With all the apps available in the App Store, I own a lot of apps. Too many to keep on my iPhone at one time. When I start to use an app less and less, I remove it from my iPhone to save room and to keep less pages of flipping back and forth between screens. But every now and then I decide I want to use an app I removed and since I’m not near my MacBook, I just go to the App Store and re-download it directly on the iPhone. When you buy an app you already purchased a message would pop-up and say something like “You already purchased this app. Hit OK to download for free”, until today. Today I got this message:

“You’ve already purchased this. You can redownload it for free on your computer, or tap Buy to buy it again.”

I’m not sure if this message is new to the app store or the beta of OS 3.0b5 I’m running. I hope this is part of the beta and Apple does not implement this with it’s release. Anyone on a non-beta OS get this message? Let us know on Twitter @iAPPetite.

UPDATE:
Looks like this message is only popping up on 3.0b5. Others have confirmed it’s not there on OS 2.2.1

UPDATE 2 (6/1/09): After I posted this Sunday morning, other blogs have picked up the story Sunday night. Reports are this is done for these possible reasons:

1. To save bandwidth by Apple/AT&T. We have seen restrictions of downloading before. Apple will limit downloads off a cellular data connection to save AT&T’s bandwidth, but they will allow downloads from the device on wifi. I was using wifi at the time I tried to download this particular app.

2. The second possible reason is to cut down on the sharing of apps across devices linked to two different iTunes accounts. I have only one account and it has never changed. You think when downloading an app, the app store would recognize you are the original account holder and allow the download to happen.