Why doesn't the App Store just let people get a free 24-hour trial of any software? Or at least for any software where the developer didn't specifically opt out of offering free trials?
Yeah, I still don't understand the logic behind this. I've used the App Store and the Windows Phone Marketplace, and of the two I've actually bought a lot more stuff from the Marketplace. The concept of "trial" software where you can later upgrade to the full version if you want is built right into the Marketplace and the phone OS, so it's fairly easy for developers to offer it if they want. When confronted with several apps that do essentially the same thing, I pick up the trial version of each one and then buy the full version of the one that works best. I've bought a lot of apps this way, almost all of them more than $0.99. If I decide to try a new version of a different app later, I can do so with pretty much no risk.
Does anyone know why Apple doesn't offer this? Are they just worried it will somehow cause customer confusion?
No, because it would be difficult to do without OS support. Each developer would have to write their own time bomb code, and come up with a way to protect against users just deleting and reinstalling the app over and over.
Plus the whole process would be much smoother if baked right in to the app store.
