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iOS In-App Purchases (IAP) and "external" services advice

I'm about to develop an app (for iOS and Android) that allows users to create a collection of digital content from their phone (e.g. some videos and pictures), and send that content to other users who can consume that collection on the same iOS/Android app. I'd like to bill users for sending a collection, because this process involves uploading and processing the collection to the cloud (which I pay for) and the recipient's app downloading it again (causing traffic costs). Note that I don't want to charge any money from the recipient!

The way I see it, producing such an iOS app is not possible (because Apple will reject it, see App store guidelines and In App Purchase Guidelines) for the following reasons:

  • Setting a fixed price for the app ("paid app") is not reasonable, because I want to charge the user each time he sends a collection, so IAP (In-App-Purchases) would be more reasonable
  • The IAP-logic/flow would be that a user can create the collection in the app for free and then, when he clicks the "send collection" button, he is asked to approve a purchase, in return he gets the link that he can send to his friend. The logic would essentially be the same in the Android app, using Google's "In App Billing"
  • Such an app could be rejected by Apple because of rule "11.3. Apps using IAP to purchase physical goods or goods and services used outside of the App will be rejected" - because the user essentially paid for hosting the collection, and that collection can be used outside of the app (by an Android app user for example)
  • OTOH it's also impossible to use external means of payment. For example, I was thinking about forcing users to first create an account on my website, where they can pay for a voucher (with Paypal, say) that enables users to send collections. They'd first need to log into their account in the iOS app and then they might see a warning that they have not yet purchased (or no longer have) any credits for sending a collection. The IAP guidelines forbid me to directly link to my website with a note saying that users can pay for additional credits by other means. When Apple engineers sees that message during review (assuming they aren't putting very bright people in charge) the app might be rejected, too. Even if it were not, this work flow is very uncomfortable for the user, I'd prefer IAP as this also makes accounting (taxes and earnings for my company) a lot easier.

I'd like to get your opinions on this. Please note that I might be "too hard" on myself. As a matter of fact, I do know apps that have been approved to the store that do exactly that, see e.g. here and here. Maybe they have been approved because paragraph 11.3 actually just forbids the ability to purchase the functionality of uploading (converting a collection to a link) and then use this functionality somewhere else - effectively that would mean "to buy credits for an external service" mechanism. My app wouldn't do this. You'd have to do the purchase and the upload/convert-to-link functionality would only work on that device where you did the purchase.

Any thoughts?

Solution

  • I have similar experience with an app i worked on. It was a GPS device showing tracking data in the app. The device uses cellular data to send tracking information and we need to collect a fee to pay the SIM provider which is an external service. We did this using Stripe payment but Apple rejected the app and asked to implement In-App purchase. Because we were blocking the user and asking to pay in the app that looks like we are asking payment for app digital content.

    Based on my experience, to answer your question :

    1. Yes you have to use In-App purchase and it can be Consumable type. When user try to send a collection, show a consumable purchase type. Keep track of the purchase in the server using purchase receipt, collection id etc.

    2. Even though the amount collected is used for hosting and web traffic, you can term this as a service fee for managing/sending the collection. Behind the seen, you use this fee to pay your hosting provider or anyone else, that's up to you. Apple won't reject the app for this reason. Because you are charging a fee for digital service you are provided in the app. In apple guidelines, external physical service means, for example taxi charge in Uber, shopping goods price in amazon etc.