The Long Shadow of iPhone OS 3.0: In-App Transactions

Among the dozens of changes announced for the newly unveiled iPhone OS 3.0, including long-awaited cut and paste functionality, improved search tools, landscape keyboard functionality and multimedia messaging, among others, only one seems to be a marked regression: In-App Transactions.



In-App Transactions might be good news for iPhone app developers, but could be a great disservice to users who would have to pay to unlock various elements and components of apps that have already, essentially, been purchased. Users could end up paying several times the amount for games and other apps that would have cost them a single, up-front price before In-App Transaction functionality was implemented.

Perhaps Apple is taking a cue from struggling airlines, which in the last year have resorted to additional baggage fees and other charges to mitigate sweeping profit losses and fluctuating fuel costs. But, more likely, In-App Transactions may be Apple’s attempt at preventing users from “jailbreaking” their phones and using Rogue Apps Stores to purchase unauthorized games and applications from developers that have closed shop at the Apple App Store because of its unprofitable model.

In either case, the quality control function, which Apple has continually cited as its basis for having a single authorized App Store for in the first place, could fall by the wayside if developers only have to prove the first component of the purchase. Moreover, In-App Transactions could result in underhanded nickel-and-dime tactics on the part of the developer, with little more than review and ratings portals to voice wrongdoing and alert other consumers.

It can be conceded that there might be some consumer-friendly functionality to In-App Transactions, if users only wanted a part of an app or game and developers made such options available to them. But, from the looks of it: users are going to permanently be on the short-end of most, if not all, In-App Transactions.

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