When Apple announced In-App Purchases at WWDC this year, they required that developers use it with their paid apps only. The deal was, if you downloaded something for free, everything about the app should be free too. That also meant that you couldn't add In-App Purchase to apps that were once free, and are now paid.

In-App Purchase makes it easy for app publishers to allow the user to buy digital content for the app, whilst still in the app; like a subscription, more swords for your character in a game, a book etc.

Today, Apple announced that they're allowing In-App Purchase for free apps too.

But what does this mean?
In addition to the uses I mentioned above, the biggest difference for users will be that they probably won't see Lite and Paid versions of apps anymore.

Developers can now create one app with limited functionality and allow the user to pay to unlock the fully featured version. Like a try- before-you-buy scenario.

This is a huge advancement for the App Store and will most definitely see a major, major increase in revenue on both the app publishers, and on Apple's side.