How to download paid apps for free on iPhone and iPad

When Apple introduced the App Store on the iPhones, it was the first of its kind in the smartphone world. Google of course, soon followed it up with the Android Market that later became the Play Store. The App Store has come a long way since then and has over 1.96 million apps through which Apple reportedly earned nearly $64 billion last year. While most of us download a lot of free apps, there are so many amazing apps and games that are paid, and just because of that, get skipped sometimes. But what if we tell you there’s a way to get paid apps for free? Android users can check out paid apps available on discount or for free for a limited time using an app called AppSales. Similar, iOS users can make use of AppAdvice (formerly known as AppsGoneFree) that offers a similar feature. Let’s find out exactly what AppAdvice does and how it can be beneficial to you.

How does it work

While AppSales on Android is an app that scourges through the Google Play Store to get a list of paid applications that are currently free or available at a discount, AppAdvice works differently. On the latter, you get a curated list of apps that the AppAdvice team decides are the best deals of the day. Mostly, they include paid apps that have gone free for a limited time or have offers going on for in-app purchases. At the bottom of the current day’s list is a calendar tab that shows you the list of apps from previous days, but do note that there’s a good chance some of those offers might have expired by then.

Just download AppAdvice from the App Store and go through the instruction process. Once the app is installed it will automatically select your region. You can change the language and region for the app but the prices will reflect only in USD. The front page of the app shows a list of all the apps of the day which are currently free. I do have a complaint here, since there doesn’t seem to be an option available to put certain apps that you like on a watchlist to alert you if they ever get free.

However, you can check out why each app on the list has been recommended, who the app is for, and an AppAdvice score.  

Additional information

AppAdvice, in addition to telling you when a certain paid app has become free, also lets you know about in-app purchases for apps that could be available for free for a limited time. For example, at the time of writing this, the game Maddie’s Farm was free, and also had an offer valid for a day wherein you could get 1,000 free gems that would normally set you back $2.99. Apart from that, you can also see if the app is Universal, i.e. designed for both iPhone and iPad. Users of AppAdvice can also give likes and dislikes to the recommended apps on the list and the ratio is made public in the app’s summary. There are also other useful tidbits such as if the app has become free for the first time or if the deal is going to collapse fast. Any time a deal on the app has expired, a banner that says so appears beside the app.

What is AppBump

Say you are waiting for a particular app to get free so that you can download it without spending money. On the top-right corner of the AppAdvice homepage, you will find a button called AppBump. What this does is let the community of AppAdvice users know that there is an app you would like to become free. You can search the app and give it a bump. If a lot of people give bumps to the same app, a free app advocate is assigned to it. The advocate negotiates with the app developer to allow the app to become free for a limited time to the community of AppAdvice users. The developers could agree to do this knowing it could increase the app’s user base. Of course, not all apps will be bumped up to become free but it is definitely a feature that is useful to bring small developers into the forefront.

In sum, AppAdvice does look to be a useful service where one can easily and legitimately avail a plethora of great paid apps for free. I downloaded the Structured app that was free for a limited time and now my iPhone has scheduled all my daily tasks in such a way that maximises time efficiency. If you’re an iPhone or iPad user, do check it out… maybe you’ll find something that catches your fancy.

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