Freemium model is on the rise and app developers including major labels are increasingly moving towards it lately. Before, there were only two category of apps in the beginning, either a free app that earns via ads or paid apps that charge a one time fee. But one major problem in paid apps is that the developers won’t earn anything once the app is purchased, to bypass this many apps are being designed in a way to push it out in high number by giving it out for free and then charge the users for nitty gritty purchases in the app. This might not ensure of a guaranteed income from all users but the overall earnings seems to be better this way.
Apple has been sued recently by a group of people in the US claiming that Apple does not have an effective system to authenticate in-app purchases and protect users from accidental purchases. So, Apple finally updated all their App Store listings with a clear warning sign indicating that the app offers in-app purchases.
Just a week ago we heard about two cases where kids aged 5 and 8 accidentally purchased in-app content worth £1700 and £1000 respectively, luckily Apple considered the parents plight as genuine and returned back all of that money. The same thing happens in many instances where users purchase in-app content by mistake in much smaller amount but they don’t get a refund from Apple. There should be a better system to monitor all these activities and we hope that this is the first step from Apple to help its customers avoid any accidental purchases and at the same time help its developers earn genuinely as well.