I see that many iOS games nowadays don't hardcode their store, and items, description, price etc. are loaded from an external server.
What would be the easiest way to implement this? I am a game programmer with very little experience in server side programming. (Have done hobby PHP scripts a long time ago)
Please let me know what libraries can ease the effort on server side / client side. I would like something that is easy to manage. How do they announce offers like 50% off on certain items etc. whenever they want? Doesn't every in-app purchase manipulation need to get approval from Apple?
Also I would want to maximize security, and prevent the game store getting hacked as much as possible.
You are correct that this has to go through Apple's IAP. You'll want to read about this at https://developer.apple.com/appstore/in-app-purchase/index.html. You setup the IAP items in iTunesConnect (iTC). Your in-app store lists only items that you've setup in iTC, though you can choose not to list every item in ITC. To make your store dynamic, the easiest way is probably to use a UIWebView and then have your store be a series of webpages. This lets you update it on your server easily.
You might check out http://stackmob.com which makes it relatively easy to do just the store part of your in-game store without having all the server admin aspect of it (and associated security). Also, http://urbanairship.com provides hosting for IAP items.
Related
In my game, I'm planning to add IAPs for different level packs that the player will be able to buy and play in the game. But after reading documentations on IAPs, there's still one question I'm wondering : Is it better to download the new content from Apple's server, or unlock it in the game with NSUserDefaults?
The problem is that if I chose option 2, the content will be easily hackable, and the app will need an update for each DLC I'm adding.
And the problem with option 1 is that the new content will be downloaded in the Documents folder, but my app search the list of levels in the resource folders (I know it's not hard to implement, but I'm just saying the pros and cons)
Anyone can tell me which one is the best practice, and why?
Thanks in advance!
Well, I think both options are good. Whats the size of these packs? If you have numerous iaps all consisting of new levels, id recommend to have them downloadable, imagine shipping the app without the extra levels, quite a network-loadoff.
As you are stating, option nr 1 gives you the ability to add levels dynamically. This is convenient since apple are quite slow when it comes to uploading of new builds. Come to think of it, they are not super fast when it comes to revising your DLC either.
Due to the hacking risk and initial reduction of app-filesize, I would definately go with option one but if possible, i'd provide the actual content from a private FTP server. That way, the new content is available directly.
We are looking at building a b2b application for the iPhone. A major concern is the possible delay in publishing updates to the applications. I would like to believe that all updates will be orderly, but the reality of a newly found bug for a client or an upcoming trade show could mean that updating the application NOW is critical. Even an "expedited" day wait would not be acceptable.
One option I have thought of is having a flag for each page that we send down when the user logs into our server. If the flag is set, then instead of the native screen for a given page, there would be a page with a UIWebView that would get the latest HTML from the web or stored HTML loaded at the time of login.
I would prefer storing the HTML and using it "offline" because a data connection cannot be guaranteed.
The questions are:
1) Does this violate any of Apple's licensing?
2) Is this feasible or is there a hole I am not thinking of?
It doesnt violate Apple's guidelines and as far as I know you are not missing anything here...in fact, we have the exact same problem in my company (which on top of the issue that you have, we have customers that would like to "brand" the app for their users, and thats how we accomplish that) and there are no issues with apple (for now...:)). Obviously, you need to think of user experience implications...hope that helps.
I'm trying to figure out how to make an iPhone application allow multiple users (that have it installed) share data among them. Now, the tricky part is that I don't want to host a server at my place (very poor ISP services), so I would opt for an online hosting solution. Next, by data I understand them to be able to, let's say, post a comment that would become readable to all the other users and to see what other users have said.
So, in my mind, I'm thinking of either having a file remotely hosted that could be accessed by multiple users at the same time, or a database of some sort or anything like that.
You haven't given us much to go on -- it's not even clear what your question is. If you're just asking how to go about this, I'd suggest the following steps:
Figure out what, specifically, you want the app to do, what data it will share, and who the data will be shared with. Is this an app that you're going to distribute publicly? Will all users share the same data, or will groups of users share with each other but not outside the group? How big is the data, and how is it structured? Can any part of the data change at any time (like a shared document) or will the data just be updated (like a SMS conversation)?
Decide how you want to host the data. If you'll need to serve a lot of users, you'll want some sort of database. If you'll need to serve a LOT of users, you'll want to make sure that your solution will scale easily. There are lots of hosting companies that provide access to databases like Oracle or MySQL, and that may be enough for your purposes. Or, you might want to look into some of the web services options, such as those offered by Google and Amazon. These can be fairly easy to use and have the advantage that they'll scale very well.
Get to work. You'll probably want to build a very basic version of your app around the same time that you're getting the server side working, so that it's easier to test. Once the server side is working and reliable, you can shift the focus back to building out the rest of your app.
I understand that apple no longer allows me to send "device data" to third-party services. As a result of this, Flurry and presumably every other analytics company no longer collects OS/hardware version data. However, this data is very valuable to anyone trying to target development toward the people who are actually using the apps.
I can imagine a few different ways to collect this data.
1) Send a custom event indicating the hardware/os version to Flurry. This, of course, is in direct violation of the agreement with Apple. However, I suspect plenty of people are doing this, and just not getting busted. Still, not an ideal solution. Even if Apple didn't notice that we were sending this data, I'd rather not have the possibility of the app getting pulled hanging over my head.
2) Use an analytics package which allows me to collect data on my own server. Localytics is one company which seems to offer this. However, I don't think they offer this with their free plan. Is anyone aware of any free (or cheap) analytics tools which will allow me to send data to my own server?
3) Roll my own solution. This could either be an entire replacement for Flurry, or I could continue to use flurry, but send only the device data to my own server. This is a little clunky. I'd much rather have all my analytics data in one place. And would much rather not have to deal with building my own tool if I don't have to
So, is anyone else collecting device data? Are you using one of the above techniques? Or maybe something different I hadn't thought of?
Hi maybe "Testflight Live" could help you.
As far as I know Testflight is allowed by Apple.
https://testflightapp.com/sdk/live/
I've heard of people using UIWebViews to connect to a webpage with a counter. The counter is incremented each time a page is accessed, and the pages are separated by feature/UIView. This way the developer can tell which features get the most usage.
As far as device data, you most likely are looking at rolling your own tracking mechanism, probably going through a server like Google App Engine that's set up to receive your data.
I made this an answer so I could continue to check back, because I'd like to know some more info as well. I voted up your question and favorited it
Good luck, sir
How does one build a directory of 'Spots' for users to check-in to in a native iPhone app? Or, does the developer borrow data from, let's say, Google Maps?
When you Use data obtained from another network or source, you take a risk that the data may change and or may not be accurate, The data may cease to exist, (more so with google, LOL, one minute they are there like gangbusters, the next they are like "Gone" no explanation no apologies, just missing in action, if your developing an application for a business its always best to use your own data sources.
That may be more expensive but its the only way you will have any kind of control over your application resources,.
You can go both ways, it depends on what you want to do and how you designed it to do it. You can have a prerecorded and static database of spots, or you can update it sometimes connecting to some server or you can do it all dynamically by loading each time data from the internet.
Which one to choose? first you shall design your app having in mind something like:
How many times will these datas change
How frequently will these changes happen
How much will it cost to do an update
and so on
Developing your own database of places is likely to be quite an undertaking (and your competitors have a big head start). Google is beginning to provide their Places API for "check-in" style applications, so you may be able to get in on their beta.