iTunes Gives The Gift of Apps to iPhone Users

[Michael Essany]

What does one give the person who already has it all? Usually, a gift card. Today, however, iTunes is making the gift of digital content a little more personal. For the first time, you can now "gift" iPhone apps to someone. In other words, some of us can now get away with a $0.99 app instead of a $25 gift card

At present, whenever you agree to the iTunes Store terms and conditions, you will also have the opportunity to pick a “Gift This App” option from the drop-down menu beneath the app's advertised price tag. As you would expect, the ability to enter in the gift recipient's name and email then pops up. You can even send a message along with your gift, which is basically a redemption code for the receiving party to download at his or her later convenience.

In recent months, the ability to gift music and movies has continued to become an increasingly popular iTunes feature. The ability to gift apps, however, could quickly catch up to (or even outpace) the popularity of gifting music and movies, as thousands of iPhone users will likely take advantage of this new feature promptly and repeatedly.

Of course, the addition of the new gifting service has raised some still-unanswered questions. What if, for example, the recipient already has the app? Does iTunes have an exchange policy? And with Apple pulling the plug on so many "immature" and "inappropriate" apps, what if the app you give gets the boot before it can be downloaded by the recipient? So many questions... so few answers

While there has been no official word on the matter yet, it's a safe bet that the forthcoming iPad App Store will similarly facilitate a gifting functionality.

[confucious]

Is this just for the USA or is it available in other countries as well?

[johnr9412]

Would you be able to gift and receive them on an iPhone or iPod touch?

[romeo_herman]

How many free gift, we can give?

[matthew1111]

That's kinda cool, I didn't know we could gift movies...Or was that included with this "update"?

[ro0oney]

does that include tax?

[n00neimp0rtant]

I have wanted this feature for the longest time.

[wannabprogramma]

now lets say a developer who doesn't care anything about the cost it would take gifts his app to a bunch of people.....it would be possible, in theory, to gift it so many times that he would get on the top downloads list and get even more downloads.......would be funny if somebody tried it..

[waheedtarin]

True now you will see so many false adds and fart apps on number one top downloads. I think that the AppStore needs like a voteing to take some apps down cause it's just wasting space and so useless

[rhekt]

yes indeed a feature that can come in handy when all else fails

[confucious]

This does not appear to be available outside of the USA (well, OK, I've only tried here in England so i am assuming it's not available elsewhere) and apparently not for in app purchases or for the iPod Touch!

[Edit]I spoke to soon! When I plugged my phone in and updated my apps it asked me to accept the new T&C and the gift option is now there. Not a lot of use to me if it doesn't work with the iPod Touch as both my kids onlly have them. I wonder if it's worth trying....[/Edit]

[Mike_7318]

This can be pretty useful

[extremzocker]

this is cool when u want someone to get an app like ping. u can just gift it to s them.