how to manage subscriptions if authentication email on app is different from apple accounts used to manage subscription.
In our app we have an authentication system that is used to authenticate user and also register the user.
Our app has subscription plans for accessing the content on the app.
But sometimes user uses different email address for signing up on the app from the apple account in that particular case how do we handle the subscription ??
Subscriptions involving IAP are only billed thru a user's iTunes account. You can't directly substitute/co-mingle your own authentication, and thereby replace Apple's billing scheme, when performing the (IAP) billing process.
In your example, those two need to operate independently.
You seem to be concerned that two email addresses will not be the same. But you have no access to the email the user uses for their Apple Account. And the user can use any email account to sign up to your server. So what exactly are you trying to accomplish?
If you want a device-specific identity then store something in the user's keychain.
If you want an iTunesAccount specific identity then write your own UUIDString to the user's key-value file in iCloud and transmit that value when the user signs up to your servers. (Or grab the user's id from their private database in CloudKit.)
In our app user can only login if he has a valid subscriprion. If the two email addresses are not same then user will be able to access the app from other device using the same credentials because we are storing the subscription details on our server(beacuse user and apple accounts are different). Another concern of ours is that if by any chance the subscription is lapsed he wont be able to enter the app and thus wont be able to renew the subscription from the app. We are thinking of using the itunes ui to mange the subscription is this the right way.
Thanks
>We are thinking of using the itunes ui to mange the subscription is this the right way.
Good thinking, and perhaps your only choice if your content is digital and consumed inside your app. Speak up if you need further details, etc.
You cannot get the email address that the user uses for their itunes account.
You can use the IAP system to purchase a subscription from within the app. If the app has a valid IAP subscription then you allow the app to log into your server. The issue is then how to prevent a single user with a single apple itunes account from duplicating their subscription on multiple devices (using the same itunes account) and logging into your server from each device using a different login username/password. You can write a UUID or some other identifier to the user's key-value file on iCloud. This key-value file on iCloud will be the same file from each of the user's devices.
