I would like to migrate my app from a free/paid scheme to a free app with in-app-purchases.
I will be using the old free app, as the new free app with the in-app purchases, and I am looking for a way to make this transition.
How can I achieve this?
Is it possible with Google Play Licensing to retrieve the licensing information about another app still owned by the same developer account? Or you can only retrieve licensing information about the current app?
Otherwise, which other ways there could be to recognize a user being the owner of the paid app?
This is not possible due to potential ways to exploit the workings of the Google Play store (potentially skewing download counts, and such; a free app is more likely to get downloads, and those will boost its rankings before you make it cost money).
This has been asked before, and the consensus is that it's not possible by design. There are a few solutions in that thread, such as:
Make your app free, last one week, then have the user use in-app purchasing to continue using it. (Not sure if this is exactly what you hoped, but it's a potential way of monetizing regardless.)
Put up a free version, and take it down in a week. Users will have to reinstall the app to get the paid version but this would still have the same desired effect.
Do an update (or have a setting in your app that expires at a certain time) to remove the paid features after a week (this might tick off a lot of users, though).
Sadly, as I said, this is not possible, so you'll just have to work around it best you can.
Even the original question was asked long ago it is up-to-date for me now :)
I think about allowing paid features in the free app in case the (old) paid app is still present in the phone. You can check this using PackageManager.
Related
I have two questions about uploading app to play store. First of all I want to upload two versions of my app, the first one is free with adds and the second one is paid without any adds, but is the same app in both cases.
What should I do to upload both apps? I had thought about changing the package name but the problem I think I will have is that if the user downloads the free version and then pays for the premium he will have both applications in his smartphone, the premium won't override the free one.
And this question is more about your experience uploading apps. I have mine in english, spanish and french. I had thought in uploading the app in every country but in the videos I have seen everyone chooses a few countries to upload their own apps. What do you recommend me to do?
Thank you in advance.
There are a few ways you can handle it, though I have to say I'm not sure you should.
My suggestion is to upload your free version first, and later when you have enough users implement in app billing instead.
I know it's not directly answering your question, but I think it's a better approach that will save you a lot of time, and also be a better experience to the users.
Regarding countries, you don't need to upload it to each country, that's automatic (unless you indicate otherwise), and you actually can't upload or create a specific store listing by country, at least as far as I know.
You do need to create a store listing to the languages you want, otherwise they'll get the default language and in some cases see automatic translated listing, which is quite bad in my opinion.
You should have only one app, which is free to download, and implement an in-app payment in that app through which a user can choose to make a payment in exchange for the removal of ads, without the need to download a separate ad-free app. This is the standard approach to the problem you have described.
If you implement separate apps, your ratings will be spread across both apps, to the probable detriment of the rankings of both in the Play store's search results. Also, an upgrade to the ad-free version will require the user to download the paid version, which creates a barrier to selling it. Finally, once a user who has tried the free app decided to pay for removal of ads, they would almost certainly uninstall the free version, which might cause the store to see that app as being unsatisfactory to your users.
I have a paid Android app that costs some $. I would like to make it free for a certain period of time. I.e. a promotional price of $0. In Google Play, there is an option to make an app free but when I check it, it says:
"Setting the price to Free is permanent; you cannot change to a price later."
That's certainly not what I want! After a week I want to set my original price back! So...
Q: How can I have a promotional price of $0 during, lets say, a week?
This is not possible due to potential ways to exploit the workings of the Google Play store (potentially skewing download counts, and such; a free app is more likely to get downloads, and those will boost its rankings before you make it cost money).
This has been asked before, and the consensus is that it's not possible by design. There are a few solutions in that thread, such as:
Make your app free, last one week, then have the user use in-app purchasing to continue using it. (Not sure if this is exactly what you hoped, but it's a potential way of monetizing regardless.)
Put up a free version, and take it down in a week. Users will have to reinstall the app to get the paid version but this would still have the same desired effect.
Do an update (or have a setting in your app that expires at a certain time) to remove the paid features after a week (this might tick off a lot of users, though).
