Comments on: The App Store needs to implement a 1-hour cooling off period

By: Alan the Houser

Alan the Houser — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 03:31:09 +0000

Great article, and it’s great to see others think about the same minutiae that I do. I’ve often had the same “wince to buy” that you explained.

A friend recommended a camera app, and I couldn’t remember what it was called. I thought it was “PerfectPhoto” or “BestCamera”, but I couldn’t remember the name. Less than a minute after the purchase, I realized I bought a knock-off. Even though it was $2.99 USD, it’s still such a horrible feeling.

The flip-side experience is not wanting to trash these sucky apps even a year later. If Apple can track everything so closely (and quite well), they should have a consignment store for pre-owned apps. Just like Amazon — “buy it used for $x.” :-)

By: Pranab Salian

Pranab Salian — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 18:02:35 +0000

I assume some part of this policy has to do with a present limitation of small-ticket and micropayments: the overhead is a major fixed component.

The credit card industry is not up to speed with digital transactions, in many ways. Refunds on low value transactions are expensive due to how the credit-card system works, and chargebacks even more so. A chargeback on a $2 app purchase can easily cost $15, not counting support time and employee costs if manual intervention is required.

So I think it’s understandable if Apple doesn’t want to get into that mess by bringing up the topic of refunds.

However I agree with the first point – that apps you have already purchased should not have a purchase link displayed if you are logged in. Perhaps it was acceptable with ‘Web 1.0′, but this is 2009.

By: Srini Centhala

Srini Centhala — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:10:58 +0000

Hi Aral,
You did a perfect usability study and issues of users & Developers on the return policy requirements on Apple Store. Great!

You had faced the problem by yourself and thus the solution and suggestion.

Feel free to contact me.
Thanks,
Srini Centhala

By: Aral

Aral — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:37:21 +0000

When I wrote this post, I didn’t realize that Google’s Android Market actually has a 24-hour cooling off period where you can get a refund on any app with no questions asked by pressing an “Uninstall & Refund” button.

Talk about getting it right!

So, I guess the title of this post should be, “Apple, follow Google’s lead on mobile app refunds.”

By: Dave Williamson

Dave Williamson — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:31:48 +0000

Hi Aral
It occured to me that the App store and all purchases made through it would be classed as Distance selling. As a result, in UK at least, we should by law have a colling off period (7 days IMS).

I doubt Apple are above UK law.

By: Aral

Aral — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 16:27:04 +0000

Hey Jane, first off, thank you for your sharing your thoughts. I’m just not sure why having a trial app is superior to having a cooling off period. Why maintain two apps when you can have your app – and every app – default to having a one-hour trial period?

Less work for developers; a consistent experience and expectations for users: win-win! :)

By: Aral

Aral — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 16:23:36 +0000

Just a quick update: I got a nice email from Bryan at Apple telling me that they’ve reversed the charge.

By: jane

jane — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 20:13:34 +0000

If you “report a problem” with the application and tell Apple about the mistake you made in buying the app, they’ll most likely give you a refund. They *say* all sales are final, but they still give people refunds. I can only speculate that Apple doesn’t want them to be commonplace and/or abused by less than honest users, but they know that mistakes are made and apps can be buggy.

That being said, us iPhone developers are still out the 30% cut to Apple when they decide to refund a customer, because someone still has to pay for the transaction charges. Not to mention the way refunds work now you may not get updates in the future, but the application will still work for as long as you have it, nothing is disabled.

But ultimately, I don’t disagree with your take. Apple *needs* to come up with a solution to things like that, and I think “mistake purchases” are probably handled as best they can now, but instead of a 1 hour cooling off period, they need to let us do trial apps limited by time and/or features. Not lite apps that otherwise may as well be completely different from the full version, but a trial right smack dab on the same page as a download link next to the full version. Almost like a subset of in-app purchase, but it wouldn’t make your user feel like he/she is being nickel and dimed as (hopefully) it will be clear that a trial was downloaded, not an app they might have thought was a full version but in fact they have to pay some fee they didn’t know of to use.