[Anonymous9286410]

programmers running on two lanes nowadays
do need stamina and a very very good product.

in times where thousands of apps often very similar do
swamp the market its the sheer mass of cheapness
which makes the money.

who cares about quality, its like with spamming.
the pure ratio makes it. only 'mean' people demand
99p back if an app is not as good as it was announced.

or give it away for free but collect the consumer data,
sell those or annoy him with stupid ads. 1 in 10 will buy eventually.

the Playbook has QNX technology, its an excellent product,
its a real power book! and what are we supposed to do with it?

buy or run free bars again, same kind of the stuff we already
done on our Android's.

you either dissolve your development business
or hope for consumer's insight.

I did the former...

Damian

[ssbtech]

I'm not so worried about $1.99 apps, but for those that are $4.99 and up I really do want a trial. It can be a three day trial, time out after 10 minutes, have a big watermark, etc.. but I want to see if the features and functionality work well for me.

As for the poor feedback on the free apps - would have been simpler for RIM to disable feedback on apps marked "trial".

FWIW, I tried What's Up trial and later bought it. I also bought "Solar System Explorer" and although I don't really use it, I don't mind the $1.99 to reward a developer who supports the platform. That being said, I'm not going to go and buy dozens of $1.99 apps, they have to have some interest for me.

[PedroBorgas]

Maybe mandatory trials for apps over a certain price would do the trick...

Right?

Sent from a beautiful but old BB 8520 or a new and shinny PB 2.0

[KermEd]

I totally agree with you guys. I have a few apps that should be on trial releases (1.99) but I dont because of the work it takes to split up (I confess, I am lazy and I dont build on the PB for the money, i build for the passion).

Also remember, [email protected] will refund you too. I use them a lot if an app sucks and costs a lot (i.e. The gps apps).

I'm certain a trial would increase my app purchases by 10-15 percent as well. But that turns into about 10 bucks a month, which isnt much when you consider the effort (from a ROI POV, it would be considered a loss).

My primary concerns to make a profit is iOS, Android and Win8 with PB trailing. As a developer I am only doing open source for RIM until I have a BB10 device to test with - my new apps are all onhold for PB due to the major pending release.

I totaaly agree though, trials are better and if RIM gives me an easy way to impliment ill be happy to do it. Once i have overhaul everything again for bb10 I will look at trials. I dont anticipate this until after bb10 release as they have made it clear i cant get my hands on a bb10 device sooner

I wouldnt recommend in-app purchase to upgrade for devs either due to the bad testing options for it and the super wonky bugs in rims user database causing major inapp purchase errors for many users. They have made no commitments to fix any of those things and i cant reccomend an application depending on them.

Just my two cents and just my opinion . Interesting debate wish there were more devs commenting

Ed.

[LuayS]

One kind of app that never did free trials would be games: once you've played it, why buy it?

Well you could always limit the game to 1 level or 3 minutes etc.

[DocDRM]

I'm not so worried about $1.99 apps, but for those that are $4.99 and up I really do want a trial. It can be a three day trial, time out after 10 minutes, have a big watermark, etc.. but I want to see if the features and functionality work well for me.

As for the poor feedback on the free apps - would have been simpler for RIM to disable feedback on apps marked "trial".

FWIW, I tried What's Up trial and later bought it. I also bought "Solar System Explorer" and although I don't really use it, I don't mind the $1.99 to reward a developer who supports the platform. That being said, I'm not going to go and buy dozens of $1.99 apps, they have to have some interest for me.

Interesting reading here. SSB stated exactly what I was going to add to the conversation when I got to the last post. I get so irritated reading boneheaded reviews as a consumer, I can just imagine how devs feel. I can't think of specifics, but reviewers saying things like "this game sTTucks" for an app that isn't even a game and other nonsensical gibberish.

What if devs had the option to respond to reviews, instead of petition RIM for deletion? As I remember reading in another thread, reviews can be deleted but their rating is still maintained in the average? I think if I were a dev, I would rather leave the bad review in place and have my response shown, too. That shows me 2 things as a consumer: that the dev is interested in the reviews (not saying any devs aren't) AND it shows me the dev is active/engaged and will likely be responsive to me as a buyer, too.

BTW, love What's Up (loved this one before I got my PB just reading on CrackBerry), Files and Folders, and if there were other devs here that I have your apps but forgot you posted, YOUR"S TOO!

[PedroBorgas]

Well you could always limit the game to 1 level or 3 minutes etc.

A good example would BE the Sonic game...




Sent from a beautiful but old BB 8520 or a new and shinny PB 2.0

[Innovatology]

We've submitted a feature request to the issue tracker for timed trials as described earlier in this thread. In the App World Vendor Portal, the vendor simply selects a number of hours/days that the trial should last, and the OS handles the rest. When the user launches the app after the trial period has ended, they are redirected to App World to purchase the app.

This way it would be trivial for any vendor to offer a timed trial version. Developers/vendors can vote for this feature request here:
https://www.blackberry.com/jira/browse/BBTEN-137

[KermEd]

Fyi,

In response to this thread, I've sent through a trial version for one of my paid apps (Secure Browser). I opped for the simplest approach - random popup every few minutes. And the popup waits "longer" everytime you use it.

I know some folks simply can't afford apps or buy apps, so this might help a bit.

Ed.

[SCrid2000]

I'm still bummed that RIM got rid of the try and buy license; it was great for donationware.

[ardiri]

the issue comes at many levels (as a developer; i can speak)

a) try-and-buy license has been removed
b) free versions; you get idiots posting stupid 0-star of 1-star reviews
c) cross-platform "lite" principles, for example iOS

the first two are major; a) forces a dev to make a free version - which, leads to a tonne of junk reviews mentioned in b) (someone mentioned; RIM could simply remove reviews from free apps; it is free damnit, just download it). the last point is the most critical. on iOS; apple clearly states that if you want to make a free version, it should be an application that functions on its own and doesn't show hidden features of limitations.. this means; if you have a game, you need to provide full playability - but you can limit the levels. you also cannot up-sell your application in anyway.

we released Caveman HD Lite - so people can see the game for free; it has 10 levels, but once you go through them, you either love it or hate it. which will hopefully promote you to buy the full version. we have seen the true impact of a lite version yet, sales doubled immediately - but, over time, as visibility drops - it doesn't make much difference. you end up relying on customers showing it around, or having some cool feature that gets you picked up by websites that review apps.

PS: check out Caveman HD and Caveman HD on the app world

[svzi]

I've also put some work in a free trial version of my latest app, OrganizeMe!, the first and only Springpad client for the BlackBerry PlayBook and a great alternative to services like Evernote.

You can grab your copy here:


I'm also consider making a trial version of ReadOnTouch PRO, the first and only Pocket client (formerly known as ReadItLater).

Cheers,
Sven

[KermEd]

Here we go (right thread this time). In nomination of this thread:

Secure Browser - Trial - BlackBerry App World

I will report back in a week or two and show if it raised sales of the non-trial version. As well I will cover the rating results versus the full version .

Ed.

[svzi]

I did another trial version, this time of ReadOnTouch. You can find it here:

Free ReadOnTouch Trial 2.0 - Pocket client (formerly known as ReadItLater or Read it Later)

That was all I could do. Now it will be interesting to see if the trial versions results in more or less sales of the non-trial version.

Cheers,
Sven

[svzi]

I will report back in a week or two and show if it raised sales of the non-trial version. As well I will cover the rating results versus the full version .

How did it go?

Cheers,
Sven