Paid upgrades have worked well for other platforms but Apple stubbornly refuses to support this, instead trying to drive users into subscriptions they don't want.
I think it's too late now. Apple has taught an entire generation of users that mobile software is not worth paying real money for and effectively killed the ecosystem of apps they need to promote the iPad as a general purpose computing device.
Agenda notes app has elegantly solved this. Pay once and permanently unlock all current features. If a new release has a feature you want, you can purchase again.
It's more work for the developer but they did a great write up on how they built this capability: https://medium.com/@drewmccormack/a-cash-cow-is-on-the-agend...
Re:Secret iPad
by auggierose on Saturday April 04, 2020 @06:22AM
(#22777412)
Hmmh, on its own its not enough, I think. Just read through the post, and there is no trial of expensive features in their setup, just a set of free features to begin with. But it seems that Apple allows these days to trial features, as long as your app remains usable and useful without them.
Well, not apple to be fair. Developers are free to set their prices to whatever; it just so happens some developers set their prices to $0.99 and set that as the expectation
It's a race to the bottom. There's always somebody willing to go lower and the app store doesn't give you much room to stand out. Before I quit I had users complaining my app was overpriced at $1.
Unlike Wintel, Apple absorbs the lion’s share of profits in the iOS ecosystem, and seem to want apps to be free complements to their hardware.
I don't have a solution for this problem. There has to be something in between a one-time $10 purchase and a $120 annual subscription, but Apple hasn't shown any interest in finding it.