How to avoid piracy on iOS (and generally in mobile apps)

Question

I'm thinking about an App I would like to sell at .99$ on Apple App Store. Not so much, but I would like to limit piracy (or at better avoid it).

What are your approaches or best practise in this field?

• Freemium (some features free, some others not) model?
• Encryption of some client/server comunication?
• Some sort phone detection (IMEI, whatever?)
• Antipiracy code library (if exists)

I see piracy as a big concern for mobile developers, don't you?

Answer 1

I think this is a debatable issue. After reading and searching about this topic I came to the following analysis:

1. Preventing app piracy is not possible 100% (remember that even big programs on PC and Mac are pirated like the OS itself, Adobe Suite, big games...).

2. The people that get a pirated version of your app are NOT your customers anyway:

   a. Those who are used to piracy are not interested in paying at all.

   b. If the app is not able to be pirated, the pirates people will still not pay for it and will decide to live without it!

3. Using pirated versions of your app is a way of advertisement: when they will use your app their friends will see it, and if it is a good app these friends will want to get it.

4. Not all pirate friends are pirates, therefore you will still get customers indirectly from these pirates.

5. And what is more important, if your app is REALLY nice, in short time even the pirates will buy it. Why?? Simply because you will be releasing updates and bug fixes regularly, while stealing your app will take time and it will not be in the speed of releasing the updates. So the pirated versions will be always delayed in versions; therefore the pirated versions are either lacking some new functionality of your app or still containing annoying bugs that are no more existing in the new versions. So because your app is really nice the pirates will give up and buy it :)

Based on these analysis I decided to accept the fact of piracy and live with it!

Answer 2

Of course piracy is a big issue, but there is not much to "avoid" it. Here is a blog post discussing this topic and a step towards anti-piracy for iOS.

Answer 3

For iOS unless you have jail broken your device the only way to get apps is through the AppStore. I think this greatly limits piracy. For Android devices it might be a little higher due to the open nature of the platform.

I think a low price and great functionality is the best bet against piracy. Most people don't mind paying a buck or two for a decent app.

Answer 4

There isn't a whole lot you can do. Honestly piracy in apps usually only increases its popularity and increases sales in the long run. If people really want to get your app without paying they will find a way to do so, and if you manage to "prevent" it it still offers you no more sales. Obscurity in the millions of other apps is the larger problem than the gaining the small amount of sales from people who would have been willing to pay if they were prevented from pirating it. Unless you have an app like angry birds which is widely known and very likely to be downloaded by a lot of people willing to pay it isn't worth the preventative measures in my experience. Good luck though.

-Adad64