Well, this is certainly unexpected. Apple may have kept secret a big change to the App Store that they’ll announce at the “Let’s Talk iPhone” event tomorrow: app rentals.
First uncovered by Tech Erra, strings inside the latest iTunes 105. Beta 9 suggest that Apple will soon allow developers to rent their apps out for a period of time.
The strings read:
The strings suggest that Apple will allow users to rent apps for a limited time, which will then be automatically deleted at the end of the rental period.
Rentals in a landscape of 99 cent apps doesn’t make a lot of sense, but trial versions do. Apple may intend to allow users to rent apps for free for a day or so to see if they like them, as long as the developers opt in.
App rentals would be a huge change to the landscape of the App Store. Personally? I’m all for it, especially if it finally gets rid of all the separate “Lite” demo apps.
[via App Advice]
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