Sadly, as I said, this is not possible, so you'll just have to work around it best you can.
I know this thread is old, but for those still looking for an answer, you could do something in the app that forces the user to buy the paid version after a week. Ex. Cerberus. You get a free trial for 6 days. After the time is up, each time you open the app, it takes you to the paid store listing. Just a tip.
I have a simple database driven app. I'm looking to offer a free and paid version. The only limitation in the free version, is that you're limited to adding 10 records per month.
What is the best way to handle upgrading from free to paid, while maintaining the database?
I had planned on using in-app billing to unlock the ability to store unlimited records/month but I think that is probably beyond complicated for my simple app.
Other ideas were to sell an unlocker app... I don't know if people get confused by this concept though or not.
I could always write the free db to an sd card and have the paid app copy it. But a concern is people without sd cards and it just seems like something would go wrong and somebody would lose their data.
Any thoughts on this?
If you don't want to use in-app billing then you need two separate packages, free/paid or free/unlocker. IMHO free/unlocker is far more convenient than the free/paid. In you choose free/paid you will end with two copies of the same app and you are going to have problems like the one you mention with the databases.
Android LVL is a no go in this case, you can use it to check licence and enable/disable the 10 records per month restriction, but you are limited to one package (meaning you will have the paid apk in the android market but for the "free" version you need to distrubute the application by your own).
I think PowerAMP offers a good solution. They have a free app that acts as a trial of their product and when the trial period ends, they show a dialog with a link to the unlocker app in the android market. You can use the same strategy, when a user tries to enter more than 10 records/month show them an alert with a link to the unlocker app. I think this should solve your concern about people getting confused.
Is it possible(or OK) to provide in-app purchase in a free android app? I want to create one app that will be free for a limited time. User will be prompted to pay for it after few months. My app has lot of user generated data. Migrating the data to a paid version is quite complicated.
If you're telling your users that this will be your demo version which will expire after a few months and then they'll have to purchase the full (paid) version, then I think its okay.
Its all about user experience, you know.
Users shouldn't feel cheated after downloading you app.
Giving a free app and once it becomes crucial for the user, you start asking for charges, will be quite evil.
I think you can hang on to the free app and use a key in the paid version, which unlocks the free app for continuous use. This technique is used in the app Cardio Trainer, but in their case they unlock other features of the free app.
You can absolutely have in-app purchase to upgrade. I have done it myself. But how do you stop them clearing the data or uninstall and re-install to get the free trial again?
I made mine have a number of free levels, and when they are complete it takes them to a shop.
However, I since added a Full Version to market along side this, and sales of that are massive compared to in-app purchase upgrades. I guess people trust bying from Market, and are not happy spending within the app.
So, you can do it, but I will in future continue with the free demo and full version separate apps. Also, in-app is a bit of a nightmare to implement compared to standard market licence checking.
I have read on the market support that "If you have previously published an application for free, you cannot change it to have a price."
But I was wondering, if at the contrary I change my app from payed to free and after some time I want to re change it from free to payed! Can I? And if yes, do I have to wait some period (I have read something like this in the contract)?
Tnk's
Valerio From Italy
You can change your app from paid to free, but the moment it's free, you can no longer start charging for it. It's a one-way street.
Why not just have two versions? One free and one paid. Then just post the version you want available and remove the other one.
As Daniel said, it's a one way thing.
If you do find yourself wanting to be able to charge again for some reason, it would be best to put adverts in (somewhere unobtrusive, I personally hate apps that try to trick you into clicking) and then publishing a second paid 'unlock' app. This app need to nothing other than exist, and the main app can check if it's installed using the Package Manager.
Alternatively you could lock out any future features using the same unlock idea. I wouldn't recommend locking out currently available features in this way however, as it looks bad, will upset your customers, and is quite possibly against the terms of the Android market.
Another consideration here is the users that already paid for it. I tackled this by making the app do a little more and have it check a list of users that I pulled from my purchase transactions.