Lately, it is becoming increasingly difficult to try out applications for a 24 hour period. I don't know who or what is behind this but apparently, some developers are getting away with 15 min trial periods. Maybe that is their right, but here's the thing; they don't tell you that in the item description and you don't find out about the 15 minute, no refund policy until you read the Google receipt which you don't receive until it is too late. For example, I wanted to try the application Grocery Pro. I purchased it and tried it right away. I didn't like it and I didn't get a refund (I swear I didn't even use it for 10 minutes). Anyway, it was more than twenty minutes later after I uninstalled the application that I received the Google receipt informing me about the policy. I don't think that is right. It is making it easier for developers to sell applications with no buyer protection. I hope this issue is being resolved soon. In the meantime I am not buying anymore applications.
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Purchasers Beware
- Thread starter jimt68
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- motorola droid
It's the new policy, effective with the new Market.
I think 15 minutes is way too short but 24 hours may be too long. An hour, at least, would be good...or at least better than 15 minutes.
I think 15 minutes is way too short but 24 hours may be too long. An hour, at least, would be good...or at least better than 15 minutes.
Agreed. I think if enough people boycott purchased apps the devs will scream bloody murder and Google will put an end to this "15-minute" nonsense.
That's good to know. From now on, I will be more careful before buying an application. I'm glad I bought Tasker when I did. I can't imagine only having 15 min with that one! But I definitely won't buy an intricate app like that unless I research it more. I have a lot of apps anyway. So this new policy will help slow me down!
I have bought one app from the marketplace and it was a great app that I didn't mind spending a few bucks for, but the dev ended up stopping support for it. (the app is bTunes btw). That experience alone is enough to discourage me to buy anymore apps, and I agree, 15 minutes is not enough time to really try out an app. It's hard to justify buying an app for a specific OS when I don't even know what phone I will be using next year. Yes, at this point in time, I can't imagine leaving Android. But a few years ago, Android did not even exist. There's no point investing a lot of extra money in an OS that might be obsolete in a few years (no matter how much I love Android 
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johnlgalt
Antidisestablishmentarian
Wow, then my following stats must be just wasted money:
Seriously, though- I can understand your reluctance on buying the apps - but even if you only use it for 2 years and move on, you've still supported a developer who has way too many users thinking like you - and yethe is still developing apps.
Seriously, though- I can understand your reluctance on buying the apps - but even if you only use it for 2 years and move on, you've still supported a developer who has way too many users thinking like you - and yet
It may or may not be a waste of money for you, that's of no concern to me. For me, it could definitely be a waste of money. Who knows what phone I will be using in a year? And I've already mentioned the one dev I did support who completely abandoned his app and has not updated it in months. Sure it was only $2, but it was $2 wasted. bTunes is not stable at all past Froyo.
First of all, I don't see how you spend $1,000 on your phone per year, unless you are buying multiple phones unsubsized (which I don't do). Even so, it's of no consequence to me. I spent $200 on my Droid and that's it. I have no case, etc. Anyways, I think you've made a few assumptions about me d: Why do you think I'm the kind of person who blows money on movies and etc leisure items frequently? In fact, I am very fiscally responsible, and I don't find it desirable to waste ANY money, no matter how little an amount it might be. Waste is still waste, no matter how small the amount. For someone who spends $1,000 a year on phones, it may make sense to spend a few dollars on an app here and there. For someone like me, who has only $200 invested, and does not know what OS they may be using next year, it simply doesn't.
xjestersdeadx
Well-Known Member
To be quite honest, I think a lot of people got spoiled on the 24 hour period refund, and it cost devs a lot of money. People would play a game while waiting on a flight, then get a refund just because they could- not because they didn't legitimately should have paid for it.
The iphone has NO refund policy like this at all on apps! You have to go into your itunes account, fill out a form, and if your refund request is considered legitimate, then Apple MIGHT refund your purchase in a few days, if at all. There is NO simple way to hit a button on your phone and get a refund.
That said, I totally agree that if you're going to have this type of policy, make it 30 minutes or an hour. This way if a download takes a long time, the purchaser at least has an opportunity to try the app.
From a devs point of view though, I would rather have 2 solid sales of people who carefully decided to spend their .99 cents, then 10 sales and then 8 refunds of people who want to try an app they really aren't going to keep to begin with. This is what Google is looking at, each refund costs them money in transaction fees dealing with VISA/MASTERCARD. They are also moving to paying devs monthly, when they have been doing daily payouts- this comes from the same avenue of thinking.
All that said- this policy is punishing the majority of purchasers for the actions of a few. But I have no idea what other solution they could have to solve this particular issue.
The iphone has NO refund policy like this at all on apps! You have to go into your itunes account, fill out a form, and if your refund request is considered legitimate, then Apple MIGHT refund your purchase in a few days, if at all. There is NO simple way to hit a button on your phone and get a refund.
That said, I totally agree that if you're going to have this type of policy, make it 30 minutes or an hour. This way if a download takes a long time, the purchaser at least has an opportunity to try the app.
