Apple to Start Application Rentals?

[Phillip Swanson]

Movies and television shows currently are the only rentable products in the iTunes store, but a piece of code discovered by Sonny Dickson in iTunes 10.5 Beta 9 suggests that could change.




"Apps are automatically removed from your iTunes library at the end of the rental period" is, of course, the line of code that peaked Dickson's interest. iOS app rentals would be an interesting development, but pose a ton of questions. Currently there are a massive number of free applications and free versions of applications that many user’s are comfortable purchasing instead of their paid-for variants, could users rent free apps? Also, most applications do not cost enough to warrant a rental period. How much do you charge to rent a $5 application, or even worse a $.99 application? These aren’t cars or pieces of physical equipment, and can be easily copied once rented.

However, expensive medicine related applications or GPS apps could benefit from cheaper rental prices. Still, Apple isn’t notorious for providing features that will only be used by a small portion of the population. A recent ruling against Apple’s iTune’s return policy in South Korea forced Apple to allow the refund of app sales. This could be a driving force behind Apple renting applications.

So far I’ve only speculated about iOS apps being available for rent, but the line of code could very well be in reference to full blown OS X applications. This would make tons more sense than renting iOS apps, as many media editing applications can cost an arm and a leg. Renting Photoshop for a week, or Final Cut X when you need it could be more cost effective than laying down hundreds or even thousands of dollars for an application.

The idea is novel, but would you rent an app? What kinds of apps would you rent? The upside is lead generation I suppose, where people would buy the app if they found it useful enough. This could make free or “lite” versions of apps less popular, developers instead could opt for a cheap rental period to try to woo customers.

Source: 9to5Mac

[z3r01]

wow...let me rent angry birds for a lil bit

[wohhey]

This makes sense with games for example. 10-15 bucks for game, but only few dollars if you rent it for few days. Enough time to hard core gamers to complete the game.

[JonnyBoy123]

Is it this hard to see that your iDevice may soon be in competition with top game consoles like the Xbox 360? If top gaming companies like EA for instance were to make a new game, my guess is that we would be seeing "for Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, and iOS". That's where the rental option comes into place. Say u don't want to buy the full iOS game for the $59.99 price, you can now rent it via the App Store or purchase the full content via the App Store as well.

[z3r01]

This makes sense with games for example. 10-15 bucks for game, but only few dollars if you rent it for few days. Enough time to hard core gamers to complete the game.

i like to own the games i put money on

companies are making console adaptations for iOS, but its a mobile platform....so most companies want it to be that....mobile...shorter/in-expensive versions of their console versions...59.99 for an iOS game...idk...30 yes..but not 60

[Norb]

Don't think people realize the real potential for this. Imagine developers allowing a one time 6 hour rental of an application for free before you decide to dump any kind of money into it.

[Stray]

Don't think people realize the real potential for this. Imagine developers allowing a one time 6 hour rental of an application for free before you decide to dump any kind of money into it.

I'd be playing that game for 6 hours straight then lol

[thetoothfairy]

Don't think I would ever rent a app.... If I like the app I want to own it.. I like to know its mine! however I have rented a couple of movies before.

[ankit_jedi]

nice move..if implemented, the users of "the-app-that-must-not-be-named-here" cant say that they want to try an app before buying it.