With hundreds of thousands of mobile applications available in iTunes, how do you find the good ones? You can read reviews online, seek out new releases via third-party app recommendation sites, check iTunes’ Genius picks or its “top sellers” lists, but at the end of the day, one of the most popular ways to find new apps is still the most traditional: personal recommendations.
Now, it looks like Apple is working on technology that will capitalize on that trend. A patent application reveals that Apple has developed a system for sharing applications through peer-to-peer connections with other phones.
Uncovered by the blog Patently Apple, the published patent application details a system that would allow you to transfer apps from your phone to a friend’s phone via a peer-to-peer connection, such as through a cable, infrared connection or a network cloud, like the Internet, cellular network or a wireless mesh network.
The transferred app could either be a full copy of the application, a limited (trial or demo) copy or the application seed, this last term meaning just enough information for the iPhone to download the application from a server at a later point. A seed would be useful in cases where the connection was dropped, causing the app transfer to remain incomplete. It could also serve as a way to share an app more quickly, we would guess, in areas where bandwidth is limited. Even though transferring an app seed wouldn’t allow you to use the app itself (the patent says you could send a “visual representation of the application” with the seed), at least you would still be able to grab the app from iTunes later on.
In addition to providing a mechanism for sharing, the patent also briefly covers plans for an affiliate program. When someone bought an app you shared with them, you could be rewarded with money, store credit, coupons, promotional items, or even an “improved status” of sorts. (Please, no badges!) I hope that Apple stays out of the affiliate business, personally. Once there’s money to be earned, things get a little murky – is my tech-savvy friend sharing this app because it’s really that good? Or because they want to earn credits on iTunes? Hmm.
This system, if it ever comes to pass, would serve as a great way to actually facilitate personal app recommendations and would additionally allow for “try before you buy” programs, too. Transferred apps could be either “lite”/demo versions or fully functional apps which expire after a set amount of time. That latter could be useful for getting more users to try an app, especially considering that the iTunes App Store doesn’t have an official app refund policy in place. (Refunds have been handled on a case-by-case basis in the past, but there is no actual refund window like there is on Android).
Patently Apple offers more details about this technology on its site, if you want to read about things like its use of “share flags,” details on security functions, the system’s interface functionality or even the use of Wi-Fi access points in coffee shops, for example.
Image credits: Patently Apple
