At long last Apple has come to their senses.  Today they announced that for the first time they are allowing purchases to take place within iPhone applications.  This is a BIG game changer for developers trying to get an edge in the app store.  Until now developers had to resort to releasing free ‘lite’ versions of their applications to entice people to buy a usually expanded version of their app.  Here is the announcement:

So the marketing of iPhone applications is about to see a huge shift.  I’ve advocated for and written about building ‘lite’ versions of applications as a great way to gain visibility and push sales.  Well that seems like it’s all over now.

The Good

App developers no longer need to create an entirely different app for purchase that must be separately downloaded.  Any time you ask people to do something “else” you invariably lose some.  This has been eliminated.  Users can just purchase increased functionality from within the app, no more extra installs.  Another advantageous form this could take will be to allow developers to sell “upgrade” packs.  The example that Techcrunch uses is Tapulous.  Now users can just purchase additional songs to add instead of having to download an entirely new version of the software.

The Bad

Now nearly every app will be released as “free”, with some sort of enticement to upgrade to a paid version.  This will undoubtedly clutter the situation in the App Store even more.  Lite designation did serve a purposes.  It effectively “categorized” apps for people, alerting them to the fact that they were “trying” a limited version of some software.  This set them apart from the other truly free apps.  Now all apps, both lite and free, will appear the same.

All Said…

In the end I believe the benefits of in-app purchasing will far outweigh the few potential drawbacks.  If you are a developer, Apple has removed a major roadblock to upselling your products.  Time will tell how this all plays out, but there is no doubt that the game has officially changed.