[davepeck]

To address your point: this might seem like a good idea until you follow it to its logical conclusions. The support burden, especially on smaller developers, would be massive after even a small number of upgrades. Moreover, it's unclear how this would work in practice given that new purchasers of the app should have access to the upgraded features that old users need to acquire through IAP.

To address your side comment about laziness: the author of the original post is Wil Shipley, the guy who started both Omni Group and Delicious Monster. In other words, he's one of the longest-running and most financially successful "indie" devs in the Apple community. When he says stuff, people (including people at AAPL) pay attention, because what he says is a product of both a lot of experience and a lot more customers than most indies will ever see.

[deedubaya]

I wasn't directing the laziness comment specifically at Wil Shipley, I'm sure he isn't. It was more of an aside; a widely generalized comment. Most of us know "indie" devs aren't lazy. It was more to the point that it is easier to complain about what you want than to work with what you've got.

To address your counter point: it is all a mater of implementation, implementation, implementation.

1) I don't think it is unreasonable to say that developers should maintain the features they've already been paid for gratis.

2) It require planing from the get-go within your app, you can't tack this on after the fact. Basic features are covered by the initial purchase of the app. Additional features (AKA what one would want to charge for with a major version upgrade) or perhaps feature "packs" are provided via In-App purchases. New users always start out at the same level, requiring purchases for new features. Features already purchased to be restored via the facilites available in StoreKit.

[davepeck]

I understand where you're coming from, but I guess I still can't agree.

1. Nobody's saying this. The original post actually asks for the ability to maintain older versions in the app store (so that, presumably, users who don't want to upgrade don't get stranded) while preventing new users from purchasing anything but the latest version.

2. So after three major upgrades, the experience for new users is: pay for app, then pay for three "upgrades" from within the app? Or even just one "roll-up upgrade" that implies all of 'em? And same for re-downloads: install the app, then restore purchases?

That sounds like a very un-Apple-like user experience; it's not something I would want my users to deal with.