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Windows Phone 7 to Offer Try Before You Buy Option for Apps

By: , IntoMobile
Wednesday, June 30th, 2010 at 2:32 PM

Phones are all about apps these days, whether you’re hoarding them from the iTunes app store, Android Market, BlackBerry App World or the Palm Catalogue. The only unfortunate thing is that we rarely ever get to try out apps before we buy them. Instead, we’ll scour the web looking for demos, videos and reviews, or we’ll check the reviews that users leave behind on the respective app stores. The problem with that is they’re usually limited to reviews like, “OMG best app evar!!1!” That doesn’t help much.

Microsoft is helping alleviate that problem by giving application developers the option to let users try their apps before installing. Test driving a product before taking the plunge and purchasing or installing it? What a crazy brilliant idea! Why hasn’t anyone ever thought of that before?

While Microsoft has its work cut out with competitors like iPhone and Android, we’re hoping that Windows Phone 7 offers us features we’ve never seen before instead of going copy-cat like Microsoft was prone to do with Windows Mobile. Remember, kids, October is the official launch month for Windows Phone 7, so if you’ve been holding out there only about three months left to go!

[Via: TechRadar]

About The Author

Marc Flores

Marc has been a mobile fanatic for the better part of a decade and has had more devices pass through his hands than he would care to count. Originally from Los Angeles and briefly in San Francisco, Marc now lives in Brooklyn where, unlike Will Park, he longs for simpler times and simpler technology. All the while, he writes about gadgets and wireless technology as he tinkers, hacks and ultimately breaks most of his gadgets in the process. Marc has written about the mobile industry for Boy Genius Report, MobileCrunch, Laptop Magazine and has had his work appear in the Wall Street Journal, Gizmodo, CrunchGear and more.

  • Terence

    Shareware on a phone? While it sounds a good idea, I'm troubled by how intrusive advertising in apps is getting. I guess they need /something/ to offset the costs of production. And a sandbox for trying out (or even deploying) my own apps in a limited environment (such as my team, for project coordination perhaps?) is sorely missing.
    Of course, with trials come cracks and patches for converting that into a full software. The Windows Phone Marketplace is definitely a far more controlled environment than what is offered to the PC.
    What I'm saying is that it is not without risks, this move of allowing trials, but only from the tinkering users (and well face it, they'll always be upto something won't they?). For the regular users, I think that this makes a lot of sense. However, after they've bought the app following a trial period, I don't think they would appreciate the adverts.

  • Luke James Emery

    No, you don't understand the phone.

    IT will be much like the Zune in that you cannot access its hard drive space. If I will to connect my Zune via USB, it will not be listed in the "Computer" panel. Only through the Zune software can I access this.

    So, actually. You wouldn't be able to crack it since you cannot access it.