Does Uber compensate for users? - uber-api

I was wondering if Uber would strategically give a particular APP a "cut" of the fee for sending users their way.
I can't really find any documentation on the uber site to support this except this one article and another Stackflow post that says Uber will reward it's affiliates $5 per new user they get to sign up.
If I'm generating a certain amount of riders per month for x amount of profit, would Uber give back a % of that?

The Uber API is free to use, but there is not currently any public affiliate program in the style you are describing. There was previously a program that awarded $5 for a new US rider, but that program was deprecated earlier this year.
Hope that helps!

Related

PayPal - Multiple billing agreements on one purchase possible?

Sorry, if this topic is too unspecific, but actually I did not know where ask else. If this question is not ok, please feel free to close it.
My question is, if it is possible to execute / approve multiple billing agreements from one user at one purchase at paypal?
We created a shop where the user can buy different virtual products for different periods. If a user buys 2 or more products we want to create for each product a billing agreement (i.e. 12 months). If I understand the paypal API correctly, every product (subscription / billing agreement) has to be approved independently.
Is there a way to let the user approve the billing agreement once for all products at all? Or can we create a billing plan with multiple products in it?
Thanks for your help in advance.
According to PayPal, it is not possible to accomplish this using the latest version of the SDKs. It should be possible, however, to accomplish this using the currently-deprecated SOAP version of SDKs. There are several API calls related to the creation of Billing Agreements, but two calls that are required for basic situations: SetExpressCheckout and CreateRecurringPaymentsProfile. All of the supporting documentation for this calls using the SOAP API clearly state that there is a limit of 10 billing agreements per transaction. For example, this is taken from the documentation from CreateRecurringPaymentsProfile:
RecurringPayments | ProfileDetails
(Required) You can include up to 10 recurring payments profiles
per request. The order of the profile details must match the order
of the billing agreement details specified in the SetExpressCheckout
request.
I am in the process of attempting this with the PHP SDK using Express Checkout specifically and I will provide an update on whether I can in fact get this working.
I apologize that this is not as clear an answer as it should be, but the documentation surrounding this question provided by the developers is directly conflicting and IMO there should be some explanation of that here.

How Do I Pay for a User's Ride?

I want to use the Uber API to initiate a trip for a user. However, I want to pay for the trip (using my preset pickup and drop-off locations). It would be acceptable to launch a ride request with a prepaid promotional credit of my ride budget.
Is this possible in the Uber APIs? I appears that the payment methods endpoint returns payment methods for the rider. It also appears that the payment_method_id option to the ride request endpoint wants a rider's payment method.
Is there a way I can initiate a trip to/from preset locations, while also ensuring that I pay (up to) $XX for the trip?
Thanks!
There is not any publicly available way to do this currently. The Uber Developer platform are working on making this option available. I am not able to share any timeline on that, but it is indeed being worked on.
In the meantime, I would direct you to non-API solutions that may in some way fit into your use-case of paying for another user's uber ride:
https://www.uber.com/events
https://uber-central.com/
https://www.uber.com/business/
Hope that helps.

Is this scenario likely to fall foul of the rules regarding purchases & subscriptions within an iPhone app?

