Hacker News Reader

Comment by Groxx | Hacker News Reader

I'd argue most people would be right in not wanting to pay $0.99 for most apps. Most (the vast majority) turn out to be incomprehensibly bad, and I truly feel bad for paying for some.

IMO what we really need is a short, free (optional) trial period for many apps. You really really need to get past the "but what if it's shit?" perfectly-rational reflex when someone sees a non-free app.

View on HN

Windows Phone has this option. Apps have a 'Try' and 'Buy' option. Using 'Try' gets you some form of free trial and users can then upgrade to 'Buy'. This avoids the need to have 'Free' and 'Paid' versions of apps.

There is a short, free mandatory trial period on every app in the play store.

The first time you purchase an app you have 15 minutes, during which time you can go back to the store and hit "refund" to reverse the charge and uninstall the app.

Yes, but 15 minutes is not enough time for me to evaluate an app. 48 hours would be nice. Best of all would be if the store allowed the app developer to specify how long refunds were permitted for (and displayed that information at purchase time). I think the better developers would compete to offer their customers flexibility, confident that their products would prove their worth.

I might be alone, but I think I'd refund every app I purchased if I could within 48 hours. Even 24 would be too short for me.

I'd be able to pick up new games every week for my weekly commute and never have to pay for them.

So you use most of your games for less than 48 hours each? I'd say you're getting very little use out of them! But that's why I'd actually prefer that the developer got to choose the length of time that refunds were allowed. Then the person selling the quick game with a 20 min play time could allow only 5 min for refunds, while the to-do list application could have several weeks.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com