Months ago, right after Steve Jobs announced the Mac App Store, I actually had the chance to give Apple some suggestions for how to implement trial periods for apps in the App Store. Someone from Apple asked me to give some feedback. I was busy working on Sound Studio so I didn’t have much time to think about the problem, and the things I could think of off the top of my head were either really complicated, or had some serious flaws. Different kinds of apps need different kinds of trial periods. Should it be based on time, like 60 minutes for a game or a week for a productivity app, or should it be based on the number of launches? Should people be allowed to start a new trial period, or should it be limited to one trial per iTunes account?

It’s an interesting problem and if I had a Mac programmer working for me at the time, I would have had more time to think about it and write up some suggestions. But I had a Mac app to finish, and a hard deadline for it. Even today, I find myself spending a lot of time doing the lower-level stuff like programming, managing others in the company, and a lot of the other mundane stuff that keeps a company running, and I have little time to think about the bigger picture, which kind of disappoints me.

I get emails almost every day from someone doing something that sounds interesting, but I rarely have time to actually get in depth with what they’re doing or even to spend an hour to talk to them. Sometimes I wonder if I’m spending too much time at the low levels, and letting opportunities pass me by.