I am soon gonna release my first game on Apples AppStore, which is a Tower Defense game. My question is if the preferable choice is to release two version, one lite and one full, or to have one version with in-app purchase to unlock the rest of the game (levels 6-20)?
The first priority is to follow apple's guidelines (I do not want it rejected).
Second priority is financial (which gives the most money)
Lastly, which is easiest to maintain (I believe both methods are almost as easy to maintain if you do it right)
I think that many developers faced this problem, and i believe, that in-app purchase give you lot's of benefits and is really a right way to go.
You don't split up downloads. All the purchases of your app counts to the only one.That puts you higher in the App Store. All the reviews. All the stars. That's what you want.
It's easier for user, who has chosen the free app to switch to the paid one. To press just one button is not the same as delete old one and install new app.
If saving user settings and progress is imortant for your app, you just save it in NSUserDefaults and continue using after upgrade. Imagine, what you'll need to do, if you have two separate apps.
Jailbreakers. They download cracked apps in Installous. Not your's.
You need to maintain only one app.
Of course, you'll need to implement in app purchase in your app, and there is still iAP cracker, but, as for me, choise is obvious.
Related
I have an App currently in the App store that I've been adding functionality to. I've never worked with In-App purchases, but from what I have been reading, it looks like the "improvements" offered are code adjustments to add, or unlock features.
For my "improved" version, I actually added an entirely new (additional) VC plus a Master VC to switch between the two (using the storyboard), so it's not just a matter of unlocking code to provide the additional features. Can I still use the In-App purchase to provide access to this version, or would I have to submit it as an entirely new product?
If you are trying to add some kind of "premium" feature that only people who pay X amount will have access to, but are still maintaining a "basic" version of the app for everyone else, then yes, you can create an In App Purchase to do this. Or, if you wanted to, you could create a separate "premium" version of your app. It's really up to you. I wouldn't necessarily say one way is preferred over the other, because I've seen it done both ways.
Even if you wanted to charge for the new features, they are not present in the currently released version of your app, so no matter how you decide to market this, you will have to submit a new version of your app. It can contain an in-app purchase or not, but it will be a new version. It certainly does not have to be a different app; adding functionality, possibly including an in-app purchase, is what a new version is for.
In short: you don't need to add a totally new app in any case unless and until you want one more app to be on app store
Detailed answer: If you are just making changes in the underlying architecture of your app it doesn't make any sense to give it to user as in app purchase( and i guess apple will also reject your in-app products). You should only add in-app purchase if you are adding a new feature or giving the user some bonus stuff.
And as per me you should add new version of the app only if you feel that this is a new app.( for example Badlands and Badlands 2 are similar apps but internally they are different from each other so they uploaded them as badlands 2)
I have an old app on app store that is divided into one free version for both iPhone and iPad and one paid version for both, so four different apps in total. I am going to make a complete new version of it so that it gets easier to handle. I want it, if possible, to be one universal app that maybe can use in-app purchase for customers to get the "premium" content.
However, people have paid for the previous version, is it possible to somehow let them have access to the premium content in the new one?
Or do you think that it is better to make a complete new app with another name? :P
Any suggestions?
They can still use the old one if I remove it from app store right?
This is something that you would need to discuss with Apple, for the most part, they do not like it when potential sales could be lost. After that is all said and done, there are ways for apps to share data with one another.
Have a look at this tutorial, it should give you an idea on how to do it.
http://www.enharmonichq.com/sharing-data-locally-between-ios-apps/
I have an app that is free but contains a in app purchase item that cost 2 dollar.
Is it possible to make this in app purchase item free for 1 day? If I make it free will the user purchasing the item just get up 0 dollar when he tries to purchase it?
Update
Unfortunately I misunderstood what was asked by Nissefar. Sorry, Nissefar.
Below is a completely unrelated text (the original). I'll probably delete it eventually.
I'm only writing this as an answer because I don't have enough reputation to comment.
You could use consumables. Make the user buy time to use the item. This requires a backend server for your app, responsible to manage the bought time.
If you really want to disable the purchasing for one day, you can do it as well. When the user buys it, the server is notified, manages what has to manage, and tells all devices the item was bought. All devices disable the possibility to buy the item. Whenever the app starts you ask the server if the item is available or should be set to be bought.
Study a little about In-App Purchases, and you'll know what's the best solution to your undetailed problem. Also, if you don't know how your server can notify all devices, study about push notification.
I know this answer isn't very complex, but your question is very simple. You should have explained better what you want, as well as to all solutions you though and their pros and cons. What have you tried to do already?
I'm not expecting you to aprove this answer, only to improve you question. Detail it a little better, and explain what you've tried and the solutions you've considered.
In iOS, is there a way to figure out the version of app the user originally bought from?
For example, what if i want to implement some special behavior only for user who purchased v1.0. one obvious "feature" is disable in-app purchase so they can enjoy the rest without paying? I thought up some ways to do it but unfortunately, it wont survive the test if the user deleted the app and also i didnt user icloud early enough to persist this metadata.
Unfortunately this can't be done. At least not in any perfect manner. There is no API to get any details about the user and their purchase. If your 1.0 version of the app doesn't already persist some meaningful clue, your only solutions would be partial at best.
Your issue is made worse if you already have newer versions of the app out (such as 1.1) and you want to add this new feature to a newer version (1.2 or 2.0). There is no way to know if anyone ever had 1.0.
You basically have two options:
Leave it alone. You can't convert a paid app to a free-with-IAP app without hurting at least some portion of your existing customers. If anything, leave the app paid but add IAP for any new functionality. This way, everyone pays the same for the base app and everyone has the option to pay more, through IAP, for additional features.
Depending on your ethics and the number of existing customers, you could just make the switch and make existing customers pay again for functionality they already paid for. Obviously, this is a bad idea but it is an option.
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)