Open Radar

 
Summary:

There is no way to do paid upgrades in either App Store without hosing the developers or the customers. Either the developer gets no money for the upgrade, or customers from previous version pay more than they should.

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Create Surf Writer 1.0. It is awesome.
2. Sell it in the Mac App Store and the iOS version in the App Store for $20.
3. Write Surf Writer 2.0 with tons of new features that users are gonna love.
4. Release it in the App Store

Expected Results:

I should be able to specify upgrade pricing for existing users. For example new users pay the full $20, but 1.0 customers can pay just $10 to upgrade.

Actual Results:

I can either give the update away for free to existing users, and thus make no money and effectively ending development of the product. Or I can create a new product, but that creates confusion in the App Store because now there's two versions of the same app. Also, the loyalty of existing 1.0 customers is punished because they have to pay full price again.

Regression:

Everything works as expected outside the App Store, with FastSpring and other payment processors.

Notes:

See Wil Shipley's blog post about the topic for more insights: http://blog.wilshipley.com/2012/03/mac-app-store-needs-paid-upgrades.html