IAP design, please need advice

Unity Engine
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1

I have never made an App before for iOS. And now I have. Or almost. But I spoke with someone, and he warned me my idea of how to offer content for the product, might be problematic.

I have this product which can show content based on data from an xml file. All data and content will come from my server. The app itself is an empty shell which only has the functionality needed to interpret the .xml data. In my opinion this sounds very basic, like a magazine or the like. This is how I would suspect every newspaper app to work.
But this is where he warned me. It may be the product is too empty in and of itself, as Apple has no way of controlling the content (it could be showing porn or whatever, and they wouldn’t be able to control it).

First of all, the actual content shown is for children and is NOT porn :wink:
But I do get what he means, and all my good intentions may not be enough. And I have no idea if Newspapers do something extraordinary in this regard.
I other words, I have NO idea whether this is valid advice or not, so this is where I need you!

This is my initial design of how to offer new content:

1) I have a server where some data (xml) will tell the app what can be bought
2) User buys an xml document via iTunes connect, with some information.
3) This information is used to fetch the actual data. The reason I don’t just upload the data as the actual product, is to be able to correct mistakes in the data very quickly, and without any problems. Then, whenever the user loads the product, some version number will check up agains server version, and data can be updated.

Does this make any sense? I have never done this before, and it may be it is not the right approach. Is it? Could this lead to problems? I have a deadline, and I need to hit the road running on this one, if I want to meet it in time.

This is a simple schematic showing what I plan on doing.

1356636--67182--$IAPDesignTest.png
1356636--67182--$IAPDesignTest.png985×750 51 KB

I’m very sorry if this is a stupid post, I wouldn’t honestly know at the moment! :smile:

2

OK I may be very wrong here, but I get a feeling that mag subscriptions and the like use the in-App purchase subscription method. So they have the “shell” “bookshelf” (whatever you want to call it) for their mags. And the purchase of mags/content is via in-App purchasing.

If you go into itunesconnect, and check out the inapp purchasing > create new, it’ll show the list of available in-app purchase types and you’ll notice there are three subscription types like Auto-Renewable Subscription.

This way, Apple CAN control the content and ensure nothing unsavoury is going to the app.

3

Thanks for the input :slight_smile: I’m not sure I follow, though. How can Apple control the content due to the purchase being an auto-renewable subscription? The content itself is still delivered from some server, right? What is it I’m misunderstanding here?

4

Ok…either my question is very tough to answer, or is too stupid for anyone even wanting to consider it :smile:
I’m not asking for a technical solution here, so a very short amount of your time is needed. If the question is sensible, that is.

a: It makes sense, go ahead.
b: This is not a viable solution because…(and then some short and descriptive reason)
c: Question makes no sense, you are misunderstanding something fundamental here, because…
d: Insert answer…

In this vast jungle of information, I’m on my knees, begging. Please :slight_smile:

5

Right…what a complete waste of time.

6

Inside of the XML document stored on your server with the IAP listing, why not add a few elements per product that contain the URL and information needed to fetch the asset bundle. Then through your application you could just check with the iTunes store to see if a given IAP has been bought, and stream the bundle from the data within the XML file on your server, thus bypassing all need to attempt to download anything from iTunes.

7

Because I believe that when you submit an in-app item they review it before making it available via the ‘store’

8

You know, people don’t sit here on the forums every hour of the day to answer your questions instantly. It can take days or even weeks to find answers.

9

lorenalexm: Thank you, got this idea from somebody else as well. I thought iTunes actually needed some sort of binary/data, but it doesn’t.

I have been on this forum a very long time. For every question I ask, I answer 50. This was a SIMPLE question to evaluate and answer for the people knowing their stuff. People simply didn’t give a big enough damn, even when I begged. I got frustrated, as I have a VERY tight deadline, and simply needed to know whether to go ahead, or redesign. When I needed you guys the most, nobody answered (but you, but you skipped my main question). Forgive me, but I did indeed waste my time, asking in here.
I thank you for your input, though I’m still not sure what it implies in my particular case. There are many products delivering content on the fly, with no realtime evaluation from Apple. Radio, news, whatnot. And I simply (still) fail to see what a subscription solves in that regard, as the content must be delivered from some server…

As for the actual question asked, I found the answer via my network, and it took 1 min. for the guy to evaluate my question, and give me an answer (To drop step 2 in terms of the .xml file, and deliver the content of that step via step 1, and othervise go ahead. Exactly what lorenalexm just described. Thank you! ;)). So sorry for making it sound like a rant (which it was), when it really just was a true evaluation of what I got out of my post in terms of information. At least information in time, when I needed it…