Android Market Updated: You Have 15 Mins To Return That App
An update to the Android Market is starting to roll out. They’ve improved the promoted apps interface, it’s easier to find apps and widgets and live wallpapers just got their own categories. Related content has also been added. One other nice feature is increased app size to 50mb. But one oddity is that they’ve limited the time you have to return an app to 15 minutes:
Since most users who request a refund do so within minutes of purchase, we will reduce the refund window on Market to 15 minutes. This change will be largely transparent to buyers, but will help developers manage their businesses more effectively.
If you just had a trial mode (like Windows Phone) then you wouldn’t need to talk about your return policy…just saying. Anyway, you should expect to see the update in the next two weeks.
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Honestly, it would take me much less than 15 minutes to figure out that something sucks. A marginal app though might get dumped because the “no refund” clock is ticking. What was the old window; 30 minutes, 1 hour?
@jimski: it used to be 24 hours for WM. i have to presume that this is their trial method – in other words, you get 15 mins to play with an app…go for it.
If you download an app while on the go and something distracts you like a sudden phone call or any number of things your 15 minutes is toast.
Exactly. I think 15 minutes is an unreasonable amount of time to evaluate a paid, fully functional app. Hell, it might take 15 minutes just to find the instructions for initiating your refund. I did take advantage of the 24 hour WM Marketplace return policy once and it worked.
Wondering what is driving this silly policy. Is there a real difference between 15 minutes and say, 3 hours, from an administrative perspective. Does Google really pay out their app developers every 30 minutes or so. What’s wrong with an overnight batch that starts as 12:01am, with a 9:00pm cutoff for purchases and 12:00am cutoff for returns. Simple. Hell, I could even write the routine for that.
But maybe given 3 hours many Android users, using their very open platform, can find a a way around having to pay for an app, so this can be a way of protecting the developers. If so, guess you get what you deserve.