For last few days this cat and mouse game is going on between me and App Store Reviewers. And despite searching everywhere, I have not been able to find an answer to this question, so seeking help here.
I have submitted an app with auto-renewable subscriptions in it.
My app requires that users sign-in in order to see additional options, which includes subscription option as well.
App Store Reviewers keep rejecting my app citing this same text every time:
Regarding 5.1.1, we continue to notice that your app requires users to register with personal information to purchase non account-based in-app purchase products, which does not comply with the App Store Review Guidelines.
To resolve this issue, it would be appropriate to make it clear to the user that registering will enable them to access the content from any of their iOS devices and provide them a way to register at any time, if they wish to later extend access to additional iOS devices.
We look forward to reviewing your resubmitted app.
Best regards,
App Store Review
What is non account-based in-app purchase products by the way?
I have also made it clear in my app what App Reviewer have asked above, i.e. make clear to the users that registering will enable them to access the content from any of their iOS devices. I didn't say iOS devices specifically, but said other devices since I'll have the same app on Android devices as well.
While I appreciate App Store Reviewers to help me improve my app, but I am totally lost here. I have submitted two updates to my app but every time it got rejected with the same reason.
Over this period I have also read their guidelines, read many similar cases online, but am still not clear what is required of me here.
Do they want the users to be able to purchase subscriptions even if they are not signed in? If so then technically how does this work? First it'll break the core functionality of the app since without registration I don't have user's info to create an account for them. Secondly how will I know which user purchased the subscription? I have to tie the subscription to the user's account on my backend. This means first I need to create an account for the user before user can purchase a subscription.
Please help me to get this right.
Currently I am waiting App Store's reply and my screens looks like these, with all other options removed when not signed in, and added text bottom of the Sign-In option, and help icon on top right of the screen where there is more information available for the user; and the one when user is signed-in.
If I would be a user of your app, I think I would find this behavior quite odd.
I would expect a login/registration screen when starting your app. If I decide to create an account, the Subscription button would always be visible within the settings.
However, there would also be an option "Continue without registration". If you do not create an account, the settings page could show some info text like "Some features are only available for registered members. Please tap here to create an account". Tapping the corresponding cell would show the registration page that is also shown when starting your app for the first time.
Maybe some users created an account in the past but forgot their passwort? Then they would not be able to restore their purchases, right?
Your login/registration form should also contain a "Forgot Password" option.
My app was eventually approved last year. The change I made was to remove the Subscriptions button from the Settings menu. And move it inside the user profile page. This means that user can see the Subscription option only after signing in and by going to their profile page. While this doesn't make sense to me, but that's how probably Apple wanted it. Subsequent updates to my app were also approved without any problem.
Related
DTMF call mechanism is my app.To access the app's feature first the user needs to sign in. If the user is new without any account created he can even sign up. The reasons to get rejected are the following.
11.13
We found that your app provides access to external mechanisms for
purchases or subscriptions to be used in the app, which is not in
compliance with the App Store Review Guidelines.
New user registration is not appropriate. Please see the attached
screenshot/s for more information.
To be in compliance with the App Store Review Guidelines, it would be
appropriate to remove the access to these mechanisms - including fully
qualified links to your site that could indirectly provide access to
these mechanisms, such as links to web pages for support, FAQ, product
or program details, etc.
On occasion, there may be apps on the App Store that don't appear to
be in compliance with the App Store Review Guidelines. We work hard to
ensure that the apps on the App Store are in compliance and we try to
identify any apps currently on the App Store that may not be. It takes
time to identify these occurrences but another app being out of
compliance is not a reason for your app to be.
Please help me by giving a solution for this problem. It will be very helpful if I could get the exact reason for rejecting my app.
You are probably trying to sell something, that could be part of your app. For that you should use the IAP api, that means 30% to Apple. You should demonstrate to them that what you sell is not a part of your application or a subscription service.
The whole 11 chapter of Apple store guidelines is about purchasing.
You must be really sure that what you are selling cannot be "part" of your application or you need to use In App Purchase.
