The Apple philosophy on their store has always seemed much more in tune with $1 purchases than $20 ones. No one really needs refunds or trials for a $1 purchase.
Lack of proper trials on the App Store is a pain. I've bought several more expensive apps (with no separate lite versions) that turned out to be poor. I've "Reported a Problem" in iTunes and said I purchased them by mistake. Got a refund each time.
If it was easy to contact the developer would you have tried that first? I ask because one of my biggest complaints with the App store is that it's nearly impossible to get user feedback without checking the comments everyday.
I have a low volume app and unless I check the comments I never know if someone had a problem. This is after putting my website in the app and on the app description screen on the store. Basically, if a user finds a bug I'd like to help them through it and/or fix it prior to them leaving a 1 star review that I may or may not see.
I might contact (or seek out) the developer if I only had one or two specific issues, but IIRC every time I've done the refund thing, it's because the overall quality of the app was simply worse than expected. I generally don't leave star reviews unless it's a glowing 5.
A lot of iOs apps basically already do this with "free"/"express" versions which have limited functionality and try to upsell. That would imply trials might not be an awful idea, given people are willing to put extra work into making free/gimped versions to get users hooked
This cuts both directions, though: I am loath to spend more than $1 on an iOS application, without piles of good reviews, because there is no easy way to return it. I'd happily pay double on average for an iOS application if I got to use it for a day in exchange.
For a $1 app? It's still astounding what agonizing great lengths a customer will go through in order to decide for or against a $1-5 app purchase. A latte apparently has higher value than a piece of software you'll likely use at least a little bit longer than your latte.
Where are you based? What territory? In the EU, the distance selling directive means that customers of online orders are entitled to a full refund with 7 days of purchase even if they have just changed their mind.
I've never invoked that law, but presume it would apply to software.
Apple offers this benefit globally IIRC - but they hide the UI as deep as they can and force you to go through a rather manual customer support process. Clearly it's not meant for people to actually use.
That's why I use Installous. It may make me a dirty pirate. So be it. I don't justify why I do.
Yes, it is the "hacked app store". It downloads the cracked archives from around the seedier parts (anon file dumps). And yes, you could download a nefarious piece of crapware. But that's a chance I take, considering I've only gotten 3 'pirate programs'.
If anything, I'd like to be able to develop with Linux for a jailbroken iPhone (3GS was handmedown and I jailbroke and unlocked it). There's no way at this time i can afford a Mac.
(note: without using a virtualized environment for OSX. I don't have the HD space.)
