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Comment by byEngineer | Hacker News Reader

I like the idea of making it easy on customers. I'd rather go through additional pain as a business/developer and make more money (better product) than have an ecosystem that is unfriendly for paying customer but nice for geeks like me. What I love as a consumer in my iPhone (compared to Android, etc.) is no upgrades -- annoying like hell. No messages about license changes (thanks God!).

Why you guys insist on making sure that your software is annoying to people who use it?! I don't get it. Where is Steve?!

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Is it easier for customers to go to a website to download a demo version? This is happening now with MAS.

Or to use in-app purchases to unlock features? (I can get apps with subscriptions ffs, but not get upgrade pricing or free demos with a single activation fee that is diffrentiated from in-app purchases.)

Is it easier for customers to pay full price for a new version instead of getting upgrade pricing? Similarly is it better to force long-term customers to pay full price if you migrate to the app store?

Is it easier for customers to have to install betas from the developer in order to deploy a hot-fix that's stuck in the approval pipeline?

Now, I realize that in a perfect world developers would maintain their software for existing customers and sell new features as in-app purchases, but this is the real world, and sometimes you want to do major changes and not worry about how to shoehorn it into the MAS policy. And, of course, Apple doesn't have to eat its own dogfood here.

Everything you mention is either A: still part of the MAS or B: needed by both developers and consumers.

> What I love as a consumer in my iPhone (compared to Android, etc.) is no upgrades -- annoying like hell. WTF? iPhone and Android have almost exactly the same upgrade policy. Both automatically update apps, and have done for ages. The only app store in the discussion that does ask you about updates by default is the MAS.

> No messages about license changes Nobody mentioned this. Someone did mention "migration from previous licensing schemes", but that's about not making people pay twice for the same app, not bugging people about license changes. Besides, you do get something similar on iOS - it bugs you, as it should, whenever an app wants new permissions.

The MAS may be simpler for consumers than what we want, but it's not easier. It's a huge PITA for everyone who has to use it in any way outside of the single most obvious manner. These aren't even edge cases, these are just cases outside of the default.

The whole point is that nothing will change, as far as the consumer experience is concerned. You won't get bothered about upgrades or anything like this. All that would happen is you might see an "Upgrade" button in your list of apps you purchased. That's it.

Note that while the notion of paying once and getting infinite updates forever is quite nice, it's not rooted in reality. Either the app you're using will get abandoned or you will have to pay up at some point in the future, somehow - ads, IAP, etc.

Or the developer makes a sequel app, and you have to pay again to get the new one.

I like that concept. I paid to go from MS DOS 3.5 to MS DOS 5.0. Have no problem doing the same with your app bro!

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