I am developing a free app about marine life conservation. I am working with a foundation to help them raise money. I have an paid app in the iOS store now. While i am certain of the answer, i would like to ask and hopefully be pleasantly surprised.
Is it possible to create an app that is only available via an in app purchase? I would like of offer my app with the foundations' logos throughout the app, instead of my own, but i do not want this special app to be readily available on it's own.
Possible via any creative measures?
An interesting problem, a possible solution could be:
You will have your existing application with the in-app purchases that will give the user either a promo code or a deep link to your other application.
The other application will be essentially empty if someone random opens it, then will 'unlock' when a user has a code/link opens it.
If you did want to try the deep-linking, i've used Branch before that is quite easy to use. Link: https://branch.io
Related
I am building out a iOS & Android app. My app may not fully scale to support users and have some limited functionality out the gates. I wanted to put an invite list on the front of registration like Mailbox did a few years ago.
I was trying to read the Apple app store guidelines to creating a "waiting list / invite list" and couldn't get a clear picture. I assume Android is more flexible on this, so I figured I could start with Apple's guidelines first.
Here is what I can find.
In Apple's docs, it says under 3.2.2 "UnAcceptable"
(v) Arbitrarily restricting who may use the app, such as by location or carrier.
In this specific case, I am not blocking by location or carrier. I am just putting up a wall to use the app since some of my users can use it in a limited form, but I can't open it up to everyone on Day 1.
I understand I can run a "testflight" release, but I wanted to make our app available in the App Store for anyone to download since it will be publicly available, just not fully ready for a million people to hit it. My understanding is that the testflight release requires a bit more work based on their docs and isn't as simple as just putting it in the public app store so anyone can get to it.
Apple has the ultimate authority for approving and rejecting apps in their app store so nothing on SO can really be perfect advice. If you are really concerned about approval, you can try to contact apple developers support. Here are a few things I would advise:
Make sure in the developer notes for Apple when you submit to them you include a free account.
In the notes for the app store let the users know that it may take up to __ hours for their registration to get activated.
My understanding is you are doing this to handle the volume of users as you are launching the app. Be advised though that if you start restricting users too much you will possibly get poor reviews. Only restrict usage if absolutely required. If you run into issues make sure you are communicating with the users so they understand.
Good luck with you new app!
I have been extensively searching through Internet but I could not able to come across so far then I have decided to ask the following question in SOF.
My idea is to implement a selling and buying product in my application. There will be no charge from both sides(seller or buyer). However, I only want to receive user feedback to increase my app reputation in the AppStore.
I would like to know how to check whether or not that an app user rate or leave comment for my application in the App Store. I need to know because I want to give him more advertising opportunities within the app.
Sorry again, I wish to provide a sample code but I could not able to come anything to start with.
As far as I'm aware, there isn't a way to do this. Most apps just direct people to the app store and then assume they rated the app. You can have the user copy and past their review into your app and store it so you can double check that they actually did it. That will ensure more people don't try to cheat the system. Essentially, the more work you make it to unlock the feature, the less likely people are to cheat.
From Apple via #Paulw11's comment:
Developers who attempt to manipulate or cheat the user reviews or chart ranking in the App Store with fake or paid reviews, or any other inappropriate methods will be removed from the iOS Developer Program
link: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#metadata
We have two Apps live on the Appstore. One for free, and one full featured version which is offered to buy. The free app has a In-App-Store so the user may update to the full featured version.
Actually I am thinking about stoping development of the full featured App (which is identical
to the free one at code level). We don't want to blame our customers. It would be nice to give them a redemption code for the free app to unlock all features. All features which will be unlocked this way are bound to the redemption code. All customers who did In-App purchases are "registered" by Apple, so the purchase will be remembered for all devices. Finally all In-App customers would have an advantage over the Pro-Version customers, which is not acceptable for us.
Is it possible to have one (hidden) free In-App purchase, which the user could "buy" if the redemption code is working? Maybe a better question is: What is the best practice for putting two similar Apps together without bugging the customers?
Not possible, I'm afraid. There is no good solution as far as I am aware (I still have a paid and a "lite" version for this reason).
You could raise a bug report with Apple (http://bugreporter.apple.com) but there's no saying if of when they'll ever make a change.
How about this idea:
Add a URL scheme to your lite app which, when invoked, enables the full featured version.
In your next update for the paid app add a button to "Enable all features in the lite version" that invokes that URL scheme (UIApplication's openURL:). This will open the lite app which will then enable all features.
One problem: if somebody else figures out what that URL scheme is, he could write a simple little app that just uses that URL scheme to enable the features in your lite app. Which means that person could get all the features without ever buying your paid app.
To prevent this I would implement this URL scheme in such a way that it only works when called with a secret parameter, maybe the hash of the device's MAC address and a salt. (Not sure if this is the best way, but that would be my first idea)
I am developing an iPad app that is designed to be released to private syndication clients. It is a replacement for an e-mail newsletter we produce and product management is exploring how to make the experience more dynamic and customizable for the end user. We are debating whether the app should be iOS native or a web app. Initially I was leaning towards native app but after some thought I realized Apple has no method that would allow us to distribute the app effectively anyway. An enterprise solution wouldn't work, as our end users would be from various outside companies. What we need is more of a private application that could only be downloaded with a pass code or log-in. I also considered having an app that is available in the App store but requires you to log-in before any content is displayed, but I don't think Apple would approve and release an app with that type of functionality. At this point I am thinking a web app is the only way to go for us. Anyone have any experience with this type of issue or any comments/suggestions?
Thanks for any input.
I found you can submit apps that only certain people can access, so native app will work. Probably obvious to others, but I wasn't certain on it.
I've heard there are some precautions to take to develop a market in an application.
I'm developing an application for a football club. I would like to integrate a kind of market to sell stadium seats.
Someone told me Apple will refuse the application if I integrate it directly inside the app (using Obj-C, communicating with PHP pages).
According to him, I should redirect the user to an external web page (using Safari app for example) to realize the transaction.
Apple does not really communicate about that kind of information.
Do you know anything about it?
You can't use In App Purchase to buy "real life things" such as stadium seats : http://developer.apple.com/news/ios/pdf/in_app_purchase.pdf
The only solution is to use an external payment solution.
The Movies Now app implements such a thing : http://moviesnowapp.com/
Yes, you can use only in-app purchases to sell anything in your app, otherwise Apple will reject your app.
I'm not so sure if Apple will reject your app on these grounds. How can they know what your php pages are doing if you put them in a WebView? Also, think about services like Sky or Spotify that require a subscription. Apple do not take a cut on this, so you could set up a similar thing whereby your users have an account online that they can purchase tickets from and the iPhone is simply a thin client for your online services...
Yes you have to use InApp purchase only to apply unlock functionality,and to use In App purchase there are certain scenarios which can be implemented.
You can find in detail about In App functionality on
http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/NetworkingInternet/Conceptual/StoreKitGuide/AddingaStoretoYourApplication/AddingaStoretoYourApplication.html
Secondly if you want to implement In App purchase,there is a very good tutorial which i found very helpful and was easily able to integrate inApp in my application and it was also later on approved by apple.
http://troybrant.net/blog/2010/01/in-app-purchases-a-full-walkthrough/
Cheers
You cannot use Apple in app purchase to purchase non digital goods, if you have an existing payment provider or user account you could use that, take a look at the eBay app which has Paypal integration