New Android Market

If you have an Android phone you might have seen the new Android Market. It has a new look and feel, designed to make finding new apps much easier for users. All that is wonderful, but I'm more interested in the policy implications of the Android Market changes.

From Mashable:
"New Android Market Coming Soon"
http://mashable.com/2010/12/11/new-android-market-coming-soon/

Notice that in the past any purchase from the Android Market could be returned for a full refund 24 hours after purchase. That refund window has now shrunk to 15 minutes. A simple Google search of "new android market 15 minutes" shows the reaction to this change. It is generally not positive.

Many people have pointed to the 24 hour refund policy as a big advantage of the Android Market as opposed to Apple iTunes. But the relevant question is: Better for whom? The better question is: What is the best time to allow refunds, considering the interests of both app developers and customers?

If there is no refund window, it is more attractive to app developers. If there is a long refund window, it is more attractive to consumers. But if it is too attractive to consumers, too easy to get a refund, that will turn away developers. Developers may feel that it is unfair to have a 24 hour refund window because someone could download a paid game, play it on a 5 hour flight, then return the game as soon as he got off the plane. Basically, people could get all the benefit of a paid app for free.

On the other hand, there are some really bad apps out there. Do you want to have to pay, without possibility of a refund, for an app that you just want to try to see if you like it or whether you'd use it over the long haul?

I think it IS a good idea to have some sort of refund interval. But it is also true that a 15 minute interval may be too short. If you have a spotty network connection it may take the better part of that time just to download the app. Furthermore, some apps (calendars, schedulers, task lists, etc.) might take much longer to properly evaluate. So maybe 15 minutes is too short.

Perhaps the better model is for app developers to make two versions of their apps, one that has embedded paid advertising and another that is ad-free but is not free. Users can try the ad-supported app for free, see if they like it, and then upgrade to the paid version if they like it.

There is a trade-off here, and it affects the number of developers and consumers that will use a market. So the next time you hear that the iPhone has way more apps than Android, think about why. Ask yourself whether hundreds of paid fart noise apps or stupid paid wallpaper apps really make one app market better than another.