I'm going to make an iOS app which is similiar to iBooks, alongside a webserver on which we can manage contents.
The BIG question is "how do we implement books purchases in iOS app"
Here are the possible answers(I could figure out so far) to above question but couldn't find a smart and good solution though.
1) iBooks is great but no way to mimic...
We could find out that iBooks is an app without IAP in AppStore but the experience of books purhcasing is like purchasing an IAP item.
How can we do this?
2) Adding IAP items to itunes connect.
When a new book is came out we need to add a new IAP item in itunes connect?
Can we automate this on my webserver?
Following apps seem to be adding IAP items - do they manage to do this manually?
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/la-biblia-reina-valera-estudio/id519625336?mt=8
https://itunes.apple.com/cn/app/qq-yue-du/id487608658?l=en&mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D2
3) Adding an IAP item per each price Tier.
We pre-add consumable IAP items for price Tiers(one item per one Tier) and we hold apple id of purchaser and book purchased on our own server.
But in this case we need to get apple id which is quite impossible.
4) Own User DB on Our Own Server
We create own user database on our own server. We can apply the idea of #3 but it should be very inconvenient for users to login twice - one for apple id and one for login to our own db.
Is there any solution which'd work great as iBooks does?
Related
I am working on an app that serves new movies every week and users have to buy a movie to be able to watch it. Once an user purchases a movie they can watch it any number of times. We have our own user registration and login system. I want to know do i have to create an In App Product on the iTunes Connect For every movie? We don't want to restore purchases to the different users using same apple id as well, will Apple allow that? I am really confused guys, I'd really appreciate some ideas.
We are an university department for further education courses and we are planning to publish our cd based courses as an additional iOS/Android App. As we have almost finished the development process we are now facing some questions regarding the distribution. The basic idea is to publish the app in a lite version for free (including chapter one of the course). After you have completed this chapter you will be asked to enter your login data. Our students will be able to enter thier data to activate (download missing content from our server) the app. If you are not an enrolled student there will be a link to our course page. On this page you can enroll for the courses and of course there is a charge for this.
But Apple only allows purchases via the App Store or as so called "in app buys".
Will we violate this rule with our idea?
I have found some newspaper apps with basically the same concept: download for free. If you have a print subscription for this newspaper you enter your data and can use the app. If not you can subscribe for the online offer via an in app buy.
After days of research we have no clear answer to this scenario.
Any comment appreciated.
There are two possible solution for your situation:
Without In-App Purchase: You can create an app which can have a eBook (in your case, dummy eBook with chapter 1 content) bundled with the App.
By doing this anyone who can download will have access to the dummy eBook as well.
For downloading of additional-contents user can do login and access the eBooks available with their account.
Kindly note as you are not using In-App purchase there shall be no links for user registration, buy inside your app.
All these you can handle at your web-site.
Your app can check for valid user credential using a web-service call, and user can see the contents available for download.
Advantages: 1) You shall not be paying 30 % to Apple as No-purchases are done using your app.
2) This is total compliance with Apple guidelines, this link and part 11 specially will be of interest.
Disadvantage: Users cannot directly buy/register via app and you need to maintain additional services for user login validation/content mapping/download content etc.
Using in-App Purchase:
You can use Apple provided in-App purchase for selling content/ registration of users etc.
Please note Apple shall charge 30 % on your selling price.
Advantages: Users can register and buy directly using your app. In-App purchase guidelines will help more in this.
Disadvantage: Apple will charge 30% on Selling price.
Given what you are trying to do, there really is no clear answer for your question that this community can provide, I'm afraid.
The true answer is entirely up to Apple's current app review policies. You should probably submit the app, explain clearly what you are doing, and if it gets rejected/denied, you can follow up with an appeal to the app review board.
As far as I know, physical items that are purchased are not subject to Apple's 30% cut. However, since you're offering courses / content over the 'net, Apple may want some percentage (between 0 & 30%) of the the profits you're making. Maybe they have a different arrangement with newspaper publishers. Ultimately, you'd need to submit the app and find out what the reviewers and app review board say.
