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
Related
I'm developing an iOS app where users can ask for advice to influential people on their subject. In order to interact with these people you have to pay the price they set. Once you pay you are able to engage with them on a private chat.
There is an app called Healthtap which does almost the same but with doctors.
I wanted to know if we might be able to use paypal and stripe payment systems instead of apple's.
For more info, I'm building it with HTML5 and making it native with Phonegap
Thanks!
You "have" to use apple's system when paying will add more content to the app, which seems to me, is what you are trying to do.
From Apple's In-App Purchase Programs:
You should read this if you are interested in offering additional
paid functionality to users from within your application.
You can use other payment methods when you are not adding new functionality to the app but rather buy something else in the real world. This is the reason why apps such as Amazon's kindle stopped selling ebooks through their apps, since they did not want to share their profits with apple.
No, Apple does not allow any third-party payment methods to be presented in the app itself; it's IAP or nothing.
What you CAN do is have the third-party payment system as part of your web site and have your users make payments through the web site. You will then need some authentication system in the app that uses to validate the user's payment.
we are developing an iPhone app as an extension of a classifieds system (web site). On that web site users can buy (prepaid) credits and use them to boost and promote their ads. Will Apple reject our app if we implement consumption of credits? We are not gonna allow buying the credits, just using them (users will still have to buy credits on the web site).
Only worrying thing I found is item 11.2 in App Store review guidelines:
11.2 Apps utilizing a system other than the In-App Purchase API (IAP) to purchase content, functionality, or services in an App will be
rejected.
Is there a way to contact Apple directly regarding this question?
And a add-on question. I suppose we can implement a payment gateway system like Amazon and Ebay and get a way with buying credits? I don't see any restrictions in guidelines regarding non in-app purchase system.
"In-app purchase" is only required to purchase content or extra-functionality or extra feature or to remove any type of limitations inside the application. To achieve these things you shouldn't use any other external purchase mechanism (per App Store review guidelines ยง11.2).
In your application, the user will only use the available credits which are already bought on your website, so there is not an issue, although you shouldn't provide any type of link to your website inside your application.
Genererally "will Apple reject this if..."-questions can only be answered as such:
Apple does as they like. If they feel this in some way breaks the review guidelines, they will reject it and tell you, but you have no way of knowing for sure until you have submitted the actual app. In your case, I can't see why they would ban it, as you are not able to use real money within the actual app, but as I said, you don't know.
If you want to try to get an answer from Apple, you can try to contact them from this page.
I finally got an answer from Apple. It took a while and it wasn't worth a wait. I think Siba was right, but I'll get back to you after we submit our app just to verify everything.
Apple replied:
Thank you for taking the time to contact us about your app design and concept questions. I understand that you would like to know if you
implement consumption credits into your app would be acceptable for
your app.
While we cannot pre-approve apps, we can address compliance questions
about specific App Store Review Guidelines or sections of the iOS
Developer Program License Agreement (PLA). I understand that this may
be a little frustrating and I apologize for any inconvenience this may
cause, however, we may only answer specific questions concerning the
following resources, unless the app is submitted for review so that we
may test the functionality.
I would like to know my options for letting users make payments in my iPhone application for goods in an e-Commerce store. This will be an app rather than a mobile website.
Ideally, I would just like to use Authorize.net or SagePay - is this possible? I found some posts from a year ago saying that Apple only allow their In App purchase, is this still true?
Thanks for any guidance.
Assuming you have access to Apple's developer member center, have a look at the App Store Review Guidelines, section 11.
To my understanding it is allowed (or required even) to have your own payment-system, as long as you're not selling (digital) items that are supposed to be used in the App.
Merry Christmas. I have two questions on In App Purchase.
iAP application process: do I need to submit my iAP items applications, wait for Apple's responses, then build my app accordingly, or, I can just create some iAP items, build them into my app, then after everything's done, submit my binary to Apple?
Intermediary currency: on Apple's documentation I found these sentences:
"You may not offer items that represent intermediary currency because it is important that users know the specific good or service that they are buying."
However, I found a few apps on the App Store offering its users with different kinds of intermediary currency. I'm confused. Is this a gray area in which we developers can play some tricks?
Thanks in advance.
Di
You need to add in-app purchases to iTunes Connect, and wait for apple approval to be able to sell them from real application.
However, you can debug/test them without that approval, via sandbox environment.
I cannot say a lot about that 'intermediary currency' and what Apple actually mean. A lot of games uses in-app purchases to sell in-game 'coins', and everything works fine.
I wanted to develop an iphone magazine application which will allow a user to purchase single issues or subscriptions through safari with a user id instead of the app store. What does my website require to be able to handle this?
It won't require anything special. Just a way to collect money from users (CreditCard, PayPal, Google Checkout support), a user database, a registration mechanism and you are done. If I were you, I would reconsidering selling your content through AppStore with IN-APP purchases, because you will have immediate access to all technical stuff I just mentioned and a huge instant potential client you will have to build yourself otherwise.
Hope it helps.