I have problem passing the apple store review because my app should be available only to users already selected outside the app. So other random people essentially should not access the app. This flow however is tecnically against the apple policies. Here is the question: there are apps like innercircle (https://www.theinnercircle.co) that were able to overcome the policies. Do you know how they did it?
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My iOS app update just got declined due to the fact that we are prompting users to register before they purchase a subscription.
Guideline 5.1.1 - Legal - Privacy - Data Collection and Storage
We noticed 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.
Apps cannot require user registration prior to allowing access to app content and features that are not associated specifically to the user.
Next Steps
User registration that requires the sharing of personal information must be optional or tied to account-specific functionality.
To resolve this issue, please 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.
Please note that although guideline 3.1.2 of the App Store Review Guidelines requires an app to make subscription content available to all the iOS devices owned by a single user, it is not appropriate to force user registration to meet this requirement; such user registration must be made optional.
Ok.... I understand they are trying to make the best experience for the user, but the final requirement seems contradicting.
Does anyone know how I'm supposed to provide the subscription content available to all iOS devices for a single user, without requiring them to create a user? How can I make content available to the user across all of their devices if there is no user account?
This is directly related to apple updating their guidelines.
Apps that authenticate or set up user accounts must support Sign in with Apple if required by guideline 4.8 of the App Store Review Guidelines.
I’m not exactly sure when they made this update. But I recurved and email on 3/27/2020 stating that they had extended the deadline for apps to implement this change until 6/30/2020
I have submitted an app on Appstore.
The app got rejected and here is the Apple Response
We noticed that your app requires users to register or log in to access features that are not account-based.
To resolve this issue, please revise your app to let users freely access your app’s non-account-based features.
Apps may not require users to enter personal information to function, except when directly relevant to the core functionality of the app or required by law.
You should allow users to freely access your app’s non-account-based features. For example, an e-commerce app should let users browse store offerings and other features that are not account-based before being asked to register, or a restaurant app should allow users to explore the menu before placing an order. Registration must then only be required for account-specific features, such as saving items for future reference or placing an order.
Please guide me to overcome this issue
You need to change in your app flow. User can view all features(like stores, restaurants) without login. User will enter his personal details only when it is necessary for particular feature.
One of my clients needs an app that can be visible to anyone on the app store but not necessarily accessed by anyone? For example: It can be accessed by only those people who are attending a seminar or meeting.
How can we achieve this? Any idea or suggestions.
Is there a way to create this kind of app with restricted access?
Have you seen any app like this on Apple Store? if yes, please provide app name or link.
Will Apple approve this kind of application?
You can't put it in the app store and limit it to only certain people. If it's in the store, it can be downloaded by anyone who has access to the store. There are a couple of possibilities that might work, though:
If you have (or can get) an enterprise license, you can distribute the app yourself outside of the app store. It won't be in the app store, but you can restrict access.
Put the app in the app store but require login credentials to access some or all of the app's functionality. A common approach is that without logging in, people can see whatever is on the event's public web site. Attendee-only features require login. Of course this adds the complexity of managing logins. You would probably need to provide Apple with login credentials during app submission.
I would like to create an iOS App for a limited set of people.
It should be possible to download the app for free from App Store, but in order to use it
the idea is that you are required to be a member of the organization, which in this case is a local sports organization.
To solve the problem I thought of giving away activation keys to members that can be entered when they create an account, and therefore only members will be using the app.
Will the app be rejected by App Store? If so, is it possible to go around this in some away?
Thanks.
No you will not be rejected by the App Store.
During the review you will only need to give the access to demo account.
Your app will be available to anyone but you are free to give the credential to any person you want.
edit
Fyi I have such apps. The AppStore only block 'discriminating' app based on carrier or location (you can choose the countries anyway), but you are perfectly in the rules if you give access only to your clients...
edit edit
2.22 like I said is against arbitrary criterias, not linked to the login mechanism
for 11.1 and so on, I understand the point, but in my case (and I think yours) there is no problem if
you sell your service before, the app is just complimentary
you dont sell anything within the app
you dont charge for the app itself or anything within the app, you charge only the use of the server/back office/whatsoever
I guess that Apple dont care, they just don't want to bypass the applestore but I dont think that it is your case.
You should try Enterprise distribution for such purpose.
Yes your app may be rejected. Check the App Store Review Guidelines. In 2.2 it says
Apps that arbitrarily restrict which users may use the App, such as by location or carrier, may be rejected
There are different alternatives.
You can opt in for the Apple Developer Enterprise Program, this'll cost you 300$ a year and requires you to be a legal entity.
If you want to test it with a limited number of people (<1000) try looking into Testflight it was bought by Apple and is deeply integrated in the development process.
No, there will not. You need to to give some demo account info as test data to review while submitting to app store in the iTunes Connect portal.
Demo use case(worked for me): Implementation is like, there need some userid/unique pin to the registered account holders to start the application. At the time they input this pin, authenticate the user with our server and give the permission to let in to the app.
Otherwise you need to go for enterprise distribution. Find more about enterprise distribution here.
Have any of you implemented something similar to the below scenario?
Consider an app which provides audiobooks:
The books are maintained dynamically from a web based UI by the authors.
The books become available for users of the iOS app, as in-app purchase items.
By default Apple guidelines suggests using non-consumable IAP, and adding continuously as many IAP items as many books we have. But this is not proper for us, as the authors won’t have access to iTunesConnect, so it cannot be dynamic, “self-serving”.
Therefore we are planning to create a set of generic "consumable" IAP items like “Book worth $0.99”, “Book worth $1.99”, and so on. Then in the app we’ll show the corresponding IAP item for the books as specified by the authors, when they added it to our system.
Of course we store the purchased items on the server side, so the user will always have access to the purchased items -- even if they access it later from another device.
Will Apple approve this implementation?
Does it fit with their IAP policy?
I’ve found some similar quite old topics in the forum but the answers were confusing.
Have you implemented something similar and get approval from Apple?
Apple has accepted our solution, as described in the question.
The point is, as highlighted correctly by #RomOne and #ge0rges that you need to provide the possibility to restore the items later.
As we are storing every purchase in our database, and our users are authenticated (they need to register and log in to purchase), we are able to provide them access to the purchased items forever, even when accessing the app from other device.
We are also storing the associated in-app-purchase's ProductID from iTunesConnect, plus the userID, the price, and the date, to have a detailed register of all purchases.
Important: Apple has rejected our first solution, because they didn't understand how it works, and how a purchase can be restored.
The key to success was describing in detail how the system works and providing a test user access to our web admin site. This allowed the Apple reviewers to see the whole system.
Yeah in my point of view they will accept it. As long as you allow users to retrieve their purchases later on. Your system make me think about a virtual currency I have made where I had to make generic consumable that needed to be actually saved for the user. Apple approved it (and still does) because I was saving all purchases, even if it didn't fit perfectly with IAP policy ;)
The key here is to make sure these purchases are restorable, always. So make sure to store the "IDs" or however you identify the different item in a way that is associated directly to the Apple ID (not account, but Apple ID).