‘Try Before You Buy’ – Apple’s fight against Hackulous or a test of consumer ethics?
August 6, 2010 - By Justin E. Gehrke
This week in tech started off with a bang when iPhone owners around the world found out they could jailbreak their iPhones without any technical skill whatsoever, by visiting Jailbreakme.com. Since then, social media forums like Twitter and Facebook have been abuzz with comments, questions, and recommendations from people who have decided the benefits of jailbreaking may be worth the of risk voiding the iPhone’s warranty. For many, the recent Library of Congress copyright decision, which covers far more than jailbreaking iPhones, was all they needed to hear to into what has long been considered the dark side of iPhone use.
For their part, Apple has been decidedly quiet on the matter. This should come as no surprise. History shows that it takes a lot to bring ‘la manzana grande’ out for public comment on Apple-related drama. It does seem that Apple has been busy this week preparing a campaign plan to battle, not the purveyors of the jailbreak tool, but those who choose to crack official app versions and allow their redistribution via ‘unofficial’ apps like Installous. So are sites like Hackulous and Apptrackr the real targets, and if so, is providing trial versions of apps in the iTunes Store enough to combat the piracy?
Can 'Try Before You Buy' help Apple fight app piracy?
What’s the plan?
Visitors to the iTunes Store can now find a new area under the ‘Free on the App Store’ subsection of the App Store category. The purpose is obvious. It gives users the opportunity to download trial versions to review before actually buying. s just opened up a new section of the App Store. Called “Try Before You Buy,” it lets users test drive a generally feature-limited version of apps before purchasing the full version. Wait a minute, though. A look at the titles included (above image) shows that the apps included are actually lite versions of pre-existing apps. Essentially, if there wasn’t already a ‘lite’ or ‘free’ version of the app available, you won’t see anything new. It is likely that Apple may encourage developers to include a trial version for future, feature-rich apps. If this is the case, app consumers will definitely benefit and be able to avoid wasting money, even if it is only a $1.99 app.
At the same time, though, there is the possibility that some app developers could see it as an opportunity to increase the price of their app to offset the cost of the time needed to create a lite version of their products. The only other way to create a trial version would be to incorporate a time-restrictive measure like those seen in traditional desktop apps, as well as those included on other mobile platforms like BlackBerry and Android. To date, no specific mention has been made regarding how the ‘Try Before You Buy’ feature will evolve in the future.
Why do people choose pirated apps over official ones?
iPhone user awareness of the availability of cracked App store offerings has only increased, since the release of the over-the-air (OTA) jailbreak. Some who have chosen to download cracked apps through jailbreak-only apps like Installous acknowledge that it is, under the letter of the law, illegal but justify their use of the ‘resource’ as a means to try out apps that they may not ultimately deem worth buying. Essentially, their position is that Installous, which is affiliated with Hackulous, and websites like Apptrackr are just an alternative (albeit, questionable) means of obtaining trial versions of apps.
To this end, a member of the Dev-Team (the group considered to be the pioneers of the iPhone jailbreak), publicly known as @PlanetBeing went out of the way to distinguish the Dev-Team’s efforts from those who choose to use jailbreaking as a means of obtaining pirated apps, during a July 30, 2010 episode of the popular TWiiPhone podcast. Based on @PlanetBeing’s comments, an administrator of the Hackulous website, known publicly as ‘Dissident’, responded in writing, via a post published August 1, 2010 on a website called TorrentFreak. The post is admittedly thought-provoking and contains his rationale regarding the acceptability of Hackulous. He specifically cites the inability of people to afford purchasing apps and Hackulous’ role in actually helping Apple sell devices and increase public exposure to and awareness of apps as justification for and validation of Hackulous’ actions.
Whether there are grains of truth in Dissident’s words or not, the law is clear. Cracking an app and redistributing it is illegal. The Library of Congress’ decision did not include approval to crack apps. It simply includes wording that makes it legal to circumvent controls in a device’s structure that would otherwise prevent a user from accessing underlying layers of the system. What does this mean? Yes, you can unlock a device. You can even access and theoretically modify its design for one’s personal use. It does not grant the authority to change the design and profit from it. It also does not specify that users can access sub-layers for the purpose of loading pirated apps.
Can ‘Try Before You Buy’ make a difference?
The purpose, herein, is not too pass judgement on Apple’s efforts to thwart piracy or Hackulous’ decision (or that of similar websites) to provide access to cracked apps. It is intended to stimulate critical thinking and examine whether the timing of Apple’s decision can be directly correlated to the (a) release of the OTA jailbreak and (b) the residual increase in the popularity of jailbreaking. A look at Alexa website statistics for Jailbreakme.com reveals an 89,000% increase in traffic, over the course of several days. So the question is not whether jailbreaking is popular but, instead, whether or not Apple can minimize the damage.
In some respects, Apple’s efforts are definitely a case of ‘too little, too late’. Had they offered developers the ability to provide real, trial versions of apps (instead of lite versions with paid, full version counterparts), when the App Store launched, many consumers might have completely disregarded the possibility of using ‘unofficial’ apps like Installous. This thought takes us back to Dissident’s justification.
Let’s theorize that Apple started off, on day one, offering trial versions of apps. If Dissident’s statement, on behalf of Hackulous is founded in honesty, the site might never have been started in the first place. Why? There would be no need to provide an ‘alternative’ means of obtaining apps for the purpose of deciding whether they were worth buying or not. Unfortunately, we’ll never know. It is unlikely that, even if Apple were to provide time-limited, trial versions of 100% of its apps, Hackulous and other distribution points of cracked apps would hail it as a win for consumers and instantly shut down their sites.
Either way, no one gets hurt, right?