I have one application in iTunes which download books and magazines from server. I have integrated Non-consumable IAP for every books and magazines. Now, I want to integrate Newsstand to application. For that I need to integrate at least one subscription to application. I am confusing how to manage it? How can application get idea that any user has subscripted for that IAP or not?
How server will allow any particular device to download new subscription ?
A user buys a new subscription the same way he buys a standard IAP.
After the purchase you will get a receipt (in iOS < 7) or an entry in the App Receipt (iOS >= 7) that tells you when the subscription was bought and when it expires.
When a new issue is available, (or when a user restores his purchases etc) you will need to check that information and determine if his subscription is valid and provide him with the issues he has subscribed for.
Your server can store device tokens and the base64-encoded receipt to know which users are valid subscribers.
That's the really really really basic info on newsstand and subscriptions. There is much to read and learn in the documentation pages and in Stackoverflow.
I would suggest reading through the tutorials 1 and 2 listed below FIRST. They are a bit outdated now but they will give you a more clear view of what is ahead of you.
Subscription Guide
Newsstand notes
Tutorial 1
Tutorial 2
I have a magazine app, and I want to provide users a one year auto-renewable subscription, and for non-subscribed users, they can use non-consumable IAPs to pay for each issue and then download it. What is the best way to implement it?
For auto-renewable subscription I don't think it's a problem. I can follow the tutorial at http://www.viggiosoft.com/blog/blog/2011/10/29/at-newsstand-and-subscriptions/ to finish this part. But for the non-consumable IAP part, I'm not sure. Do I need to add all the non-consumable IAPs for future issues before I submit the app? If I do this, how could Apple review my IAPs, because the future issues are not prepared at the reviewing time. Or, can I add non-consumable IAPs after my app is published to the App store? For example, every time when a new issue is ready in our server, we add a new non-soncumable IAP in iTC, and also set the product id to the issue in the server. When the non-subscribed user click that issue, the purchase for the specified product id will start. Is it possible?
After some research I found that the best way to implement it is to set up a new non-consumable IAP at each time when you want to publish a new issue.
The only problem is that, each IAP needs to be submitted for review, and before it is approved, the users who try to buy the issue will get an error message: "Cannot connect to the iTunes store". I haven't figured out how to know that the IAP is in review, so I can popup a nicer message like "Issue is review, please wait" other than a confusing error message.
I have a magazine app, and I want to provide users a one year
auto-renewable subscription, and for non-subscribed users, they can
use non-consumable IAPs to pay for each issue and then download it.
What is the best way to implement it?
You should accept your solution, but here is another case, maybe it helps you or others:
The subscribers can have they magazines, which are not in at iTunes Server, but at your hosting. Those magazines not need to bypass the apple review.
It depends whether you want a user to be able to permanently have a record stored in their app receipt of the issues they have bought. You might want this, if you want a user to be able to delete the app, with all associated content, then later re-install the app, and be able to download the specific back issues they purchased previously—all without having any user account on your own server. The use of a non-consumable in-app purchase also enables you to give them access to these issues across multiple devices that are signed in to that Apple ID, again without having to run your own user account-server combination to track purchased issues.
If these features don't matter to you, then there is a solution you could consider that is much simpler where you don't have to keep creating new in-app purchase products. Have a consumable in-app purchase product that is called something like Purchase One Issue. When a person buys this product, they get one credit and they can use this to select the issue they wish to be given access to. Your app then gives them access to that issue. You could also of course reverse this process in the UX: they pick the issue, click buy, you send them into the purchase process for the Purchase One Issue product, and you automatically give them access to the selected issue since they already selected it.
Note: consumable in-app purchases are not stored in the app receipt, so a user couldn't use this approach to 'restore previous purchases'. In scenarios where this is acceptable however, this is a much less labour intensive approach once set up.
I understand that in server model of in-App purchases in iOS, the products(non-consumables in my case) would have to be hosted on my own server. Now, with iOS 6, it seems apple allows you to upload content to their servers. Does that mean that if I have to add more products in the future, I only have to upload more content, add description and pricing, associate it with my app and submit it for approval? or do I still need to have a list of products on my own server which will be updated(with new products in the future) and downloaded by the app after purchasing and which will fetch products?
Sorry if I am sounding confusing but I could do with some clarification.
THanks.