This is not a big deal. I really don’t know why people are getting so worked up about this. Basically, Apple has decided that in iPhone 3.0 if you want to re-download an app, you have to do it on a computer otherwise you get charged for it. This might seem outrageous, but then the 3.0 software will let you enter an iTunes account directly on the phone, so one could go onto someone else’s phone and re-download the app for free. Someone could theoretically give all their friends their account info so they could all get some App for free. I think that this is a reasonable solution. If you deleted the App, then download it again on your computer. It’s not rocket science.
I have to laugh though. 9 to 5 mac said in their coverage of this:
This new feature will be universally disliked by all but the most hard core Apple fanboy.
I disagree. It think this will only be disliked by the hardcore fanboys. The average person really won’t care that much.
[Read Apple to start re-charging for re-downloading apps directly on the iPhone]
No related posts.
Subscribe To RSS feed
I’m not sure that’s the reason Apple is doing this. After all, you can still give your friends your account info and let them redownload apps – they’ll just have to do it via iTunes.
The only reason I can think of for doing this is to make life a little more difficult for people who don’t/won’t use iTunes. For (I suspect) strategic reasons, Apple is very keen to ensure that everyone with an iPhone uses iTunes – and this is another way of doing that.
I don’t know. You’d want to be pretty stupid to give someone your iTunes account. I can see the situation where you’re out with a friend, and you borrow their iPhone, log into your itunes account, download the app, log out and give it back to them, but giving them your iTunes account will let them start buying songs on your credit card.
You could be right but I don’t think there’s any big conspiracy here. I guess we won’t know for sure till 3.0 is officially released (mind you people probably won’t believe Apple’s official reasons anyway – if they even give any) but either way, I still don’t think it’s the chicken little event people are making it out to be
Ah, this is going to be a pain for me personally! I frequently remove apps that are clutering my iPhone screens but then find later that I miss them and re-download them. I never install via the computer and consider it a huge step backwards in ease of use. I’ll bet this is AT&T complaining about bandwidth use. Apple could address any problem with DRM through checking the app when it’s run to see if it was bought with the currently logged in Apple account, just like Microsoft and Sony do with DRM on their game systems.
I hope this report is wrong and Apple doesn’t do this. We should be moving AWAY from tethering to PCs not having it forced on us!