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I am sure I was not the only person that thought it was strange that Apple did not allow developers to take advantage of in-app purchases just because their app was free, but thankfully Apple has since had a change of heart and free apps, just like the paid apps now have the ability to offer in-app purchases.

In App Purchase is being rapidly adopted by developers in their paid apps. Now you can use In App Purchase in your free apps to sell content, subscriptions, and digital services.

You can also simplify your development by creating a single version of your app that uses In App Purchase to unlock additional functionality, eliminating the need to create Lite versions of your app. Using In App Purchase in your app can also help combat some of the problems of software piracy by allowing you to verify In App Purchases.

Aside from the ability to purchase extra items in a game or book store for example, this should help to solve the issue of all those pesky lite and free type apps that also have a full paid version. This new in app purchase ability for free apps will allow developers to make an app, and have the customer download it as a trial, then upgrade to the full version — all from within the app.

Though still new, this should end up being good news for the developers because it will all be handled in one app now, and for customers because they will not have to find, download and install a lite version to use it and then remove it only to find, download and install the full paid version.

Of course, this also sounds like Apple has just created lots of work for more than a few developers.

[via Daring Fireball]