From a devs point of view though, I would rather have 2 solid sales of people who carefully decided to spend their .99 cents, then 10 sales and then 8 refunds of people who want to try an app they really aren't going to keep to begin with. This is what Google is looking at, each refund costs them money in transaction fees dealing with VISA/MASTERCARD. They are also moving to paying devs monthly, when they have been doing daily payouts- this comes from the same avenue of thinking.
All that said- this policy is punishing the majority of purchasers for the actions of a few. But I have no idea what other solution they could have to solve this particular issue.
15 minutes is not enough time to determine whether the app will be useful or work for me over one or more years.
I am perfectly willing to pay for a product that is useful (even if only for a month or so). But I'm not willing to pay for a 'surprise bag' never knowing whether it is going to work for me or not. And I can't tell that in 15 minutes.
If someone truly wants to cheat the developers, changing the window to 15 minutes is not going to do anything to stop it. Even with a 15 minute window, rooted users can download an app, back it up with titanium, refund the app, then install it from their backup and use it. I assume that it would not get updates by doing that, but the app would be usable. I imagine this is being blamed on the developers, and some may indeed have complained, but I would bet the main reason for this change is putting more money on googles bottom line by saving themselves card processing fees.
YankeeDudeL
Android Expert
I had no idea about this, so thanks to the OP. As for my opinion on the matter, I thought the old policy was more than fair for the consumer. 24 hours is plenty of time to decide whether or not you want to keep an app. I do suppose it has hurt the devs and Google enough that they felt the need to change the policy, but 15 mins is just no where near adequate. Some apps you have to put through the ringer to see if they're going to adequately live up to your expectation of them.
As far as supporting your devs, I highly recommend doing it. Simply put, it keeps them developing. Maybe not in every case, but in most cases.
As far as supporting your devs, I highly recommend doing it. Simply put, it keeps them developing. Maybe not in every case, but in most cases.
Monthly phone bills don't really factor into what I am paying for my phone every year. My phone bill will still be there every year, no matter if I have an Android phone or an iPhone, a Blackberry or Palm OS, WP7 or a dumbphone. As you can see, I don't consider the phone bill part of the cost of my Android phone. I still have only an investment of $200 into my Android phone (I suppose if you want to be technical about it, I spent $2 for bTunes so $202). Anyways, I don't see how you are comparing buying food and fully consuming it/watching a movie all the way through and asking for a refund, to having an app for a few hours and realizing it is not what you wanted. You specifically mentioned in a previous post how apps are supposed to last us for a year or more. If someone has tried an app for an hour and realized it's not a very good app, or it simply does not do what they thought it did (sometimes descriptions can be deceitful), they ought to be able to return it. This is far different from trying to get a refund for a completely consumed food item, or a movie that was already watched. Either way, the original intent of my post was not to argue why there ought to be a same-day return policy in the Android Marketplace, (I never even said that - really I think an hour would be more reasonable) but to explain why I choose not to buy many Android apps for my phone.
johnlgalt
Antidisestablishmentarian
I'm with iknaos here - spending up to $10 for a movie, plus any food items that you buy, but not supporting developers regardless of which phone you are going to use next is kinda weak. If you can spend that much for entertainment, then you can spend that much on applications as well.
If you've never found an application to buy, then fair enough. While I agree that 15 minutes is definitely not long enough for a trial, even with my super fast WiFi access, I can also say that it is simply not fair to keep thinking "I don't know what phone I am going to be on next week. That is the equivalent of saying "I wasted my money 4 years ago on my PC b/c I cannot transfer my Windows XP license from that computer to my new computer." Or, even better, "I don't want to buy {insert Windows-based desktop app name here} because next year it will have a new version and I don't know if I'll be using Windows or MacOS or Linux."
I buy apps primarily to avoid having to see advertisements in my apps as well as to support the developers who are working on their apps. I bought one from a user here, ALostPacket, called Listables, and for a long time he had not updated it, and in the meantime I got AppBrain's app and started synchronizing my apps online - but I still have the donate version which I bought from the market, and sure enough, all of a sudden in the last couple of months he has become active again, adding new features to his app. It's a matter of supporting the developers, regardless of the future outcome of if you even use the application or not. If the app has advertisements, then you're already supporting the dev - but I prefer to not have apps so I show them support monetarily.
Your reason for the 15minute trial period I can agree with - your reasoning for not buying apps b/c of the uncertainty of the future I cannot.
For all I know I may be dead in 6 months - but it's not going to stop me from buying the apps that I like to support the developers.
If you've never found an application to buy, then fair enough. While I agree that 15 minutes is definitely not long enough for a trial, even with my super fast WiFi access, I can also say that it is simply not fair to keep thinking "I don't know what phone I am going to be on next week. That is the equivalent of saying "I wasted my money 4 years ago on my PC b/c I cannot transfer my Windows XP license from that computer to my new computer." Or, even better, "I don't want to buy {insert Windows-based desktop app name here} because next year it will have a new version and I don't know if I'll be using Windows or MacOS or Linux."
