Promotional copies of applications

Written by Philip Roy | 03 December 2008
Posted in News - Apple

One of the things NZiPhone.com wants is to be able to do, is to pass on the opportunity to review applications to site users. However this has been challenging because getting a "free" or NFR (Not For Resale) version of a commercial application running on an iPhone is complex. It has previously involved providing developers with your iPhone serial number and them adding you in as a members of their team. It appears this is changing.

The interesting thing from the sites point of view is that I receive a lot of requests to review commercial applications. I've wanted to pass this opportunity on to site users, but until now, that would have proven challenging. Even more interesting is that neither developers nor Apple were able to completely reassure me that such an approach wasn't a security risk to you all in any way. I imagine it wasn't...but I wasn't prepared to take that risk.

Now it looks like it is changing, with what appears to be the ability of developers to provide up to 50 people with promotional copies of applications via a redeemable code on the iTunes store. See this article from MacRumours.com

This is great news for NZiPhone.com users and I'll start work on developing a process for when I do get contacted and revising the page on advice for companies, so that people willing to write a review for the site (come on...there was always going to be a catch!) might be able to get promotional copies on behalf of the site far more easily!!

I'll keep you posted.

Regards, Philip Roy

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Cuby said: December 03, 2008 | url   

Sounds great! It's good that Apple is finally fixing that problem.

Philip Roy said: December 03, 2008  

Some sites are saying that it is for the US iTunes Store only, but I imagine that will change quickly. Another couple of comments that caught my eye were.... * It won't be long before you'll be able to buy an application for a friend as a gift * It allows Apple to run major promo campaigns like they did with Pepsi, where they gave free songs away Phil

Philip Roy said: December 03, 2008  

Hmm....another post on MacRumors brings some sad news.... they expire after four weeks so they are not "freebies" but more for reviews only. That's OK for a review period, but I've always encouraged users to review software on NZMac.com by the fact they get to keep the NFR software....so they end up with something by way of thanks. This way it sounds like they don't get to keep it.

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