By Jason Snell

November 19, 2014 12:26 PM PT

There’s no such thing as a Get lunch (or app)

Note: This story has not been updated for several years.

Apple today has apparently done a giant search-and-replace on the App Store to replace the word FREE with the word GET. This is apparently related to an EU ruling that it’s misleading to call apps with in-app purchases “free”.

That’s fine—I don’t mind the clarity. But GET isn’t a price, it’s a call to action. Calls to action work great on buttons, but in listings like the ones in the image I’ve posted to the right, the word GET is appearing in a description field. Which is why it reads like someone went through the App Store and just did a search-and-replace.

Perhaps omitting the text entirely from free Get apps would be a better approach here? (Also, can the software that runs the App Store not differentiate between apps that are truly free and apps that are “free” with in-app purchases, and treat them differently?)

In any event, let this be a lesson to us all: Freedom isn’t free. It requires an in-app purchase.

(Update: Apple has now fixed the display of GET text in places that aren’t actually purchase buttons.)

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