Got to ‘get’: the end of free apps on Apple’s App Store – Open Thread

It’s the end of free apps for iOS! Well, sort of. Apple quietly made a design tweak to its App Store yesterday, replacing the “Free” button for apps that are free to download with “Get”.

So, no change to the actual price, but the new wording is one way of sidestepping the debate around “free” apps not actually being free if they use in-app purchases – an issue that regulators in various parts of the world have been looking into.

Now, freemium apps will have the new “Get” button, as well as a prominent “In-App Purchases” notification, to ensure that people know they’re downloading something that will, in some way, be hoping for some of their money at a later point.

Is “Get” a good choice of wording in this case? You might argue that it makes it harder to tell that an app is free to download, although iOS users will surely pick that up by noticing other apps still have prices on their download buttons.

The comments section is open for your thoughts on Apple’s change, and the rise of freemium apps in general.

What else is bubbling in the technology world this morning? Some links:

Senator Al Franken has some questions for Uber

Uber’s bad week just stepped up a notch: US senator Al Franken has written to its chief executive Travis Kalanick with some pointed questions about the company’s privacy policy, statements by senior executive Emil Michael about using private information to target journalists, and its “God View” tool for tracking users. “I would appreciate responses to these questions by December 15…”

Chrome now has 400m monthly active mobile users

Google has announced new stats for mobile usage of its Chrome web browser: 400 million monthly active users. That’s impressive growth given that it was on 300 million as recently as the company’s I/O conference in June.

DOJ: children will die due to Apple encryption

As arguments why technology companies shouldn’t introduce new encryption features go, this is pretty startling, from the US Department of Justice: “Mr. Cole offered the Apple team a gruesome prediction: At some future date, a child will die, and police will say they would have been able to rescue the child, or capture the killer, if only they could have looked inside a certain phone…”

Read more

The truth about Trader Joe’s

Ever tried Two Buck Chuck? The much beloved, and often maligned “super-value” wine, only available for sale at Trader Joe’s stores (that offer booze), has been leaving Trader Joe’s doors by the case since they began to offer the brand in 2002.

But how much do you really know about your favorite $2 bottle of vino? Fantastic rumors have swirled since Two Buck Chuck (aka Charles Shaw wines) hit the market. Speculation on how they manage to bring the wine to us at such a ridiculously low cost, urban legends about how the wine ever came to be, and mystery about Charles Shaw himself (does he exist?) make Two Buck Chuck an intriguing wine with an even more intriguing story.

I remember buying my first ever bottle of “two buck Chuck” at the brand new Trader Joe’s in NYC way back in 2005, and being slightly bummed to discover that I was actually buying three buck Chuck. I chalked it up to everything in NYC being pricey, but it turns out that the $2 price tag isn’t the standard in every Trader Joe’s location. The price of shipping, taxes, and pesky local liquor laws mean the budget price can vary from state to state, with California being the one place you can count on getting a true $2 bottle.

Read more

Uber clarifies data privacy policy as controversy rumbles

The story that broke earlier in the week about an Uber executive threatening to investigate critical journalists’ private lives rumbles on, with the company providing a couple of official responses yesterday.

First, chief executive Travis Kalanick went on a tweetstorm with 13 tweets addressing the issue, although while it concluded with a direct apology to Sarah Lacy, the journalist targeted in the original comments, as Valleywag points out, there were several questions he didn’t answer.

As time has gone by, journalists have been focusing on another aspect of the original BuzzFeed report that kicked off this debate – the claim that an Uber exec had “accessed the profile of a BuzzFeed News reporter, Johana Bhuiyan, to make points in the course of a discussion of Uber policies” without their permission.

Uber has now published a blog post which it says aims to “make very clear our policy on data privacy, which is fundamental to our commitment to both riders and drivers”. It refers to a “strict policy prohibiting all employees at every level from accessing a rider or driver’s data” except for “legitimate business purposes”.

The story that broke earlier in the week about an Uber executive threatening to investigate critical journalists’ private lives rumbles on, with the company providing a couple of official responses yesterday.

First, chief executive Travis Kalanick went on a tweetstorm with 13 tweets addressing the issue, although while it concluded with a direct apology to Sarah Lacy, the journalist targeted in the original comments, as Valleywag points out, there were several questions he didn’t answer.

As time has gone by, journalists have been focusing on another aspect of the original BuzzFeed report that kicked off this debate – the claim that an Uber exec had “accessed the profile of a BuzzFeed News reporter, Johana Bhuiyan, to make points in the course of a discussion of Uber policies” without their permission.

Uber has now published a blog post which it says aims to “make very clear our policy on data privacy, which is fundamental to our commitment to both riders and drivers”. It refers to a “strict policy prohibiting all employees at every level from accessing a rider or driver’s data” except for “legitimate business purposes”.

Read more