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Having your app pirated - what do you do?
- Thread starter CBanga
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Thats pretty lame. If this somehow works to protect the app from being pirated then developers need to voice it out to Apple to change the terms then.
The "no in-app purchases for free apps" policy was intended to protect consumers from bait-and-switch apps.
My few cents
This is for a developer who actually thinks his app is worth the money that he expects and not trys to sell as much as he can with pretty screens shots and fake reviews..
Pirated apps actually does not affect the stand alone apps developers like camera zoom for example (like others said, you dont expect sale out of pirate). The ones that get affected are apps like Beejive, mlb.com at bat where each pirated app eats into the bandwidth of the legit buyers and make them give bad reviews to the apps because of poorer service and in turn reduce the sales and eventually make a lose-lose situation...
Look at Beejive, they have an excellent app and their initial few versions were cracked and downloaded a million times. Then they had put in the office space video for cracked versions.. What happened is, ppl who like Beejive so much and couldnt live without it ended up buying it...
My point is, taking a leaf out of the Beejive situation... Develop a good app through all your effort and dont worry about pirating, infact let it get cracked.. Now you the pirating user base hooked to your app... Then make the future version blocked by something like beejive and force all of them to buy it... This way you got much better conversion rate...
And the average price of apps in the apstore is probably 1$.. Its the tip that you leave at a restaurant, so if the app is good the sale will go up no matter what. I would make my app better rather than spending time to block piracy...
If at all possible the developers should try to find a way to use the piracy to their benefits...
This is for a developer who actually thinks his app is worth the money that he expects and not trys to sell as much as he can with pretty screens shots and fake reviews..
Pirated apps actually does not affect the stand alone apps developers like camera zoom for example (like others said, you dont expect sale out of pirate). The ones that get affected are apps like Beejive, mlb.com at bat where each pirated app eats into the bandwidth of the legit buyers and make them give bad reviews to the apps because of poorer service and in turn reduce the sales and eventually make a lose-lose situation...
Look at Beejive, they have an excellent app and their initial few versions were cracked and downloaded a million times. Then they had put in the office space video for cracked versions.. What happened is, ppl who like Beejive so much and couldnt live without it ended up buying it...
My point is, taking a leaf out of the Beejive situation... Develop a good app through all your effort and dont worry about pirating, infact let it get cracked.. Now you the pirating user base hooked to your app... Then make the future version blocked by something like beejive and force all of them to buy it... This way you got much better conversion rate...
And the average price of apps in the apstore is probably 1$.. Its the tip that you leave at a restaurant, so if the app is good the sale will go up no matter what. I would make my app better rather than spending time to block piracy...
If at all possible the developers should try to find a way to use the piracy to their benefits...
+1 Every app on my iPhone right now is bought, even though I downloaded it online first to make sure it was a good app. I can't tell you how many apps have looked good but weren't anything like they said.
I think a lot of people make a good point about try before you buy.
Unfortunately the App Store doesn't have this option and so cracking seems the only way to do this.
However, I don't agree that the majority of users will end up buying it legit if they have already got a cracked version.
Its good to see that the posters here do buy the apps they like after looking at them through a cracked version. I, as a developer, certainly appreciate that you do support the developers by buying it.
It seems there is a trend now that developers release a lite version with every full version they develop. This hopefully gives users a try before you buy, but somehow I don't think this is going to happen.
But hopefully I will be proven wrong.
Unfortunately the App Store doesn't have this option and so cracking seems the only way to do this.
However, I don't agree that the majority of users will end up buying it legit if they have already got a cracked version.
Its good to see that the posters here do buy the apps they like after looking at them through a cracked version. I, as a developer, certainly appreciate that you do support the developers by buying it.
It seems there is a trend now that developers release a lite version with every full version they develop. This hopefully gives users a try before you buy, but somehow I don't think this is going to happen.
But hopefully I will be proven wrong.
If I were a developer and saw 4000 downloads, pirated or otherwise, I'd be pretty excited. The only bad press is no press. Your app is getting exposure. Those 4000 people are your early adopters; your beta testers; and possibly your word-of-mouth advertising team. You can't stop them and you shouldn't bother trying. You should rejoice in the fact that your app is attracting that many people. Plenty of apps get no where near that many downloads in such a short time, pirated or otherwise.
Focus your energy on making the app great and hopefully you'll get to the point where 4000 downloads is a drop in the bucket.
