In-App Purchase Strategy

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Created Aug ’17

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Hi everyone, Im working with an app that provides a service to the end user. Our goal is to give a user one free usage of the app, charge $0.99 per usage afterward, or offer unlimited usage for $X.99. I have a few questions on approach and policy.

Our tentative approach:

- FREE app store download

- $0.00 (free) in-app purchase for a "non-consumable" first credit

-- plan is to use this so I can prevent abuse from a user who uninstalls and reinstalls the app - whenever a user goes to purchase this "first credit" for free the app will check if the user has already done so in the past by doing a "restore purchases" check and disallow the purchase if they have

- $0.99 in-app purchase for a "consumable" credit after that - does not transfer to other phones or across uninstall/reinstall

- $X.99 in-app purchase for a "non-consumable" purchase to give unlimited use - can be restored on other phones and across uninstall/reinstall

1) Is this a violation of Apple's policies on "free" apps in any way? The app does allow a single full usage of the entire app by "purchase" of the $0.00 (free) first credit, but technically that *is* an in-app purchase and without making that "purchase" the app doesn't allow the user to really use it.

2) Any better ideas on how to go about what Im trying to do here? I'm trying to avoid having to track purchases/usages in any way on an external server, but completely rely on the in-app purchase mechanisms provided by Apple (hence the $0.00 in-app purchase) to prevent abuse of the free one-time usage.

3) Would this approach still be able to be exploited by a user creating a bunch of different Apple IDs and re-downloading the app over and over?

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Answer 1

HitmanInWis OP

Aug ’17

Is there a more appropriate place for me to ask questions like these to receive a response? Having a hard time understanding why Apple doesn't directly address questions like these as it directly affects app revenue, but maybe there is a support channel I'm not aware of?

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Answer 2

PBK OP

Sep ’17

The more appropriate place is the IAP forum.

TMI.

All apps must function at some 'lite' level - you can't make your app fail to work if the user does not purchase another IAP.

The approach you want is:

- Free app that operates at some lite level at all times and that gives the user 0,1 or any other number of 'trial' consumable credits. This app makes a record on the user's keychain indicating it has been loaded. A keychain entry survives deletion and reinstallation but does not survive a full restore-from-backup. You can also use the user's iCloud key-value account and CloudKit if you wish to lock-out the user's additional devices and protect against restore-from-backup. However, this is subject to the multiple user Apple ID scam.

- A consumable IAP that allows the user purchase additional credits.

- A credit allows the user to operate the app at the advanced level when they chose to.

You might also want to consider selling non-renewable subscriptions if 'time' is better than 'use'.

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