I have a non-technical question, but it is of high importance to those who want to start independent app development.
Google's Play store limits its Merchant developers (the ones who can charge apps) to certain countries. What about Apple's App store? I tried to search for such conditions but couldn't find
Thanks
Apple provides long list of countries to sell your apps over 150 countries, however you cannot sell apps in few embargoed countries by us, cuba, Iran, north korea, syria, sudan. you can gain access to more information at
https://developer.apple.com/internationalization/
http://www.umresearch.umd.edu/ORAA/export_control_guidance/docs/Embargoed%20Countries.pdf
Hope this helps.
Related
I'm interested in unlocking features for a fixed time period in my iphone app via promo code. These same features are also offered for subscription outside of the app store. Is this still legitimate? It's imperative that the app isn't rejected by the app store for violating the terms of service.
Moreover, if we allowed the user to 'spend points' for this subscription (in app), would this be a violation? I suspect so but thought I would ask.
I've seen apps out there that use earned points to unlock features, or the user could just speed up the process and purchase it with an in app purchase, so that seems fine
Having out of app subscriptions seem debatable but I feel like they would be fine - apple would still earn a profit as people would be encouraged to buy out of the app.
Keep in mind that apple will take out a cut for themselves on every purchase (including in app)
And welcome to StackOverflow :D
I am building an app for a client that will have 30 days of content for free, thereafter you are required to buy a subscription via in app store purchases.
However, I have read that you will get rejected if you have trials.
Don’t set time limits on any of the functionality of your app, either
for run times or life times. Applications that only run for a set
number of minutes per session, or that expire altogether after some
period of time, don’t recruit customers so much as leave a bad taste
in their mouths.
Finally, they also say "your app will be returned to you by the App Review Team for modification if it is found to have time limits".
This seems odd because I know the Guardian and all major newspaper apps have limited functionality.
The Guardian app is free but you get limited functionality?
The Daily app is free, but you have to pay for daily subscriptions
and has limited functionality for the period of your subscription.
The Times app is free, but is a free trial (of sorts) (plenty of
complaints about it)
There are other examples which seem to differ from Apple's policies.
Lets say you have an app that is free, but then you have to pay for subscriptions to gain access; however according to the rules this is considered limited functionality -- yet there are lots of newspaper apps that do exactly that.
I'm confused.
Can someone clarify the situation? Can apps have trials?
Thanks
It is difficult to clarify the situation because unfortunately the guidelines are not necessarily set in stone. They can and do vary on an app and publisher basis.
In the case of The Times and The Daily, both apps are produced by News Corp. It is perhaps safe to say that News Corp has a good deal more influence with Apple than a one-man development shop producing an iPhone game. Apple would be loath to admit it, but there are clear cases of popular apps on the store that don't conform to the guidelines, where they have tacitly made an exception.
So what I would say to you is this: be sensible. Don't have an app that quits automatically when your trial runs out. Think about what would be acceptable to users. It's very much a case of nothing ventured, nothing gained. Take a risk, submit your app with your limited trial, and see what happens.
With the Guardian app, we had to deliver an app where you always got at least some fresh content if you were using the free version. Subscribing opens up more content to the user.
I think, you are mixing up "content" and "functionality".
You can deliver content items (i.e. an magazine issue) for free or user has to pay for it — so the first n issues, or all issues in a certain timeframe, can be free, while the others need to be paid. But if an user purchased an content item before, you have to re-deliver it for free.
You can sell functionalities (i.e a search in the magazine's archive) as-well. But you cannot give it to the user for free for a certain time and them make him pay.
So the general rule is: What ever the user got from you — you cannot take it back from them and make them purchase it again.
There are plenty of free apps which provide limited functionality. They don't provide time limits though (or at least they shouldn't). I'm guessing it won't be as clear cut as accept or reject for Apple, because I did encounter an app which closes itself after 10 minutes, opening a web page to purchase it (closing an app is also against the Apple Human Interface Guidelines, as an app should never terminate itself).
The guidelines mention this is only allowed for specific types of content:
11.9 Apps containing content or services that expire after a limited time will be rejected, except for specific approved content (e.g. films, television programs, music, books)
11.15 Apps may only use auto-renewing subscriptions for periodicals (newspapers, magazines), business Apps (enterprise, productivity, professional creative, cloud storage), and media Apps (video, audio, voice), or the App will be rejected
Does AppStore allow rewarding top players with real world gifts?
For example, in an iPhone game, the top 5 high-score players receive a T-shirt/book/watch?