Can the user sign up within the app?
If not (if the user needs to open a site to sign app) that is the problem.
You should add a signup procedure inside the app.
I am designing a paying app that will require users to create their own profile.
This app will of course be downloadable on each of the devices the user has.
This is the precise scenario I want to bypass :
the user downloads the App on an iPhone
he creates an account and start using the app that makes server
calls
he downloads the app on his iPad and with his login & password
retreives the data on the server, so far so good
Now, he lends his iPad to a friend (who didn't pay for the app).
The friend wants to use the App, and wants to create his own
account. Yet, I want to forbide this since he didn't pay for the
App.
So my problem is : I want to restrict the use of the app only to the user that paid for the App, not for his friend.
Of course, I cannot use the AppleID since there is no way to reach it from code.
I thought one moment that I could use iCloud like mentioned here but since the ( iOS unique user identifier )user can choose not to use iCloud, my problem is not solved ...
Is there an easy solution that I missed to solve that issue?
You friend will be using different apple id. You could use Restoring Transactions api of apple to get understand whether the user has purchased the app or not. This is possible for non-consumable in app purchase. Please do check the below link :
https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/NetworkingInternet/Conceptual/StoreKitGuide/MakingaPurchase/MakingaPurchase.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40008267-CH3-SW1
I need to move an app from my current individual developer account to a corporation account. I realize this cannot be done automatically, and that I just have to remove the app from sale in one account, then submit it in the other.
My question is, what is the prefered method of doing this to make it as seamless a possible for current users? Should I alert them through a push notification? Submit an app update that tells users they will have to redownload the app?
Any other tips on this transition?
This is a University app that is free and ranking doesn't matter as much as a paid app.
I'm trying to test in app purchases in our app but I'm not having any luck. Part of the problem may be due to the expected sequence not being documented anywhere. Here are the steps I followed to support in-app purchases:
Create test user in iTunes Connect.
Log out of the Store on the device.
Build and run the app in Xcode using a non-wildcard App ID and provisioning profile targeting the device (an iPhone 4 running iOS 4.2.1). I've run through this building for both debug and ad-hoc release.
Make an in-app purchase.
Alert is displayed: "Confirm Your In AppPurchase" with two buttons - Cancel and Buy. Tap the Buy button.
Alert is displayed: "Sign In" with three buttons - Use Existing Apple ID, Create New Apple ID, and Cancel. Tap the Use Existing Apple ID button.
Alert is displayed: "Apple ID Password" with two text fields and two buttons - Cancel and OK. Enter the email address and password for the test user and tap the OK button.
Here is where my understanding of what is the expected behavior is deficient. Here is what I see at this point:
Alert is displayed: "This Apple ID has not yet been used in the iTunes Store. Tap Review to sign in" with two buttons - Cancel and Review. In all the documentation, blog posts, and forums, no one has mentioned this alert. Is this supposed to be displayed? I tapped the Review button.
I am now taken to the App Store app and taken through a series of steps to confirm the account.
The first page is titled "Confirm Your Country or Region" with a single value titled Store set to United States. I tapped the Next button on the toolbar at the bottom.
The second page is to agree to the terms and conditions and the Apple privacy policy. I tapped the Agree button on the toolbar at the bottom.
Alert is displayed: "I have read and agree to the iTunes Store Terms & Conditions." with two buttons - Cancel and Agree. I tapped Agree.
The third page is to confirm information for the account (email, password, security question, birth date) and enable/disable iTunes store subscription information. It requires me to enter the year (why didn't iTunes Connect just ask me for it!). I entered the birth year and then tapped the Next button on the toolbar at the bottom.
he fourth page asks is titled "Billing Information." This is when I realized something was wrong. All the documentation, blogs, and forums say I shouldn't be asked for a credit card.
Q1: What exactly should I expect once I enter the test user email address and password (the first set of steps)?
Q2: Why am I being asked for all this extra information for a test user? What should I be looking at to troubleshoot this?
Thanks for your help.
It happens when you install your development application over downloaded from App Store.