For now, we’ll just have to wait and see if Apple’s ‘Try Before You Buy’ concept is a success. In the meantime, iPhones will continue to be jailbroken, and apps will continue to be cracked and distributed illegally. Of course, Apple won’t really suffer because they didn’t do anything to earn their 30% cut of paid apps. Ultimately, the only ones who may feel anything at all are the independent, home-grown app developers. Of course, we’re only talking about the time and money they invested to make the apps. That’s certainly not a big deal.
We’ve always heard that software piracy doesn’t really hurt anyone. Such being the case, I’m sure the developers won’t mind at all. You wouldn’t care if you had a store, and people left with merchandise without paying for it, right? Oh wait….that’s different. Or is it? In the end, it isn’t about money or fame. It’s about personal ethics….you know…the things you do when you think no one is watching. We’ll just have to see whose ethics are the strongest – Apple’s, Hackulous’, or the iPhone owner’s.
Is it really about people walking into your store and walking off with stuff without paying? Or is it about people walking in and checking out the demo model first? Or trying on clothes to make sure they fit before buying them?
I don’t have an iphone (and never will) but I’m all for free trial versions of programs. I’ve certainly skipped buying a lot of stuff because I wasn’t sure from the blurb & screenshots if a program was what I needed and I didn’t want to spend my money only to get something and find out I hated it. I’ve done it before and it’s… aggravating.
Apple should definitely have offered trial versions before now and they should be a lot less stingy in their offerings now. Personally I’d have thought it was just a common sense business practice to dangle carrots like that in front of consumers. People like me who won’t buy untested programs/apps might be more inclined to do so if we’d tried something and liked it. That means more money for Apple, doesn’t it? Which is all they care about, so why not go for it? Unless they’re afraid people won’t like the apps when they try them so they’d rather get the “for sure” dollars in their pockets by forcing purchases rather than risking the “maybe” dollars to be gained from pre-testing things. I’m not sure the logic holds up with that line of thought, but greedy mega companies like Apple aren’t always logical. Especially when it comes to money.
The last part where you mention “for sure” dollars is a very interesting point that I hadn’t considered. There is certainly something to be said for guaranteeing the profit versus risking the possibility of losing out due to a lack of quality design, content or functionality. Very well articulated and thought-provoking comment. Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts!
Very good article. I am put off by the lack of trial offers on the app store. Not all of the apps (and very few of the worthwhile ones) are only 99 cents or two bucks. Buy bofore you try can add up quick. You can’t trust all of the reviews. Just finding quality software can be hit and miss even if you have a general idea what you want. I don’t think people should use pirated apps, but the phenomenon should inspire Apple to inspire its App developers to do better.
You’re right. Those $0.99 apps can add up quickly. Like you said, hopefully Apple and iPhone developers will step up their efforts to attract and retain customers through quality design and consumer-friendly policies.
The current version of “Try before you buy” is nothing of the sort. These are just lite versions of full applications. It’s a third pricing category: paid, free, lite. With the lite versions, you are getting a crippled App so are not really trying the full experience so the naming is nonsense.
Gizmodo has a good article about how Apple should do this: a) provide an option to try any app, b) after first launch the timer will kick in and you’ll have 24 hours of unfettered use, c) after 24 hours you will be prompted to buy or delete. This would provide additional information to users as they can see what percentage bought after 24 hours.
There are two problems with this: 1) as Giz points out, there are quite a few single use apps (an example would be a movie app), 2) Apple is providing the bandwidth for the download, so there is a real cost associated with it. This cost is true for the current model, but I can see an app like Myst (700Mb or so) be an issue.
As far as if this is an attempt to battle piracy, I really don’t think Apple cares. They run the App Store at a little over break-even and their costs are a) promotions, b) bandwidth, c) credit card charges, d) infrastructure. If someone acquires an App outside of the official channel, they use none of these resources so Apple is not affected, the developer is. So I would say this is a half-assed approach of battling piracy and may be a response of vocal developers since pirating has undoubtedly spiked over the past week.
In any case, developers have the capability of crippling apps that are pirated and there have been cases where piracy actually helped sell applications. The developer would prompt the pirate with a message saying “You’ve been using this App for x hours, be kind and fork over a buck”. Many times, this would result in a sale.
I’ve heard the arguments for piracy as a try before you buy play, but that’s pure BS and everyone knows it. My quest to find a news reader has cost me plenty, I’ve shelled out $4-5 for several apps that just don’t cut it (and I’m still looking). It would be nice to try before buying, but if I’m already using the pirated version, I definitely would not delete it and go buy the real deal. I could go on and on about how this doesn’t work, especially for hacked consoles and how the value of a game plummets if you have hundreds to choose from.
Apple would be wise to follow Gizmodo’s advice.
http://gizmodo.com/5605938/apple-should-enable-24+hour-trials-for-all-paid-apps
I do not completely agree with you, Mr. Latko. I have an iPhone, it’s jailbroken, I have installed and played pirated games, and those I like, I buy. And I’m not talking $0.99 games. I got Dead Space, Real Racing, Chaos Rings and other games that are in the > $6.99 range, I liked them and bought afterwards. Why? Personally, as a developer (web developer, not app developer), I feel for those who make games get affected by piracy.
In a different subject, there’s another way, I guess. Take Angry Birds, probably the most successful iOS game to date. There is a free version of the game, but it’s not an incomplete version of the paid version, instead, they offer a whole set of different levels, NOT included in the full version, although not that many (I think about 45, which is a lot, but nothing close to the number of levels in the paid version), so you get a fully functioning short game that exemplifies the dynamics of the full version. That, in my opinion, is brilliant. Let’s take Dead Space, for instance. How about they made a free, playable “prologue” of the game. Say you’re interested in it, you downlad the free prologue, play through it, if you like what you see, you buy the full game.