Are there any apps doing something similar already? Thanks
It's impossible to answer such questions as the situation changes drastically over the years. Purely for example, some text from Apple only relevant at time of writing:
"20. Contests, sweepstakes, lotteries,
and raffles
20.1 Sweepstakes and contests must be sponsored by the developer/company of
the app
20.2 Official rules for sweepstakes and contests, must be presented in the
app and make it clear that Apple is
not a sponsor or involved in the
activity in any manner
20.3 It must be permissible by law for the developer to run a lottery app,
and a lottery app must have all of the
following characteristics:
consideration, chance, and a prize
20.4 Apps that allow a user to directly purchase a lottery or raffle
ticket in the app will be rejected "
Note however that Apple is making it your problem with the law: you face the same problems of ANY type of company, doing ANY type of promotion.
There are incredibly many regulations involved with companies giving away stuff in promotions (in every jurisdiction).
I am a complete novice and have no technical skills and little knowledge concerning iphone app development an in-app / itunes store purchases.
But I have been playing with some ideas for my coffeeshop / lunchbar and was wondering If any experts would like to give me some feedback on my ideas.
As I said I run a coffee and lunch(break) shop and allot of my customers are iphone (and blackberry) users. What also happens alot is that the customers ring to order their coffee and food so that they don't have to wait (and waist their precious lunch time).
I myself am an Iphone user and really like the way it works (most of the time).
So I was wondering I is possible or will it be possible to develop an iphone app for my customers and have them pay for the order "in-app". I get a bill of the order in my mailbox and they just chout their name and thats it !?
Might sound a bit low tech but if apple have someones creditcard details and a mobile ordering display then they could function as a cash register of bank ?
thanks,
Jonathan
You can't do this according to Apple's terms of use:
You must deliver your digital good or service within your app.
Do not use In App Purchase to sell real-world goods and services.
Even if allowed, you'd lose 30% of your revenue to Apple using in-app purchase.
There are point-of-sale apps for iPhone that allow you to swipe credit cards. One of the Twitter founders has a startup called Square that'll be doing this. If you wanted it to be an app that users could install themselves, though, you'd likely be best off doing a custom one and hitting a payment gateway in the backend (Chipotle's app is a good example of this).
The original asker is just asking if this is possible, which it is! If you don't take the term 'in-app purchasing' literally. Just use paypal or some other payment method through the app. Ebay does this and so can you.
As long as you aren't selling something that competes directly with Apple (like Sony's digital book store that got shut down) you should be fine using a payment method other than the built-in functionality called 'in app purchasing'.
You have a good idea on your hands and it should be possible to find a way to take customer's money through the app.
Though you could probably use In-App purchasing for this, you would have some interesting work to do to make it work smoothly. You would probably be better off developing your own shopping cart application that lets your customers order "online" and write a custom iPhone application for them - skipping Apple for the purchase of coffee and donuts...
-t
I have heard there has been some studies of the apple app store for the iphone. It was a comparison between having a free application supported by ad vs a .99 cent application. .99 cents seems to be the sweet spot for a lot of the smaller applications. Anyone know where those studies were done? Are people having better success with .99 cents or the free ad supported applications?
Have a look at this link:
The Pinch Media numbers show that free
apps, as a category, tend to be used
6.6 times more often than paid apps (this figure incorporates both the
increased download popularity of free
apps and also the slightly decreased
frequency-of-use of free apps versus
paid apps). On average, free
applications are used heavily at first
but usage levels off quickly — the
average app lifetime is 12 runs.
So compared to a single paid app,
making an app free results in 6.6x
more app uses and at an average
lifetime of 12 runs/app = 80 sessions.
Remember that the paid app makes 70c.
So the question becomes “Can the
average free application make up 70c
in advertising revenue across 80 usage
sessions?”
Greg’s answer: “Hell No.” Assuming one
ad is shown per each session, this
requires a CPM of $8.75.
Unfortunately, typical CPMs are 50c –
$2.00, far below the point required to
match the paid app’s revenue. Unless
your app can serve 18 ads per session
(assuming a worst case 50c CPM), or
there’s some especially ’sticky’
property that makes users reliably use
your app repeatedly, Greg concludes
that charging for your app is
generally a good idea.
See link above for slides and additional info.
I personally hate when apps have ads in them.
I'd be more willing to pay a dollar than to deal with an ad every time I use it.
As is often the case, Jeff Atwood has the answer: Software Pricing: Are We Doing It Wrong?