To fix this issue, you need to remove application from the device and install fresh copy using XCode.
iOS caches distribution profile somehow and requires production user if the first installation was done through App Store. With no regard what installation method was used recently.
Here is the trick (at least if worked for me..).
First log out of your real iTunes account in Settings > Store > Apple ID. You must be logged out of an account to be able to use your test account.
However, don't log in to your test account on that screen.
Go to the app, initiate your in-app purchase, and enter the test account email and password there. Assuming the test account is set up correctly (!), that should work.
Then, when finished testing, go back to Settings > Store > Apple ID and log out of the test account.
This sequence worked for me. I tried all of the above sequences and they failed for me.
Sign out of your account on the iPhone in Settings -> Store
Delete your test app
Power the iPhone off and on again
Close iTunes on your computer
Run the app again from XCode
Thanks to OmegaDelta's blog for this one:
http://omegadelta.net/2011/05/11/testing-in-app-purchases-in-ios-4-3-sandbox/
I found some answers to my questions above after I completely deleted the app off my device and tried again. I have no idea why that was required.
Q1: What exactly should I expect once I enter the test user email address and password( the first set of steps)?
No addition questions are asked once entering user credentials if it works, so if the first alert in the second list is displayed then you know it didn't work.
Q2: Why am I being asked for all this extra information for a test user? What should I be looking at to troubleshoot this?
The only thing I can think of is that there was something cached in my app from previous requests. This makes me nervous as I have no idea whether customers will have to delete the app or not like I did.
I've experienced the same problems until I quit iTunes and installed the right provisioning profile to my device. Running iTunes with Xcode restored my account from time to time so even when I log out on the device I was suggested to use my (not test) account in the app. Installing the correct profile fixed the second problem.
Hope it can help somebody too.
None of these answers is very specific or wholly correct, and the in-app behavior has changed slightly over the past year wrt test accounts. The true/current solution to this if you hit it: go through the review/sign-in pages in iTunes for the test account and just "cancel" from the "enter billing information" screen with no harm, no foul. If for whatever reason you never get prompted to review/sign-in, then don't bother to do so.
I was able to get around this issue by signing my test user into a different app that I was developing, then going back to the app where I was having problems (no amount of deleting or restarting helped). As others have said, you don't want to be signed in as the test user in the Settings menu when you try to perform your IAP.
We intend to launch a free iPhone/iPad app on the AppStore.
The content will actually be accessible thanks to a subscription model (login/pwd authentication in iPhone app).
The subscription (about 100$ a month) is handled via a dedicated web server.
If used without subscription, this app will provide minimum value.
Does anyone know if this kind of subscription model can be rejected by Apple ?
I know some apps follow this model, but I'd like to have your thought on this before starting in this direction.
Thanks for your answer.
This is fine AFAIK - As long your app is free and you put in the description that it requires a subscription to whichever service. When you submit the app, you'll need to hand over details to a test account to Apple so that they can test it, but other than that it's no hassle at all.
I know of an app which works just like that on the app store right now - Spotify for iPhone. It's a music playing app which streams music from the web - but you need a Spotify premium account. When you first open the app, you have to sign in, and if you don't have a premium account it just tells you that you're not allowed in!
Javawag
There are plenty of apps which only work if I have an account somewhere, and some for which I have to pay for that account so, without knowing the specifics, there is nothing which immediately rules out your subscription model. There are even Apple apps, iDisk for example, which are useless if you don't have a $100 mobile me subscription.
If there are issues you can look at selling your subscription as an in app purchase (apple will take their 30% which should make them happy) or look at making the app more functional without the subscription.
Either way, when submitting for approval make sure to set up a sample account with a full subscription that the apple testers can use (there is space in the submission for including logins for this kind of thing).
Our app, previously approved, update was just rejected because we sell subscriptions through our website. (We have been doing this for 15 years, without giving Apple 30% of our money.) They are requiring that all subscriptions for iphone/ipad content go through in-app purchasing. I guess we will be looking at building a browser based app instead.
Cheers,
Gerry