I buy apps primarily to avoid having to see advertisements in my apps as well as to support the developers who are working on their apps. I bought one from a user here, ALostPacket, called Listables, and for a long time he had not updated it, and in the meantime I got AppBrain's app and started synchronizing my apps online - but I still have the donate version which I bought from the market, and sure enough, all of a sudden in the last couple of months he has become active again, adding new features to his app. It's a matter of supporting the developers, regardless of the future outcome of if you even use the application or not. If the app has advertisements, then you're already supporting the dev - but I prefer to not have apps so I show them support monetarily.
Your reason for the 15minute trial period I can agree with - your reasoning for not buying apps b/c of the uncertainty of the future I cannot.
For all I know I may be dead in 6 months - but it's not going to stop me from buying the apps that I like to support the developers.
Hey man I didn't mean to pick nething with u or whatever. I can understand how some can justify buying a lot of apps for their phone that they find useful on a daily basis!
Peace to you too.
It sounds bad saying I'm "not supporting developers". But why should I support developers of an app I'm not getting anything out of? Your examples are flawed, a PC operating system is much more of a commitment than a mobile phone. I don't invest only $200 into a PC when I buy it, I usually spend at least $1,000. At that point, it becomes just as logical for me to invest in third-party apps as it does for one of who who might invest $1,000 in a mobile phone over the course of a year. I'll reiterate that you guys don't really know about my spending habits in my life so why do you think I'm the kind to frivolously spend on anything? d:
jungajuice
Newbie
As a developer, the lack of financial support from the community has lead me to stop supporting my own apps. Before the refund period, the donation version of my application (which specifies it contains no additional functionality) had upwards of a 50% return rate. Can you imagine donating money to a charity and then asking for it back? Ikanos brings up a very good point. Users are willing to drop $200 on a phone, $80 a month to keep it connected but cringe at the thought of spending $2 or $3 on a good app. When a decent developer can make make $100+/hour in the private sector, what is the incentive for them to produce quality apps for free?
That's your right as a developer. It's also our right as buyers to get discouraged when we pay out for an app that stops getting supported after a few weeks and is incompatible with newer versions of Android. Take bTunes for example.. 10,000+ downloads (it says 10,000-50,000, so for all we know it could be significantly higher) at $2 a pop. I'm not quite sure what happened to the dev but I was pretty disappointed when he just disappeared, never to update the app again. Either way, I'm sure the dev made off with quite a lot of cash. I'm not saying that this applies to your case. All I'm trying to say is, it's likely that people can get discouraged from supporting devs if they have bought apps in the past that are no longer supported. Either way, as I've already stated, it might make sense for 100 people to buy a lot of Android apps at a few dollars, for every person it does not make sense for. But still, it comes down to the individual person and that's my choice as a consumer
While I don't deny you make good-quality apps, not every $2-$3 app is very good anyways. And about your donate version of your app, I am sorry so many people asked for a refund, I do not believe that is right. I am in no way condoning people paying for a donate version of an app, and then asking for a refund. I am simply emphasizing my right to abstain from purchasing apps that I do not think will be worthwhile for me, in my situation.First, I agree that the 15 minute refund window is too short. However, with all the press it got in conjunction with the Market app update, I'm surprised there is anyone who didn't know about it already.
As for spending a few dollars on apps... I don't mind spending money, it's wasting money that I despise. If I buy a movie ticket and see a good movie, then I've gotten what I paid for and I move on. If the movie was bad, I'll have buyer's remorse, but that nagging feeling will dissipate as the memory of the movie fades. If I buy an app and discover (after the refund window) that it sucks, there's that app staring me in the face every time I open my app drawer, or (if I uninstall it) every time I open the Market app and look at my installed apps; the uninstalled paid app will still appear as purchased - a constant reminder that I paid money for something that I no longer want and can't get rid of.
Then there's the time invested in an app. Using an extreme example... I paid for Tasker, and have spent countless hours getting it to do all sorts of things for me. If Tasker were to suddenly disappear, I would be more frustrated by the lost time than the lost money.
Granted, the Android market 15 minute trial period is short, but it's exactly 15 minutes longer than Apple's iTunes refund period. Yeah, yeah, I know Apple can provide a refund under certain situations, but it's typically a one-time exception, if they grant one at all.
Moral: It could be worse.
Moral: It could be worse.
Within 15 minutes, I often cannot tell whether the app is a good one or not. I don't cringe at paying for a good app at all; I'm happy to pay for a good app. But in the past there have been many times when 15 minutes was not enough time for me to make that determination.
Good point; But I don't find it in the spirit of Android to be only "slightly" better than iPhone
Papadroid
Android Expert
I agree that 15 minutes seems pretty short, I would like to see it be in the 30 minutes to an hour timeframe for returns. But I also have heard some developers stating that they were going to start putting trials in the free section of the market. There is no perfect policy IMO, you can't please everybody. I believe that google is going this route to encourage developers to continue developing for Android especially in the area of games. I don't expect to see trials for games at all, they will be either paid or app supported.