Using in app purchase to unlock features vs. using free & paid app versions for iPhone

Question

I have an app that I was going to release as a free (lite) version with some of the total functionality and a paid full version with advanced functionality. Now, with in ap

Answer 1

I would highly recommend using the in-app purchasing over having different versions available.

If you have different versions, users need to re-download the whole thing if they want to upgrade. This means they need to have twice the storage space and use up twice the network bandwidth to upgrade.

I don't think your review concerns are founded. If your application is well made and users like it, you'll get positive reviews. To avoid having users be confused, make sure the application clearly states what can be purchased. Also, some people just dislike everything and will give you one star. These users are unavoidable, but if your app is good, there should be enough good reviews to balance them out.

You're correct in your assumption that you would have to have conditionals for locked/unlocked content. However, this shouldn't be an enormous issue. Just persist what the user's purchased in a plist (suggested by Apple) or other persistent storage and make a class that you can query to find out if a particular feature has been purchased.

Answer 2

I suppose it makes sense to have lite app (with unlockable content via IAP) and full paid app. I'm saying this basing on own experience of selling apps on the AppStore. If interested you may want to look at my post in our company blog about IAP vs paid app.

http://bees4honey.com/blog/marketing/in-app-purchase-vs-paid-app/

In two words - having lite version with IAP and paid version will increase a total revenue in comparison with having only lite with IAP or lite+paid.