[mwidarto]

I develop an educational app geared for kids and just like some of the people here. I dislike ads, in app purchase, external link etc so I made sure that my app doesn't have any of those and price it at $0.99. I keep updating it based on user feedback to make the app better.

It's good to read that there are a lot of parent here that say they won't purchase any app with ads and/or inapp purchases for their kids but I think majority of the people don't care.

Most of the top 15 apps in my app category/subject are free with ads and/or in app purchases. They can afford to make it free because they make money from ads/in-app purchases and because they're free they get a lot more download that keeps their ranking higher burying app like mine.

It's hard to compete in that kind of condition but I for now, I can't see my self using ads/in-app purchases in any of my app. I will try to compete by bringing better qualities apps.

[JeremiahNunn]

There are ways to do in-app purchases for kid apps that aren't unethical. In fact, allowing people to try your app before buying it is a very ethical thing to do. Don't limit yourself unnecessarily, and don't assume kid apps with iAP must be from shady developers.

[jes5199]

I know you feel like everyone is being unreasonable about this, but instead of trying to change their minds, consider it market research: parents on hacker news overwhelmingly distrust iAP, and maybe that means some other form of try-before-you-buy would be more appropriate for kids' apps.

[mwidarto]

I believe windows phone market place and android allow you to do some sort of trial but I don't think you can do that in apple app store. I'm not 100% sure about this so please correct me if I am wrong.

[mwidarto]

You are correct. There are a lot of kid apps with iAP that offer great value such as additional levels etc. I purchased some my self. It's the smurfberry kind of iAP that I don't like.

[JeremiahNunn]

I absolutely agree with that. What disappoints me is how quickly HN parents will shut off their brains and have a knee jerk reaction to an otherwise really handy feature. And in most cases, if they really hate iAP that much, they could figure out that an app isn't for them before downloading, and save themselves and the developer from a negative situation.

Which makes me wonder what kind of parents are downloading apps and handing over the iPad without doing any research (since certainly if they were doing any research at all, they'd know it used iAP beforehand).