In the past, the downloads section of the Apple website which is being replaced by the Mac App Store always featured trial/demo versions of fully paid apps.

However on the iPhone App Store, there has always been the full paid version & a free “Lite” version of an App, such as Angry Birds & Angry Birds “Lite” which was more limited.

My question is do Apple view demo/trial & “Lite” version of apps as the same thing or totally different?

If Apple are still offering “Lite” versions of apps with limited functionality compared to the full version, this is fine by me as it still gives you a chance to get a free taster of the full app.

However I can see a potential risk of offering a full version of an app on a timed trial version (such as 30day ect) as it opens up the risk of hackers reverse engineering the code of the app to remove the 30day trial cap, therefore giving people an app for free & losing developers income in the process!

However, Apple could also add a simple “Don’t display preview versions” option in the App Store client, or put a “Download preview” button next to the “Buy” button on apps with trials.

I just don’t get what Apple is thinking here.

Then there is demo ware. In the personal computer world, demos are typically the full application, and require a key to unlock certain features. I wonder if Apple will allow demos that ARE the full application and require a key to unlock certain features. I can understand why Apple wants nothing to do with demos that ARE NOT the full application. First, I imagine they don’t want to distribute a demo without testing the full application. In the personal computer world, it is not unheard of to have demos for vaporware, and Apple wants nothing to do with that. Second, Apple probably doesn’t want developers to game the system, that is, use the Apple store to distribute demos and then directing demo users to another store to purchase the full application.

- [Beta Available, Read More ...]
- [Free Trial Available, Read More ...]

Which the app publisher could elect to set based on availability. It adds no operational overhead to Apple, and it gives software makers an option.

I feel the reason for the double-standard isn’t so-much that iOS is a closed platform, but rather that people have been downloading Trial, Free(mium), and Beta software from the Web on Desktop operating systems since at least 1995. It’s a well-learned pattern (for better or worse), and desktop web browsers, browsable file-systems, software .pkg or .dmg files, along with package receipts in ~/Library make the whole process easy and robust. Brokering the distribution of unpaid software via yet another desktop channel would not only add overhead for Apple, but also somewhat confuse learned behaviors.

The other big difference between handheld and desktop operating systems, is that handheld devices are far more conducive to building applications that are tightly-coupled to web services, offering a model where users pay or otherwise participate in an online ecosystem thru a lightweight handheld application, often tied to handheld-specific features such as geo-location, on-the-go picture and video sharing, bar-code scanning etc. This participation subsidizes the software, and as such, warrants the distribution of the software for Free.

Compelling, free, ad-subsidized desktop online applications are built as web applications, and very soon mostly in HTML5.

Compelling, free, ad-subsidized handheld online applications are built as native applications.

As such, free native software distribution is vital on handheld devices, but isn’t vital to desktop operating systems.

Relatively speaking, I’m more concerned that it’s going to make the final steps toward power user status more difficult, that niche will shrink, and it will get less attention. Sure, many of those people work at Apple and have a voice, but it’s more than just engineers and developers working in Cupertino.