*EDIT* Before I get flamed for the beta testers comment, let me add that if someone was pirating my app, I'd hightail it right over to the forums where the pirates chat and befriend them, asking for feedback.
Focus your energy on making the app great and hopefully you'll get to the point where 4000 downloads is a drop in the bucket.
*EDIT* Before I get flamed for the beta testers comment, let me add that if someone was pirating my app, I'd hightail it right over to the forums where the pirates chat and befriend them, asking for feedback.
98% of the apps on my iphone i paid for and i have 80 apps, there are 3 that i did download but glad i did because they SUCK.. i would have never paid $8 for them, with that being said there is about $50.00 worth of purchases i wish i had never done i do believe in paying for apps if they are worth while i do feel u should get to try it before you buy it HOWEVER the idiots --yes idiots and yes idiots on this forum who boast about having installous on their phones --just look for signatures ull see people who brag about it, well they deserve to get mugged in the streets, its one thing to use pirated apps.. its another thing to openly brag about it, if you bought a app and installed it on 3-4 phones ok fine but if you didnt buy anything and feel elite because you have a program on your phone that allows nothing but pirated apps then a good mugging needs to come your way.
except you're not a developer. so your point is moot because you lose nothing and don't know what its like.
I totally see where you're coming from with the test users/drop in the bucket thing, but I guess I kinda believe (don't have data, but feel free to offer up your opinions) that even 1000-2000 pirate downloads will always be a huge detriment to most app store devs.
Before I say this, let me preface by saying that I totally see where people come from with the "most pirates wouldn't have bought anyways" argument. I don't necesarily agree, but I see how they believe their side of the debate.
I don't agree with this statement on the iPhone because of the following. Pirating apps takes away a huge market of people who would possibly buy "some" apps. Maybe not everyone they pirate, but the occasional 1-2 apps here and there. Because this money's gone, it drops the average price spent on apps and the equilibrium price in general. We see this in the "race to the bottom to get to the top" effect on pricing in the store. People can't compete with pirates, so they make their apps free. People then can't compete with free apps, so they slash prices 80-90% to climb the charts.
You don't see this in traditional music/movie industries because their industry combated pirates. They hold their prices even with pirates because they can, knowing that their lawyers would hopefully beat pirates eventually and their market price would hold eventually, even if it means some lost sales to pirates now. However, iPhone devs can drop to whatever they want and apps that should sell at 4.99 have to fall to 0.99 because we're not seeing Apple combat the pirates aggressively and developers are left to they're own means to make as much money as possible, even if it means that it won't be profitable in the long run.
I guess I look at our situation, we're just three college students who don't need to make a lot of cash and are doing this for a summer job of sorts, and even though we had an app which reached the top 100 paid apps for a while, I don't think this would be sustainable long term for us. If it's not sustainable for us, I don't know how larger devs with huge overhead costs can afford to stay in the game, and that's what worries me. I love the platform so much, I just want to make sure that we see great apps for a long time and the whole thing doesn't come to a crashing stop because people didn't want to look at the problem seriously.
1. Piracy is not exactly equivalent to stealing from a store. I dont care what your reasoning is, the fact of the matter is there is a difference. When pirating something, youre simply duplicating code. This doesnt have any affects on original code whatsoever. On the other hand, when you steal an item from a store, that PHYSICAL item is now missing and thus not able to be sold. A product is now missing from inventory.
2. 1 pirated copy does NOT equal 1 sale. In order to believe this, you must believe that every single pirated version would have been purchased if pirated versions weren't available.
2. 1 pirated copy does NOT equal 1 sale. In order to believe this, you must believe that every single pirated version would have been purchased if pirated versions weren't available.
Bottom line is, if you have a GREAT app, you don't need to worry about pirates. Sure, some people will pirate, but you'll make your sweet, sweet, money.
What about my bandwidth? Is that something I just pull out of the air magically? Explain to me why a physical presence makes any difference if both of them cost something.
BUT, 1 pirated copy does NOT equal 0 sales.
No one will ever convince me that piracy is okay, because to me it is still stealing, and stealing is wrong.
I wish that were true, but it isn't necessarily the case. There are a great deal of apps out there which should be making a much greater amount of money than farting or hot chicks apps.
Bottom line is that once pirates actually build their own app and get it cracked, they would know what developers here are talking about! No matter how its justified.
