Apple has suddenly started replacing ‘FREE’ with ‘GET’ for freely downloadable apps on their iOS App Store.
When you go to download a free app now on an iOS device, you’ll be greeted with the new term on the download button. It appears that this change may have most likely been implemented to avoid issues with in-app purchases, hopefully making things more clear when an app says it is free, but isn’t really free to use. This decision may not have been a choice anyway, as The Loop points out how the European Commission asked both Google and Apple to make changes to the way they market apps with in-app purchases this July. This followed the great deal of stories that revealed how kids often mistakenly ended up spending hundreds and sometimes thousands on in-app purchases.
What do you think? Are in app-purchases a good way of staggering the price of a game or app, while helping the developer make money, or do you think they are a sneaky way to get people into handing over their hard earned cash?
Source: The Loop
In app purchases are sneaky but that’s the way the game is played. Google’s Play Store now warns you of in-app purchases before downloading which is good (for people who bother to read), I can’t speak for Apples store. That said I’ve never ever purchased any app that I’ve downloaded because I’ve always found a suitable free alternative and I’m not interested in mobile gaming at all so I’ve never downloaded any games, in fact the only app I use which I’m more than happy to pay for is WhatsApp but they keep extending my years free trial by another year for which I’m grateful.