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Comment by danielrakh | Hacker News Reader

As an iOS developer I speculate that it's not the price that hinders people from downloading an App, it's the psychological barrier of paying for something (regardless of the price) that they haven't experienced yet. Sure reviews and screenshots help ease this tension as well as the standard $0.99 price tag, but I don't think it's enough. It would be really great if users could download the App and play around with it for a couple of minutes to "test drive" it and then be presented with an option to buy it.

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You used to be able to test drive for 24 hours with Android and get a refund within that time period. Some people abused it such as playing games and completing them within 24 hours and getting the refund.

Google then changed the period to 15 minutes which is far too short. Many games start off with large downloads that won't have finished in that time. I'm currently looking for a podcasting app and there is no way you can evaluate one within that time (little details matter).

Some try to solve this problem by having separate free versions that have less functionality, or various complex schemes involving paid unlocks, but neither solution is perfect.

This is a huge shortcoming of the current app store model, I agree. That Apple hasn't done anything in this direction for years strengthens my suspicions that they don't really care if the typical dev makes money on the store as long as the big players earn and the users keep buying phones.

I agree. If not for the dev, they should do it for the sake of the user experience. A "Try It Out" option would prevent customers from feeling duped when they buy an App that they think looks good but turns out to not be of their liking. Which right now contributes to the customer to be more hesitant of purchasing the next app tomorrow.

I suspect try it out would only reduce sales further, it adds a delay in the process and gives the customer more chance to change his mind.

It might help for expensive software but for something that is a few dollars I'd see it as a negative as a developer.

What's happened in practice is that the market is moving towards free apps + IAP to make money. I think this tends to ruin most games but for a lot of other categories I don't think it's a bad model.

As a consumer, I like this model when it's done right. I like being able to "test drive" an application and then paying for the app.

For example with a business app like Grafio, I want to test drive it to see if it works for me. Then I can pay a significant price for the app - if I am using it in a business setting my time is worth hundreds of dollars per hour and the prices of apps are not really a significant expense. I would want development of Grafio to extend further towards supporting my business needs, which is Visio import/export, and I would gladly pay for that feature.

I dislike when the free app is missing important functionality (this defeats the test drive aspect) and I dislike when the in-app is a subscription. I find it obnoxious when apps have too many in-app purchases. It becomes an annoyance to have to pay $1 to read, $1 to write, $1 to save. Just ask $3 for "full functionality" from the start. Don't be silly.

I like when the app is fully functional and I can choose to pay different amounts to support further development.

As a developer, I also prefer to have test drive option. Some apps can't be test drive (for example, casual games), but for productivity apps, it is a must have feature and windows phone has it from day 1.

I don't see this as being an Apple issue because a lot of apps should be offering a lite version as well as a premium version with no ads and additional features.

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