So news is coming that Apple may rent apps to prevent piracy. People could try apps by paying less for a limited time, just like movies. This is interesting and could solve this issue but it does not make sense

The average price of an app is around $2.5 with a strong majority around $1.X on average. What would you rent an app for? a few cents? Well if you don’t want to pay for an app, you the difference between a few cents a buck is not a driver to purchase.

At this price level, the only driver to download would be to get the app to be tried for Free for a consistant period of time (a few days, and not a few min like on the android market). This is the only psychological scheme that could instantly change the way people adopt apps and have an effect on piracy.

Now if that news is true, why would that be a “rental” is the app is rented for free? why not call it “try me free” or something in that field. For the same reason a free download on the App Store (2 words please) is called a “purchase” by Apple language.

So in a way that could make sense: Apple would launch a much needed try me free system for paid apps to facilitate adoption but would still call it rental to keep the “transaction” context in place.

And that would not have an effect on piracy only. I think it would be another direct hit at incentivized download which offer you paid apps or levels against the download of another app. If there is no more break to try a paid app for free, you don’t need anymore to get into those schemes where you download another app for a free ride [that would put aside, the still numerous services that pay users either via a so called "market research" or "point system" to "try" apps, but Apple will probably adress those soon]

Bottom line: Free “rental” would be great. we hope this is coming

PS : there is another psychological scheme that would also make sense, but we doubt apple would got that direction. All-you-can-eat at a monthly price: pay $10/month download unlimited apps. Price would become a non issue. But not sure the math works correctly for developers.