I think if anyone gets robbed a few dollars out of each payday, they would complain and carry on about the fact someone stole from them. Surely everyone complains about the tax they have to pay. I bet you wouldn't say "don't worry about it"
This is no different. Stealing is stealing no matter how you look at it or justify it. Its a problem that won't go away and to say you shouldn't worry about is naive.
I appreciate many of the people here who use cracked apps to see if they like them and end up actually buying them. They are the ones who appreciate how much work goes into developing an application and they support the developers if the application gives them any value. I'd like to salute you guys for doing so.
I would be happy to set up some codes for my application if people simply ask me to try before they buy. I think its an easy excuse to say that as I'm sure many developers would be more then happy to provide a try before you buy or something to show what a user buys if they only ask.
But I think we can all agree here that piracy will never stop. No matter how hard developers try to combat it. Apps will always continue to be cracked somehow.
Such is life and we (developers), I'm sure, have come to accept it. But it doesn't mean we shouldn't make it as difficult as possible within reason.
For any developers trying to prevent piracy, this is one of the best ways to do it. It will not stop the apps from being cracked or illegally downloaded, but it will make the app unusable by displaying a pop-up window (with the text of your choice) and shutting the app down once you click Ok.
Here is a tutorial that shows you how to do it. It cant hurt to try...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0EIkCNyCiE
Here is a tutorial that shows you how to do it. It cant hurt to try...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0EIkCNyCiE
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I spent a few buck (more than 30) In apps that never worked or were really crap. Some of them didn't even work!! (mobilechat, a random trivia app I bought for 5$, etc). It got to a point where I said I wasn't going to buy another app without buying it first.
I haven't kept my "word" and bought many more apps without trying first, even expensive games.
things like Navigon or Sygic, I have actually downloaded through "other means". Why? It's a piece of software that costs almost a hundred bucks and I need to be sure it works.
Guess what? I found that neither of those two apps worked fine for me. Imagine I would have bought both!! So I promptly deleted both and I'm now waiting for TomTom.
I haven't kept my "word" and bought many more apps without trying first, even expensive games.
things like Navigon or Sygic, I have actually downloaded through "other means". Why? It's a piece of software that costs almost a hundred bucks and I need to be sure it works.
Guess what? I found that neither of those two apps worked fine for me. Imagine I would have bought both!! So I promptly deleted both and I'm now waiting for TomTom.
Roderick, I agree with your statement that "piracy is not exactly equivalent to stealing from a store. But your reasoning is not quite right. A pirate doesn't so much steal code as steal a license for the Code. In this sense, the license to use the app is similar to a tangible item. There can be a limited inventory of each. Moreover, stating that 1 pirated copy does NOT equal 1 sale is meaningless -- one stolen pack of gum doesn't equal one sale of a pack of gum either. In both cases, some people steal who might otherwise buy, while some people steal who would never buy.
The key difference between piracy of an app store app and a tangilbe item is that, in most cases, you can return a tangible item if it sucks, whereas an app store app generally cannot be returned. This is why I maintain that it's appropriate to pirate apps to try them, as long as you buy the item if you decide to keep it. As I said in an earlier post in this thread, I have pirated a ton of apps, but I have paid for every app that I have kept. Right now, I'm trying our two apps for free -- Navigon and iCam. Check with me in a week and I will either have bought them or deleted them.
I actually tried the cracked copy of the OP's app that he talking about in this thread. If I had not seen his thread here, I would not have gone out and learned how to get a cracked app on my iPhone. Within two hours I was able to find out how and get his app running on my iPhone. I kept it on there a few weeks and then removed it last week when someone showed me a better battery app and I actually bought that one considering it was on sale for $.99.
I do buy apps but in this case, I was glad I was able to grab it first and try it.
I do buy apps but in this case, I was glad I was able to grab it first and try it.
I think you're missing the point here. No one here is disagreeing with you that a try before you buy would be a feature that even developers would want to have.
I agree that Apple should have some sort of option to allow this.
Coming from the Palm platform, we always had trial versions for all our apps. Like shareware, it allows for a certain period of time to use the full features of the application before it cripples and asks for a registration key.
That is how it should be I believe.
From all the feedback from people here who have JB iPhones, its clear that at least 90% of those would spend the money as long as they get to see the application first.
The coding is not difficult and Apple should allow for this to be done. There are some very good anti crack source codes available that make it simple for us to give users the option to try the application for two weeks or something and then confirm the purchase.
Surely that wouldn't be a difficult thing to do.
And yes pirating software IS the same as stealing from a shop. IF you don't buy it and continue using it. Surely you can't argue that.