How can I gift an app that I already purchased?

ashred wrote:

Hey Crackers- I'm as baffled as you are regarding desktop iTunes. I get the gift option for and music/tv/movies I own, but not for the apps! I tried every option and workaround I could think of within the store (send from purchased list? nope. vis send gifts on home page? nope. send via app's weblink? nope!!!!)

But... you CAN logout of your itunes account, navigate to the app you want to send, click send as gift, and login when requested. It ridiculous, but works.

FYI:

itunes 11.0.2

iOS 6.1

As for the lack of gift buttons, I can confirm that my ipad doesn't show the button like my phone does. It is also running 6.1, but the OS is shown like this:

Version 6.1 (10B141)

whereas my phone says:

Version 6.1 (10B143)

I'm not sure if the discrepancy is iphone to ipad or something else. Regardless, I though you might like as much info as possible!

-ash

My iTunes is 11.0.2.26 both iPhone and iPad running iOS 6.1.3(10B329).

I can gift music I have purchased ... just checked that, but the difference is that that has the $$$ button as if I can actually buy the music over and over .... whereas, the apps only have a *downloaded* or *open* button. So I wonder why we can keep buying the same music, but not Apps?

Just signed out of my account on my iTunes account to test what you suggested and that works 🙂 Strange way to do it, but at least that is something!!!

It's really strange how br8thw8 can actually do this without having to sign out and in!! I am starting to wonder if it is a region thing? I am in Australia. Not sure if there are different regulations for different App Stores (IE mine being the Australian App Store) I can't see why this would be so, but then I can't understand why br8thw8 can do this but I can't.

ashred wrote:

........

But... you CAN logout of your itunes account, navigate to the app you want to send, click send as gift, and login when requested. It ridiculous, but works.

........

-ash

I wish I could give you points for this, it really helped!!

Thanks Crackers :) I appreciate the compliment and would love to get some points one day!

Thanks to you as well, br8thw8- you disseminated information like a madman! (uhm, or woman)

I'm in the US as well; an iPad update to 6.1.3 would be a decent test of other gifting capabilities- that's what you're running, right br8thw8? I'll let you know the results after the update.

I'm not sure why apple made this so hard- it seems contrary to making $,$$$,$$$!

Oh- and if one of you want to post a new topic with our "solutions", I think it would help many many gift-giving people. A google search shows every possible Mac board with this same question, but nary an answer!

-ash

br8thw8 wrote:

It must be a region thing. I'm in the US. And yes, it is frustrating, or it was for me. I'm not sure why Apple had to make this so difficult!

Hopefully someone at Apple sees this *bug* and can code in a *gift* button even on Apps we already have on our devices. Makes sense, because they stand to actually make more $$$.

ashred wrote:

.........

I'm not sure why apple made this so hard- it seems contrary to making $,$$$,$$$!

Oh- and if one of you want to post a new topic with our "solutions", I think it would help many many gift-giving people. A google search shows every possible Mac board with this same question, but nary an answer!

-ash

Agreed with the $$$. Doesn't really make business sense LOL

I'll let br8thw8 post a new topic with the solution if he/she wants to, seeing as they asked the question originally. 🙂 Would be nice if there was a way to know if/when Apple actually addressed this *issue*.

Thanks to everyone for your input into this problem.

Guys, you couldn't gift a previously purchased FREE app 🙂 you only can gift PAID apps, that's the reason for everyone that couldn't saw the "Gift" button

Planets is a free app and Pages a Paid app (sorry for clarified this)

I hope this could help you 😉

hey br8thw8- I just saw your post about crediting me! thanks- it's the first time anyone has ever done that :)

I hope that the whole iOS world gets to gift apps like we do- I'm afraid to upstage my iPhone to the newest OS because I don't want to give up the option!

will you post here again if your gift option vanishes? oooh! we need a survey!

***survey time***

Will all of you our there currently reading this topic please post your OS version, device type, and whether or not you can see the gift button when trying to gift a paid app? maybe we'll all learn something!

*** ***

okay, that's all for now!

-ash

oh wait... your "this solved my question" didn't work on my answer. it still shows the old non-answer as the solution instead of my mostly-a-solution solution. I don't mind for the credit, but it'll help people who don't read three pages deep!

First of all, I want to add my 2¢ on how utterly ridiculous this limitation is.

Secondly, I have to ask... what if you DO gift an app you havent purhcased. Is your option to buy impossible now? I can't imagine this is the case, but if it's multi-licensing legal ridiculousness that wont allow you to gift an already paid for app, why would you be allowed to do the reverse? If that's the case, maybe it doesnt have anything do do with multi-licensing and it is, indeed, a bug?

The answer is you can't gift "free" apps only "paid" apps.

Thanks from me too, finally managed to gift my already-downloaded apps after reading your suggestion. It is very clunky for Apple and maybe my memory is failing me but I thought I had been able to do this last year without signing out first. Anyway, thanks for reducing my stress today!

I agree. This is crazy that Apple won't let us re-buy an app a couple more times, so that we can "gift" them to friends, because we want them to enjoy the app we love.

It's strange that Apple only allows us to "gift" apps that we haven't actually paid for and used before. Why would I want to "gift" an unproven app, when I can re-pay for one that I know they would love using (because I do).

Hopefully Apple will fix this nonesense, because it's too much of a hassle to set up a 2nd iTunes ID, just to add money to it, so we can "gift" apps we've bought once already. And, "gifting" a $10.00 digital iTunes gift card, doesn't make much sense, since I want to gift a few $3.99 apps.

I can't gift paid apps either, maybe it's a region issue or iOS but I'm happy ashred came up with an answer and disappointed Apple haven't fixed this yet.

Click Sign Out in top-left corner of iTunes Store. Then search for App to gift and click the arrow adjacent the price (which displays as you are not logged-in) you can then Send Gift.

Hope this helps!