IPhone - trial version and App Store

Question

Hello
I am used to develop and sell shareware. In other words my customers can download and test the product before making an order. The software has a 14 or 30 days trial limit.
It was my idea to offer the same procedure for iPhone users, but have just received a mail from Apple telling they will not allow Trial or Demo versions.
Do you have any good ideas for, how to solve this situation

Answer 1

i'm not certain that apple cares about the 30%. i think that might just be there to cover costs. i read somewhere that the app store is not for apple to profit from, but merely a way to drive iphone sales, otherwise, they wouldn't have the "free" option.
as for having two different apps, one for sale and one for pay, it wouldn't work in my case because you couldn't take the data from one and load it into the other, so the user would loose the work they did in the "free" version when moving to the "for sale" one.
after thinking about it further, however, i realize that for the $4.99 i'm charging for my app, most people would prolly rather just download the full deal and check that out. as a consumer with an iphone, i'd almost consider it a waste to take the time to download a free version, try it out... hit limitations... remember that i had to upgrade within a certain amount of time, etc, etc. i think i'd just pop for the $4.99 and not think about. once i played with it and liked it, or didn't like it, i'd tell people i know to either buy or not buy it.
as someone else mentioned here, a nice clear youtube video demo could also go a long way... as can online reviews and a nice website. we do have a way to provide potential reviewers with free versions (at least i think) through ad hoc distribution.