“My question is: why won’t Apple allow me to try an app before I buy it? The availability countdown works great for content rented from the store like movies. I can play all I want for 24 hours, and then it’s deactivated. That would be ideal for apps too. I download it, see how it works, and after some time the app prompts me to purchase when launched. The prompt has a link to the app’s page in the store and I can make my decision. This is often how it’s done on the desktop. Why not the iPhone?”
It’s not up to Apple to provide a demo version of each application. Every developer should release lite versions of their apps to let the users test them before purchasing the full version.
But with the recent in-app purchasing system, things could become a lot more interesting: what if every app is free for - say - 3 days then the user must buy it in order to continue using it? This method would have the huge pro of deleting all those Lite / Free apps that clutter the App Store and most important, would allow us to test and then decide to purchase. Much like David Klein writes in his post, a “limited-time demo”.
