We have an auto-renewable subscription that we want to share across our iOS(iphone/ipad) and tvOS apps. I suppose I have two questions:
Can we use the same product identifier across both iOS and tvOS?
If the answer to 1 is yes, how does a user who purchased a subscription on one platform receive it on another platform? We have no unique identifier for the user across the two platforms other than that they are using the same iTunes account. Does the user have to manually restore the purchase?
https://developer.apple.com/support/universal-purchase/ states that you can share in app purchases between ios and tvos
To distribute your iOS app and tvOS app together with a universal purchase, both apps need to use the same app record in iTunes Connect. You can create a new app for both iOS and tvOS using the same app record or add a platform to your existing app record. The iOS app and tvOS app share the same bundle ID but must have their own version in the app record and must be uploaded separately.
You will need to have the user restore their in-app purchases on the other device.
To make an In-App Purchase available on both platforms, you’ll need to implement the same In-App Purchase in both versions of your app. After you’ve enabled your app for universal purchase in My Apps on iTunes Connect, customers can restore your In-App Purchases on both platforms.
e.g. The user purchase a subscription on their iPhone and they can consume the content immediately. They then open the app on their Apple TV, but the content is not available until they restore their purchases. Once restored their content is available.
Related
I have already released an application to the App Store. This current version contains an in-app purchase item to unlock premium features.
Now we made a new design for the app and want to release a new version of the app and this new build will not include any purchase options.
So now as you see I have two versions. First one provides in-app purchases and the second one doesn't.
How to disable in-app purchases for the second version of the app?
Just remove in-app-purchase related code from the new version so It will not affect existing in-app-purchase in the AppStore Connect. And do not delete your in-app-purchases from the AppStore Connect so it'll work for the older version.
In-app purchases are independent from app versions. You cannot enable/disable them in App Store Connect for specific versions. You will simply need to "hide" the purchase option directly in the app, if you want it to be available for older app versions.
If that is not the requirement, simply remove the in-app purchase from sale in App Store Connect.
I have 2 versions of my app, one for iOS and another for tvOS. In my app for iOS, I have sign-up and sign-in flow. Also, its in-app purchase capability is enabled. In my tvOS app it doesn't have those flows and its in-app purchase capability is not enabled, yet. So, the user should sign-up and sign-in in my app for iOS. If the user wants to use my app for tvOS, he needs to link his app for iOS to his app for tvOS through web socket.
Now, I wanna enable in-app purchase capability in my app for tvOS, but not for subscription purpose. Should I implement the sign-up/sign-in flow first before enabling it or it doesn't matter for in-app purchase in my case?
Thank you.
In-app purchases are to apple ID level, so if you purchase on an iOS device the purchase will associate with the Apple ID. Now in the tvOS app, you should add a button to restore purchase because if the user purchased something on iOS, on tvOS he has as well and vice versa. we have a case similar in our case we have to indicate our server that the user purchased, in this case, first we had to implement the sign-up/sign-in flow after, we implemented In-app purchases. (don’t forget purchase restoring flow)
I'm working on an iOS 8 app and saw that it's possible to release an universal app for iPhone and iPad.
If you use non-consumable in-app purchases for an universal app, do users need to buy them only once and can use them on both devices or do they need to purchase them for iPhone and iPad?
Non-consumable products are purchased once by users and do not expire or decrease with use. For example, new race tracks for a game could be implemented as non-consumable products.
Means: If you used same iTune account credential then you can download as free.
Apple Developer
The Getting started with In-App Purchase on iOS and OS X (published February 3, 2014) document in "Restoring Previous Completed Purchases" specifies that non-renewing purchases must be transferred to other devices.
In-App Purchase Type: Non-Renewing Subscriptions
Restore Required?: Yes
Transaction Restoration Mechanism: Use iCloud or your own server to track purchases and allow user to restore purchased subscriptions to all iOS devices owned by a single user
Technical Note 4009, iTunes Store: About In-App Purchases (published July 29, 2014) in "Transfer an In-App Purchase" specifies that this is not allowed.
You can't sync or transfer non-renewing subscriptions and consumable In-App Purchase to another iOS device or Mac.
Which one is correct?
Your app must allow the transfer/restore of in app purchase to other devices. Your app will be rejected if not. We have apps that transfers its purchases to other iOS devices
Recently my app got rejected because it was having Non-Renewing Subscription with restore button. They rejected the app saying my app supports iOS6 to iOS 8 and validating a receipt was not possible in iOS6 so app should have an optional registration feature so a user can access subscription through other devices also.
I think removing support of iOS6 from the app will resolve my issue, so I am also looking for a suitable way because creating registration process is again a lengthy task.
App Rejection on Restoring Non-Renewable subscription on iOS 6 app
If I have a both an iPhone and iPad version of an app, can they share in-app purchases? If a user makes a purchase on their iPhone, then downloads the app on an iPad, I need the app to respect the purchase.
I have a lot of artwork files so the app is fairly large, and I'm wondering if separate apps are the way to go in this case, instead of a universal app.
So it is possible to share in-app purchases with two different targets? I have read a few things that mention iCloud in this scenario, but have no idea how that would work.
No. In-app purchase products are associated with apps bundle IDs. You'd need to go with an universal app.