如何从付费应用迁移到应用内购买？

Question

I would like to migrate my app from a free/paid scheme to a free app with in-app-purchases.

I will be using the old free app, as the new free app with the in-app purchases, and I am looking for a way to make this transition.

How can I achieve this?

Is it possible with Google Play Licensing to retrieve the licensing information about another app still owned by the same developer account? Or you can only retrieve licensing information about the current app?

Otherwise, which other ways there could be to recognize a user being the owner of the paid app?

Answer 1

This is not possible due to potential ways to exploit the workings of the Google Play store (potentially skewing download counts, and such; a free app is more likely to get downloads, and those will boost its rankings before you make it cost money).

This has been asked before , and the consensus is that it's not possible by design. There are a few solutions in that thread, such as:

• Make your app free, last one week, then have the user use in-app purchasing to continue using it. (Not sure if this is exactly what you hoped, but it's a potential way of monetizing regardless.)
• Put up a free version, and take it down in a week. Users will have to reinstall the app to get the paid version but this would still have the same desired effect.
• Do an update (or have a setting in your app that expires at a certain time) to remove the paid features after a week (this might tick off a lot of users, though).

Sadly, as I said, this is not possible, so you'll just have to work around it best you can.