Clippy resurrects himself from the grave and pops up in the lower right-hand corner
It looks like you're trying to copy and paste. Would you like to pay $0.05 in order to continue? (Continue/Cancel)
It looks like you're trying to exit the application. Would you like to pay $0.10 in order to continue? (Exit and pay $0.10/Stay for free)
It looks like you're shocked to see one of Microsoft's worst creations pwn your smartphone. Would you like to buy a copy of iLithium(R), iXanax(TM), or iProzac(TM) to soften the blow for $14.99? (Yes/No)
I have no idea why this is getting downmodded. I think it's funny. Maybe I'm just the right age for this joke.
Obviously, this in-app payment feature was deliberately designed to be irritating and intrusive. Apple understands that, to most paying customers, the word micropayment carries a connotation of being slowly and imperceptibly bled to death by vampires. So perhaps Apple is going to provide an API which turns in-app charges into such an ugly, flow-shattering experience that nobody could possibly miss it -- which will also compel app designers to avoid using this feature unless they really have to.
This is an extremely myopic perspective of a feature that opens up possibilities. Like somebody said, everything can be abused. But then people have the supreme authority to reject those who do.
Funny, though it would be funnier if applied to Windows Mobile and not an Apple product... I mean, Apple products are kind of the anti-clippy, or at least that's how they're known, no?
I'm sure that was just for demonstration purposes. EA tried that in a bunch of games when Xbox LIVE first offered these features. Customers FREAKED and things have been much more reasonable since.
Every good tech implementation will be abused. I'm sure games will come out that don't leech away on their users, just as some will make lots of money by suckering out lots of micropayments.
I was surprised to see in-app sales were only for paid apps. I imagine a big market where apps "hook" a user by being free, then make money from in-app sales.
Offering in-app sales in free apps would be bad for user experience. When you download a free app you do so without intention to spend any money-only to try it out.
A lot of developers may try to abuse this by creating tons of free apps with paid content. Then it will be impossible to know whether the apps your downloading are really free.
I am guessing that the in-app upsell feature will lead to a lot of apps dropping prices to the lowest level possible and using the incremental purchase options to increase revenue based on what the users what to get out of the app and what features they want to enable. It could basically lead to a-la carte feature & content selection for some apps.
and pay is better? I pay the $4.99 for your app and then you nickel and dime me to death?
In fact for paid apps its even worse because the developer has already gotten the $4.99 from me(which used to be their sole source of revenue up to this point), so any additional money I'd pay would just be bonus, so they have no incentives not to abuse the nickel and dime option
Why would you (or any customer) pay the initial $4.99 if you knew about and objected to the in-app purchases? Or if you didn't know, why would you pay the initial $4.99 unless you thought the product was worth it as-is?
I suspect we may see an influx of 'demo' games costing $0.01c, where you can buy the additional levels. At the moment there are a host of free 'Lite' games with paid-for versions.
