Quote:
Originally Posted by KyBunnies
I should just be able to show my receipt to the company and they give me the app for my iPhone.
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Sorry about the reality check, but - if I understand you right - you're saying that when you buy an app on iPhone, you should be entitled to receive the same app on Android and Windows. That seems (a) unfair and (b) unrealistic.
UNFAIR because as a rule, porting an app to a new operating system is a serious amount of work, which is to say it costs the app developer a chunk of cash. I think the app developer is entitled to charge you for that (of course, they are also entitled to give it away for free ... but I think this is for the app developer to decide, based on their own marketing priorities).
UNREALISTIC because the various app stores are owned by separate firms (Apple, Google, Microsoft) and there is no incentive for them to cooperate on cross-store purchasing. Indeed, the usual T&Cs for the app stores actually *forbid* developers from selling app features anywhere other than the appropriate app store. Consider this scenario: I tell some Android app user that they can pay $1.99 for the 'remove advertising from the screen' feature for my Freda app in Google Play, and then I will provide that user with a magic code that they can enter into Freda on Windows to get rid of advertising on the Windows app too, without any further payment beyond what they already paid in Google Play. In that scenario, Microsoft will kick me off the Windows Store, because I've accepted payment, via some mechanism other than the Windows Store, for an in-app purchase in my Windows App - and this breaches their developer T&Cs. There may be ways to negotiate around this, but the starting point is going to be 'lawyer says no'.
BTW, I should probably clarify that, right now, Freda is not available on Android/Google Play. The work on porting it is proceeding reasonably well, but it will be some time (months) yet.