But they could make the refund wait until you do!

It wouldn't be foolproof in case of backups but it would be a lot better than an honor system.

That's true; that would be the better solution. Requesting a refund before deleting the app would give the user an error message telling them to delete it.

With the corner case that if the user no longer has access to a device with the app installed, they cannot get a refund.

If you lose the product you bought you can generally not get an refound ;=)

And doesn't apple have some form of remote logout/factory reset feature for lost devices?

EDIT: (Sure requiring remote factory reset for lost devices would not work if it's a iPad which has not internet connection and never gets one again in it's live time, but that would be an acceptable corner case I thing).

Of course they can.

If you no longer have access to a device you used to own, you should use findmy to remote wipe it.

If you really didn't want that, then you should at the very least go through the trouble of filing, with apple, that the device is lost or stolen, so that any attempt to return that device to an apple store or reseller to fix it gets it flagged.

It seems bizarre in the extreme that you'd want to somehow protect your privacy by not reporting your stolen stuff as stolen with apple, but that you opt in to a system where installing apps requires going through a single vendor.

There's more than one way to do this. If the purchase is refunded on the device, the app can be uninstalled at the same time; this is how Google does it. If the app is refunded on another device or in the browser, then all it takes is for the app store to keep track of app licenses (which it already does) and remove apps when their license disappears.

It seems odd, though, that Apple wouldn't have an API that allows locking app functionally behind licenses; on Android [1],

> With Google Play Licensing, your application can query Google Play at run time to obtain the licensing status for the current user, then allow or disallow further use as appropriate. > ... > Note: The Google Play Licensing service is primarily intended for paid applications that wish to verify that the current user did in fact pay for the application on Google Play. However, any application (including free apps) may use the licensing service to initiate the download of an APK expansion file.

In other words, the licensing service checks for both IAPs as well as if you've paid for the app itself.

[1]: https://developer.android.com/google/play/licensing

> that Apple wouldn't have an API that allows locking app functionally behind licenses;

This is what their subscription system does, though. I'm not familiar with their for-pay app setup, but for subscriptions you can monitor the receipt and see what it's status is. Perhaps you can't do it from there, but I know when even an free app is installed, you still get receipt information written to the device.

It seems odd, though, that Apple wouldn't have an API that allows locking app functionally behind licenses

They do have something like that: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/storekit/in-app_pu...

actually they do have the ability to remotely wipe an app https://www.macworld.com/article/1134930/iphone_killswitch.h...

They can, just push a Apple update and wups done.

They could also make the removal part of the refound process in which case the user would delete the app through the refound process.

The idea that this is because it protects users isn't holding up any closer inspection.

Oh but they install apps with certificates that will expire sooner or later.

They absolutely have the ability to do that though, they clearly have the ability to shut a device down entirely too based on the iOS activation system.

I probably wouldn't go as far as 'dystopic' either.

By that definition, if you want to be realistic about it, every OS vendor with regular software updates has the ability to do anything they like on any device they like.