I am just reading some of the marketing material on pre apps.com and they refer to: "Some app developers offer a 30-day free trial, at which point they must pay to continue using the app. This allows users to try your app before they commit to buying them.” Can anyone advise how this can be done with a BT app? Many thanks

Hey @Dervalo Is the app for ios or android?

iOS most likely….

Hi Dervalo I believe there is a free version with BT already and a paid membership. I have been in your position looking at many self app builders and I can assure you, that this is the best deal you will get, in terms of owning the source code, tens of plugins and many more still to come and a great support network within the BT community that will help you every step of the way. Any money you spend now will be worth every penny. Tell me one self build platform that will charge you $79.00 per year to create as many apps as you like with no restrictions? If you want a trail, sign up to the free version which allows you to create 3 apps and up to 50 screens in an app. Good deal either way.

@Dragon007 - I think I probably haven’t been clear :-) What I was wondering about is the ability to make a BT app which users could use for 30 days free-of-charge and then after the 30 days, they would be required to pay for it, otherwise it would automatically delete, or no longer be available. Preapps.com offers advice on best ways to market an app and they have suggested this approach. Do you know how I can do this on Buzztouch? Thanks

Hi @Dervalo, A few ways I could imagine how to do this and prob a lot more than I know of..lol One way is make a free app then make a another app that maybe takes it's place after thirty days, or one App with advertisement, then after 30 days you can give them the link to App w/o advertisement, and this way you can make revenue with free App per advertisement, then other App to pay after 30 days, or you could you the log in screen here that stops that user after 30 day...Wheew..Follow me? lol LA

Apologies!

You want to set a timer when the app is first launched this will then have to be stored in the ios keychain so it can't be circumnavigated. After thirty days a view controller will appear that will prevent access to the app any further, an in app purchase would be on the viewcontroller/plugin to grant access to the rest of the app. The importance of the keychain or nsuerdefaults is so the app can be restored or not reset to 30 days when the app is refreshed. this requires decent coding skills. A free trial is a good way of having full access to apps before having them pulled works well for conventioanl desktop applications @LA your first option makes no sense in regards to Dervarlos case a free trial starts when each individual downloads an app, your way would mean everyone gets a free trial for 30 days when the app is released, most can put up with some adverts so probably won't be bothered upgrading. The second putting a password screen up after 30 days with a login, how would they pay for the password, apple won't be happy with an external purchase

@Dragon007 no worries - my question wasn’t clear, thanks anyway. @LA thanks for the ideas - it’s your last suggestion that I want to look into more. Which login are you referring to? Is that currently available in one of the plugins?

Hold back found a helpful quote from Apple "Don’t set time limits on any of the functionality of your app, either for run times or life times. Applications that only run for a set number of minutes per session, or that expire altogether after some period of time, don’t recruit customers so much as leave a bad taste in their mouths." although it doesn't say you can't

@Kittsy - just see your input now. So I guess this might be out of my remit at the moment, unless I get help to do it. Where do you recommend I go to get this code written? oDesk maybe? Thanks!

Really? So, PreApps are recommending something that Apple doesn’t approve necessarily? I am surprised, but as you say, at least they don’t actually say you can’t do it.

@Kittsy, Why do I see this all the time in ITunes, if it makes no sense? LA

oDesk won't neccessarily know how buzztouch works, I've been working on in app purchases but that refresh button and the fact that view controllers are recycled makes things a bit more awkward. By what I've read about it in the last few minutes this route may not be the way to go, stack overflow is littered with appstore rejections. The only way people have got aroiund it is by making a magazine and using subscription services. The method is recommended for selling windows and mac os software though, it seems to be frowned upon in the mobile world

@LA Dervarlo is asking for a subscription service not an app that has a lite version with ads and a full app without adds. Any way it would make more sense that way to just have an in app purchase that removes the app. That method works obviously but that wasn't what dervarlo was asking. If it's the password idea you are referring too, how does that work, how is the password purchased, is it that intuitive to login everytime you use the app, Dervarlo would have to manage a backend issuing passwords.

@Kittsy :-) LA

Dervalo, I read about some creative ideas how to tease your customer and not make him/her angry in www.quora.com: give decent functionality for free to achieve high download numbers is always a good idea. Then hiding a part of a screen that you can live without may be also something giving a user an itch to get rid of that. Some company had made it in a game. Cheers! Frogman

Thanks folks - you’re the best. I am going to try to go down the road of either an app that requires payment after a period of time, or as @Frogman mentioned, give some of it away for free and hide the rest in the hope that the user will eventually pay to get the full app. Any of you going to St. Louis? Would love to go.. maybe I’ll get thousands of downloads on March 17th for my St. Patrick’s Day app, make a killing and buy a first class ticket :-) gotta dream, right?!