>Android gifts, for now, will have to remain in the physical realm. Image: Flickr / pitel / CC-BY
In March of last year, a new feature called “gift this app” showed up on the iTunes store. After the holiday season, many Android users are asking for a similar feature in their app stores.
The idea of app gifting is relatively simple. The small $.99 to $5 price of most apps, combined with the flexibility of app options, means that apps are becoming a very popular gifting option. Choosing to gift an app on the iOS system is as simple as tapping “gift this app” in the app store, and then typing in the recipient’s email address or phone number. The feature has proven very popular, especially over the holidays.
With two holiday seasons of the iOS “gift this app” feature past, many users of the Google Android operating system are asking for a similar feature. Smartphones, tablets and many mobile operating systems use the Android app stores as the backbone of their systems. Apps are an important part of the functionality of any of these operating systems, so the “gift this app” feature would be an important part of the operating system.
There are several workarounds for gifting an app to an Android user. The first and simplest way to gift an app is to give an Amazon gift certificate. Amazon’s app store is tied into the Amazon payment system, so an Amazon certificate can be used to buy an app. For anyone who does not want to use the Amazon app store, gifting an app on the Google market is much more complicated and includes hacking the system that runs the phone. It is much easier to simply give the person the cash with a note saying you hope that they use it for a particular app.
