True, but they still have the '8 day free trial then £59.99 a year billing' for some apps. My wife installed a design app she wanted to try out, forgot to cancel and was stung last week. For such a high purchase price that feels to me like there should be addition verification step before charging.
Especially since the app was terrible and the reviews were full of people who were similarly charged and unhappy.
Anecdotally, I had both an Apple Arcade and an Apple TV trial a few years back. I tried cancelling prematurely to avoid surprise charges and the interface told me in no uncertain terms that if I cancelled before the trial expired, I’d lose access immediately.
What is bonkers about that? Apple let 2 consenting parties enter into an agreement and provides a single interface to cancel that agreement whenever you want from their pocket without talking to anyone. I struggle to think of a better setup.
One in which no one is surprised when a free trial rolls over to a paid subscription - perhaps that shouldnt even be allowable, given that its mostly done to make money off of people not paying attention.
Let me do the same - The user went through multiple screens that told them exactly what would happen and when. That isn’t misleading so it cannot by definition be duplicitous. Do I think there is room for a more user centric design? Yes. Do I stay away from subscription based iOS apps? Yes. Do other people use them and enjoy them? also yes.
It is - free trial with automatic rollover is set up anticipating that people will forget to cancel. It is not being offered as a good faith service.
Inherently if you are relying on something to thwart or subvert the intention of the person you are dealing with you are engaging in duplicitous behavior.
I’ll ruminate on the good faith service argument. That sounds like a valid angle. I see many of these app subs are predatory and wished apple provided a way to filter them out of search results. But I don’t consider the offering of the subscription functionality to be wrong. Apples implementation errors on the side of their pocketbook by being an auto enroll, but the signup screen is easy to read. It’s not buried in some TOS. Everyone who enters the agreement did so willingly and presented the terms cleanly. I understand they have a 14day return policy on these as well. At some point, people have to be responsible for their own financial decisions.
Yeah, I find it convincing. The principle I'm operating under is that both parties should benefit from any given agreement and that intentional efforts to subvert that are automatic non-starters.
I won't make the argument that subscriptions or even auto enroll are necessarily evil if we're shifting focus to less predatory industries, I would judge a given example by how difficult it was to get a refund. I think the top level principle of mirroring ease of subscription to ease of ending such applies here too, with respect to ease of billing for an unused service.
That people forget. That's part of the market of trial and subs in general. Its why gyms flourish. People subscribe but don't go.
They (iOS) have the data that you use or not use the app. They could notify you with a warning that your renewal is due. Or allow you the option to set the reminder in your calendar or bank app.
I double checked my email and confirmed I'm not hallucinating! I can upload screenshots later if you want. It seems they email me a few days before a trial ends (the longer the trial, the more advanced notice they give)
You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy than "free trial" subscription-based apps on the App Store. It is, overwhelmingly, a tool used for scams.
The pattern-
-hide promised functionality behind subscription.
-offer "free trial", often with very short trial periods.
-convert that into a big dollar subscriptions.
They know that most of the people who they ensnare are probably going through a multitude of tools trying to find a solution for some problem (and the fact the tool in question often fails to do what it promised is a feature because it encourages the user to move on quicker), and some subset will fail to cancel the "trial" before it becomes a pay service.
Consenting adults, sure, and personally I have never fallen prey to this, looking at the in-app purchases and just refusing to be baited, but it's enough of a problem that it should embarrass Apple a bit.
Especially since the app was terrible and the reviews were full of people who were similarly charged and unhappy.