Its a bit far fetched at the moment, thought it is not entirely impossible. According to recent findings, it looks like Apple ma, in the future, bring ability to buy iPhone apps offline. Critics can rant all they want, but the ability to buy apps for iPhone offline is going to be so amazing, that we'll fall in love with the iPhone all over again.
Currently, when you download an app either using iTunes on your computer or the App Store on your iPhone, you need a network connection. Without a network connection, your device can not establish a connection to the App Store. Apple wishes to change that soon enough, by allowing you to store pre-paid credits on your device. Credits, are going to be similar to iTunes Gift Cards that are currently available. When your device is offline, it will use these credits as a mode of payment for the content downloaded, and later when you connect it with iTunes, your offline purchases will by synced to it. Also, once your device goes online, it will automatically update the the number of credits used by you, credits that remain in your account and the content that you have purchased online.
There's an obvious question on your mind right now. How is this possible? Allow Apple to explain:
One or more media items that are not part of a user’s media library can be stored on an electronic device. When a user later wishes to play back one of the media items, but the device cannot connect to a communications network to provide payment information for purchasing the media items, the electronic device can use pre-paid credits that were purchased and stored by the device when a communications network was available to complete the purchase. By using pre-paid credits, the media store can be assured that the user has sufficient funds for the media item purchase.
Now, you'll be wondering where all of this is coming from. Well this Apple patent, aptly titled ON-DEVICE OFFLINE PURCHASES USING CREDITS came up in the US Patent and Trademark Office. Patent ID is 20110178896, in case you are curious.
Still don't understand how this works? Well basically your device will cache the content that you have not yet paid for. This means that at any given point in time when your device is online, the device will automatically cache the content and relevant updates to the content. However, the device will restrict your access to this content unless and until you pay for it. By restricting the access, it means that you won't be able to, if its an app, install it on your device and if its media content, you won't be able to watch/listen/read it unless the payment is made. This also means that you will be able to browse the App Store and iTunes Store offline, as the content will be cached. Whatever you like to purchase, simply make the payment on the device itself with the stored credits, and immediately the content will be available for you to use without even requiring a network connection. Its as simple as that.
You will obviously be notified when the credits in your account are less than the those required to purchase any particular content. You will also be shown suggestions for new content which are going to be similar to the content that you already have on your device. Yes, its the Genius service, only so much better.
We know for sure that Apple has patented this technology and its not going to be afraid to use it. The question is, why can we see these features being implemented in our devices? We heard nothing of this sort at iOS 5 announcement, maybe we should wait for the next major iOS release and the next generation iPhone release to have our questions answered.
What do you think about this service? What pros and cons do you see to having the ability to buy iPhone apps offline? Drop a comment below and let's get the discussion started!