After putting our heads to together on ways to get more exposure for our first iPhone app, Brain Thaw, we decided to release a free Lite version.   After all, the best way to reach more people through iTunes is to decrease your price, and until Apple allows developers to pay users for downloading their app, you can’t get any cheaper than free.  Besides, releasing a Lite version of iShoot worked wonders for developer Ethan Nicholas, so why not us?

Jump forward one month.  We’ve succussfully released Brain Thaw Lite, and we’ve learned a few lessons along the way.  Here’s a few tips to other developers that embark along the same path.

Tip #1: Apple is extremely restrictive on what you can do within a Lite application, so design your application accordingly.  Technically, you cannot upsell an application, meaning you cannot include crippled features and ask the user to unlock these features by upgrading.  After a little trial and error, this turned out to mean we could not show grayed out “Meduim” and “Hard” difficulty levels, but we could put a “Buy Brain Thaw” button on the home page of our app and a screen after completing each game listing all the benefits of the paid version.  Complying with these rules was not difficult, but I wished I was aware of them upfront.  Keep in mind that Apple has been a bit inconsistent in what it approves and what it rejects, so your mileage may vary.

Tip #2: Incorporate analytics.  I bet a lot of you would like to know if releasing a Lite version of our application has been a success.  My answer: I have no idea.  Since Apple does not release information about how users arrive at an iTunes app page, it’s impossible to know how many of our sales are coming from Lite users upgrading to the full version.  We’re planning on incorporating an iTunes analytics program into our next update so we can track conversions (Pinch Media and Mobclix to name a few) , and I would suggest that everyone contemplating a Lite version of their application do the same.

That’s all for now.  If anyone has experience with a good analytics package, I’d love to hear about your experience in the comments.