wrote: As to your specific question about trial versions, it looks like that *isn't* possible through the app store. That's probably limited to individual developer web sites now. The App store appears to be intended for when people are ready to spend money or at least find games, not try them out. I suppose it could be possible for the game synopsis (which you click on an app name) to provide a link to a trial version, or at least to developer web sites where a trial version might be, but that's it. I did see a number of games that were available free as some sort of promotion for other games that weren't free. I saw other games, like Braid (a beautifully rendered and fascinating game) offered at a reduced price also for promotional purposes.

Thanks again. Then I am not mistaken that the free trial download is missing from the App store as I had presumed. Which means that Apple customer service has degraded a lot since we had

Get Mac OS X software

under the Apple menu.

[RobSeegel]

7262757C7C100 wrote:
Thanks again.  Then I am not mistaken that the free trial download is missing from the App store as I had presumed.  Which means that Apple customer service has degraded a lot since we had

Get Mac OS X software

under the Apple menu.

You're welcome, and I just know you're not going to want to read this, but I think that's a little harsh. It *is* different, but that's not always a bad thing. In the upper right hand corner, there is a search field. Type

lite

in there and return and wait for the results. Those should be the trial versions of various apps. If you find a lite app and search on it's name, in every case I'm tried so far, there's a version you have to pay for. Just browsing through these apps, I see lite (and free) versions of games I've really enjoyed over the years.

Ultimately, I think it's up to the developer and not Apple whether or not a trial version exists in the App store.

[brell]

Hmm. We have different opinions on this but granted, you have more experience of the App store than I do. I think it was better to be able to download the trial and then pay the developer if I wanted to keep the app.

[RobSeegel]

48584F46462A0 wrote: Hmm.  We have different opinions on this but granted, you have more experience of the App store than I do.  I think it was better to be able to download the trial and then pay the developer if I wanted to keep the app.

Well, no matter how I hard I try to look for positives, there's no getting around one undeniable fact: it's a way for Apple to insert themselves between software developers and end users, in order to profit from those sales where they couldn't before - at least not directly. I hope that those who sell their hard work through the App store feel that the exposure and the e-commerce capabilities Apple provides are worth the costs.

This is something that I'm highly interested in as a possibility for the future. At the moment, and probably for the foreseeable future, my livelihood as a software developer doesn't depend on internet app stores, but who knows? Maybe it can provide a decent supplemental income at the very least, and possibly more. So perhaps this perspective influences my comments somewhat.

Seeing your comments, and others gives me more to think about. You might consider submitting feedback to Apple to see if there was an easier way to associate trials with full-blown versions. I'm not sure how much financial sense it makes for them to host free software and not host the full versions and for the actually unlocking/payment to happen outside of the App store.

I do know as an App store consumer, there are some pain points: software packages that are very large (xcode and lion, I'm looking at you!) with crappy patch mechanisms (again, xcode...). Still, there are some things I like. I'm hoping the App store user experience improves with time. I appreciate the dialogue even (especially) if we don't agree on everything.