Should have released lite version from the beginning – There was no point to waiting and sacrificing the initial new release buzz. Since it is harder to get featured once your app is launched, say for app updates, it is important to strike early and hard with your app release.
Lite does NOT cannibalize sales – If your app is a gimmick then it might not make sense but in all other cases it only helps to increase sales (see our previous post on this topic)
Get the bugs out for your lite release – users churn lite apps and are fine giving you 1 star if they don’t like the experience. This is especially bad because the App store prompts users to rate an app when they try to delete it
Lite sales trail off too but paid sales remain higher – if you don’t have the x-factor that is needed to spread the word your lite downloads will fall as they have for iCombat, but in our case paid sales have continued to sell at a minimum rate several times higher than the pre-lite period
Frequent releases do juice downloads – Pocket God and other frequently updated apps have benefited from a weekly sales bump as they show up in the new releases section of the app store (users also like this episode style model)
via Just How Much Does a Lite Version Help Boost App Sales? « The App Farm.
I can attest to this. Demos are wonderful. A powerful marketing tool to get your product in the hands of potential customers. But there’s plenty more of things you’d have to do to make your iPhone application successful. Like this, writing about how your iPhone app did, providing insight for other developers, and drumming up the blogosphere (like what I’m doing right now). Simply having a lite version isn’t going to fix everything, although it’s a great first step.
Although, this whole “lite” version business is kind of a hack. There needs to be more of a connection between the lite version and the full version of an app. But Apple has bigger problems to fix on the App Store.