1) Developers will game the system. They give apps away for free to get good reviews and higher ratings. I am more generous on a free app than a paid app.
2) You are baiting users to get your app for free initially and then making them pay for the upgrades.
In the Apple app store, ratings given when an app is free do not carry over to a paid for app, so any extra ratings you get are ignored. Reviews are carried over.
There are a number of websites/apps with lots of users who look for free apps to try out, and rely on this method to try out some really good stuff.
I see nothing wrong with this, you are giving users something for free that is normally not, and a great way to get new people to try your app. A very valid and welcome marketing technique.
Not true. When you get the app for free on iTunes, you own it, even if they charge later. There's no distinction between if you got it for free or not.
> I am more generous on a free app than a paid app.
Then you're the minority. Free applications are tried by more, price is a gate, and on Apple's AppStore free applications are consistently lower-rated than paid ones.
> You are baiting users to get your app for free initially and then making them pay for the upgrades.
You have no idea what you're talking about do you? I've yet to see a single paid upgrade, if that's even possible, apart from a "v1" to a "v2" which is paid for by everybody (including those who bought v1)
I wouldn't call that gaming the system. If I recall, there was a pretty unknown game by PikPok that was released as a paid app, they made it free for a day, then raised the app price back up after that day and it worked very well for them, they even made it to the top 25 paid apps and was number one free app the day it was free.
If this wasn't a good idea, or was considered gaming the system, I'm pretty sure the FAAD (http://freeappaday.com/) for iPhone wouldn't be as popular as it is right now. People love FAAD.
Baiting? Isn’t that a bit harsh? Is “try before you buy” morally repugnant now? (And don’t say free/paid dual releases are the “right way.” Having two separate apps has data migration issues, and inflates app availability total, benefitting the platform operator more than developers.)
1) Developers will game the system. They give apps away for free to get good reviews and higher ratings. I am more generous on a free app than a paid app.
2) You are baiting users to get your app for free initially and then making them pay for the upgrades.