I'm writing an iPhone app. The question is regarding the new rules restricting purchases inside the app.
So: the user charges their account up with 'credits' on the associated website using real money via a payment provider. The user installs the app and logs in using the same account as is used on the website: they cannot use the app without first logging in [edit: although they can register an account without adding any credits.].
The purpose of the app is to build up a report about a property, which can then be emailed out, or exported to their account to appear on the website. The report can be built up without using any credits. However, to export the report to the website or email it out, these credits must be expended by contacting the server and debiting X amount from the user's credits.
Here's the question:
The user's account is debited whenever they do this export. Only if/when the user's account is out of credit does the app complain that credits are low (otherwise it doesn't mention them), and it tells the user to go to the website to top-up their account to proceed. Remember that they can't login without an account, which can only be created on the website, and the website explains this.
From the guidelines:
11.13 Apps that link to external mechanisms for purchases or subscriptions to be used in the app, such as a “buy” button that goes
to a web site to purchase a digital book, will be rejected
So, my app does not provide a link to the website when explaining that their account is low on credits, it just says that this is what is needed to proceed. The export function, however, does require that the user has topped up their account, so in a sense this does fall foul of the next rule:
Apps that unlock or enable additional features or functionality with mechanisms other than the App Store will be rejected
I'm somewhat worried that this credit currency will fall foul of these recently-tightened rules, does anyone want to please reassure me (or, break the bad news)?
P.s. Spotify requires that users pay a subscription (on their website) to use the iPhone app. The difference between them and the above is that their subscription is unlimited-use whereas the above has a per-use charge.
Thanks in advance,
Ian
When you submit your app, include a tester username / password to the App Store. Fuel this account with a few million credits so they don't see the reference to Credits Low. There are many apps that get rejected just for having a login - if you make the reviewer's job easier by having a user/pw they can use, it'll increase your chance of acception.
If you app does get rejected, it means you have to change your model anyway. Actually - you might just be able to add 'Buy Credits' as an in-app purchase to appease Apple. Just make sure the credits in-app cost the same or less than externally - as far as I can tell, Apple will let you keep external purchases around as long as they cost the same or more than in-app purchasing.
Additionally, make sure your "low credits" alert doesn't link to an external page to buy more credits-- this may be frowned upon.
I'm sorry to break it to you but it definitely is a grey area and could potentially get your App rejected because you are asking the user to go to an external source to purchase credits which means Apple is cut out from any potential revenue.
I've had first had experience with this sort of rejection, all that was the issue was the description pointed to a web page where you could buy the product but Apple still had a hissy fit about it and added 2 months to the approval time and it ended up with me removing the link.
You could warn the User that their credits are running low, however pointing to the page to purchase them could potentially be the tipping scale.
On the other hand, there are some apps which make it through but there is no certainty. You are at the mercy of the reviewer in the end... You could potentially ask Apple Developer Support for any further information after describing your scenario.

Company's app distribution to the company's customers

I would like to distribute an application where only registered and paying customers of our company can have access to. The app would be distributed in the app store for free and users would have to log in with the registered details to use the application.
The problem is that the app will have certain amount of functionality based on what the registered customers have paid us. For example customer A paid us $500 for the registration and hence he will have the full functionality of this application. On the other hand customer B paid us $250 and this customer will only have half of the functionality of this application.
Is my company allowed to do this?
You cannot do this sort of thing in the App Store, if that's what you're asking?
You might be able to do something similar via the iOS Developer Enterprise Program instead: http://developer.apple.com/programs/ios/enterprise/
You will need to be carefull about Apple's rules for app content. I am far from an expert so I am only suggesting you look into the possibility that Apple will view this as an end around their In App Purchase.
From what we have learned in our research is Apple doesn't allow the sale of app content or features that are not sold through Apple's approved purchase systems. A magazine app that sells a subscription qualifies as selling content. An app that provides additional functionality based on a monetary transaction also falls into this situation. You can sell a widget (food order, event ticket or clothing) without running afoul of this.
If you go down this path, you should not make mention of the payment difference affecting the features in the app. Apple will want a login that gives them full access to the app features. You may want to consider publishing two apps. One fr the different kind of customer.
Perhaps someone else can shed more light on this issue.

How to implement payment to multiple suppliers

I'm trying to integrate a payment mechanism to my site. The scenario that I need is not trivial and can be explained by the following example:
User pays upfront for a subscription program (i.e. receiving Netflix). User is able to make changes to the subscription (i.e. change number of movies checked out each time from 4 to 2)
User is able to buy additional one time purchases via the provider's site (Netflix) supplied by 3rd parties. These items (i.e. popcorn, snacks) get billed to the same credit card as the subscription without having to go through the process of resubmitting the credit card information.
Of course, my site takes also a small fee for the transactions :-)
I was wondering if this is supported by PayPal, Google Checkout or someone else.
Thanks.
The Paypal api can handle all of those processes.
I seem to have dropped the ball on what kind of answer you wanted so I'll leave it at that.
If you have some feedback, more direct questions I will try to answer as much as I can
--
The money would best go through you first, unless somehow you can convince your customers its normal to bill them per item. Also if they pay by credit card you should only bill them once as you would incur fees on every payment. I don't know of anyway to bill once but distribute the payments.
As for the paypal docs..
Very good resource, there is also some sample code for most major web languages
Also this will get you started if you don't have a developer login
Their developer support is also pretty good. One thing a lot of people seem to screw up when starting out with the paypal api is not setting the latest version in the configs so don't forget to update that to the latest release. :)
Disclaimer..
Yea I know there is a lot of bad press about paypal and crazy stuff happening, but they do get the job done most of the time, its not my fault the customers love to use it.