I'm working in an app to provide a calling service additional to our already existant Voice, fax and SMS web services. Our services can be bought at our website and can be used worldwide.
We will release a first app which will be used to place calls using our service. Our app does not use VoIP. It can work as a dialer, triggering the native phone app, or it can request inbound calls from our platform. So the app is a trigger of the service rather than the direct provider.
We have read the guidelines and we have found three entries that apply to our case. However one of them conflicts with the other two statements:
- You must deliver your digital good or service within your app. Do not use In-App Purchase to sell real-world goods and services.
- You may sell credits or virtual currency provided they are used within the app and do not have a time limit imposed upon them.
This is the one that makes the conflict:
In-App Purchase items cannot be shared across applications. This statement is against our payment system because all of our services shares the same credit.
We plan to release additional apps in the future which might include this functionality, but will add features and products, such as call monitoring. Our customers can use our services with or without the app.
But some customers might first know us and sign-in to our services from the download of the app. In such cases we want customers who download the app to be able to sign in and add credit to their account. Such credit can be used for the calls triggered from the app but also for calls and other services triggered from our web site or through our API.
- If an app customer has previously had other services, they might never need to pay in-app.
- If they get other services after using the app, their credit will be used for all other services.
So we are not sure where we fit in regarding in-app purchase of credit for up our services.
Must we use the App Store purchase?
Can we use other payment systems from the app?
Kind regards and thanks in advance,
Victor