With the app sales marketplace already a thriving community, it only stands to grow larger on the back of Apple’s announcement that iOS 7 will bring with it the ability for app ownership transfers within iTunes Connect.
In a story first revealed on Venturebeat, they provided a screenshot of the update sent to developers and went on to explain that apps can now be transferred from one developer to another within iTunes Connect, for example after selling your app or when an app distribution deal expires.
Transferring ownership of an app does not affect the app’s availability on the App Store. All ratings and reviews will be transferred and customers will continue to have access to all available app updates.
The iTunes Connect app transfer process is simple to control from the Manage Your Applications module on iTunes Connect where you can simply click Transfer App in the App Summary page.
Notifications are sent to both developers participating in the app sale and transfer to ensure they accept the deal but are not involved in the financial aspects of the transaction.
This change in policy for Apple is bound to prove profitable for the app sales marketplace sites like Apptopia or App Business Brokers who until now have been restricted to selling the source code to iOS apps where the new developer was required to re-brand or at least re-launch the new app under a completely new iTunes developer account and retained none of the history or success of the previous version released by the original developers.
Until now, you couldn’t buy an app from a developer without needing to take it down from iTunes and start over.
This change will allow brands to buy an app from a developer to rebrand as their own and app developers can buy apps that compliment their portfolio or unsuccessful apps that are in need of a bit of tweaking and a fresh update to bounce right back.
With the massive number of apps in iTunes, the ability to buy and sell apps could completely change the dynamics for app developers interested in buying and selling apps and the app sales marketplace as a whole.