Apple’s new patent allows users to share apps

A new patent that Apple filed has been revealed to the public. This patent describes a clever way for users to share apps with their friends. Have you ever been in the situation where a friend shows you a cool app on his iPhone, but then you forget to download it later when you get back home? And when you realize that there was an app you needed to download, you forget what the app is called, and you forgot which one of your friends showed it to you, and in the end, you just forget the app altogether. Well, the patent aims to solve just that. If users had the option to share apps, this wouldn’t be a problem anymore. The patent describes a way for users to send a seed of the application to another user they wish to share the app with. Depending on the app, the shared app would either be a fully functional copy that expires after a certain period or a limited functionality demo copy. From this seed, the user can then download a shared copy of the app. This way, forgetful people won’t forget about downloading the app that they wanted from their friend. And when the app expires or if they need more functions, they can easily just upgrade to the full version from the app store. And if a user upgrades this way, the person who shared the app will get some rewards for introducing the app to that person- rewards such as money, store credit, coupons, promotional items, or an improved status. This well encourage people to share more apps, and in turn benefit the developers as their apps get spread around more easily. In a nutshell, it’s pretty much like an app discovery service that’s run by you and your friends, and everybody benefits. Users get to try apps without buying them and developers can reach out to a wider audience. What do you think of such a service? Would you use it?