purchasing apps

[Dheeraj Sukumaran]

i have a doubt... if i purchase an app or game and if i later uninstall it, then should i pay again for the same game or app for reinstalling?

 

[Jazmac]

Once you pay for it, you can reinstall it as often as you want. You don't pay for it again.

 

[multo]

Just to add, even if you change phones as long as it's the same account the apps stay with you

sent from within the depths of my brain

 

[lantern20]

It is true that once you purchase an app from the store you own the license to that app and should be able to reinstall as many times as necessary on any number of phones (you can't install HTC apps on a Nokia or Samsung phone & vice versa). I have run into problems with certain apps. I initially purchased Amazing Weather when it was on sale for $0.99 and when a major update rolled out, I tried to update it but could not. Contacting support they had me repurchase the app and refunded me the cost. On the next major update I had the same issue. This time, the trouble ticket was escalated. It came back that the issue was that the developer changed the price or something (it was now $2.99, I think but don't remember). Support said that if I was refunded the cost of repurchasing the app, I would continue having the issue of not being able to upgrade and having to jump through the hoops of repurchasing & contacting support. The only thing support could do was issue me a credit in MS Points. I know that there are several apps in the store that have this issue, including Metrotube & Mehdoh (support had asked me directly about those apps and I have had the same issue with those apps personally).

One other point to make is that if an app is pulled from the store by the dev, you won't be able to reinstall it. I purchased several apps and the devs either willingly (Carbon) or unwillingly (Swapchat) pulled their apps from the store and they are no longer downloadable if uninstalled or on a new handset.

I'm not sure how this works on either iOS or Android stores.

 

[hopmedic]

Lantern20, it sounds like you got a runaround. First, the answer you got, that it had to do with a price change is wrong. As a WP Developer I can tell you that price changes do not affect licensing. Once you have the license, it's yours to keep. If an app is set to free (as Liquid Daffodil has done several times with all of their apps), and later raised to some price, all of those who installed while free will still have the same license as those who are now paying, which includes updates. My suspicion is that there was some glitch in the store, which has happened several times, and the person who gave you the above reason either didn't know or didn't want to tell you the truth. My bet is the latter.

Several times there have been glitches in the store where people reinstalling were required to re-purchase an app. In those cases, if you contacted support they would refund the re-purchase. It hasn't happened to me that I can think of, but it's been a story here on the WPCentral blog a couple times.

And as has been said, apps can be removed from the store, and no longer be available. Sometimes it's the developer removing it for some reason (hide it in the store to keep new installs from happening while working out a bug, for instance), or Microsoft removing them from the store. One example of this is if a developer decides to no longer be a WP developer and pay the $99 now $19 developer registration fee, and his annual registration expires, his apps will be removed from the store, as his relationship with Microsoft has expired, so they can no longer "sell" his apps IAW the T&C of the agreement.

HTH.