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I feel like this has been some months in the making. We have an IAP enabled app (https://www.bestcoffee.guide/app https://www.bestcoffee.guide/app) just turned

I feel like this has been some months in the making. We have an IAP enabled app (https://www.bestcoffee.guide/app https://www.bestcoffee.guide/app) just turned a year old. When we launched last year we had no issues with our - very clear - subscription page. Subsequent updates, however, have required closer and closer adherence to the specifics of the Apple iap guidelines. All the boiler plate text needed to be displayed, the button needs the price on it, and to be on the same page. Overall a good change for the user but man it makes it hard to design a remotely aesthetic subscription page.

Endy 8y ago
As a user, I genuinely don't care about your aesthetic when it comes to your IAPs. I want a clear-as-day notice well in advance that you're asking to take real money for non-physical goods and/or services. If some group is working to make that clearer, I'm in favor.
- MOARDONGZPLZ 8y ago
  Seconded. I am very careful to make sure that I don't spend money unexpectedly in apps, and it can be pretty difficult. I'm all for any guidelines or regulations that make knowing when I'm going to be charged more explicit.
  - Endy 8y ago
    That's part of why I'd only use gift cards with very restricted budgets on paid software repositories.
  - MiddleEndian 8y ago
    Payments should be client controlled. Rather than you giving online organizations your payment information, they should request payments from you and you could manually approve or reject them. You could give certain trusted organizations you trust an auto accept option (for instance monthly web hosting bills).
- satysin 8y ago
  Agreed 100%. Hell a white page with generic Times New Roman font and generic buttons is perfect if it tells me how much I will be paying monthly, how long I am committed for and everything else that should be shown to me before I subscribe. If you can make it a little prettier that is fine but I want the cold hard facts over some cute parallax effect when I scroll the page
- madeofpalk 8y ago
  To be fair, that's _at least_ up to the OS, and iOS does do this. Every in app purchase has to be approved from an OS-provided dialogue that requires hardware interaction to approve. One problem I have seen from this was an ancestry app that prompted you to scan your fingerprint to "find your relatives", and then would prompt for IAP, which asks for Touch ID approval. Because you already had your thumb on the reader, it would more or less instantly be approved. Unsure if Apple has made any changes around this yet. https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/9bxw0f/this_ancestry_app_attempts_to_make_you_use_your/ https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/9bxw0f/this_ancestr...
  - wool_gather 8y ago
    Apps don't have access to the actual fingerprint data, though. Presumably they were just using it as a login guard?
    - jboles 8y ago
      The issue is not the app getting the fingerprint data, but rather literally baiting your finger onto the reader and then switching to a Touch ID subscription prompt under your finger?
      - greglindahl 8y ago
        I'd bet that A/B testing would easily show that they make a lot more money if the users' finger is already on the reader from a recent press.
      - wool_gather 8y ago
        No, I understand that, and maybe this is just a tangent, but the parent post seemed to be implying that the app was using the fingerprint itself, and I was trying to get a clarification. (And I'm honestly a little skeptical of the story.)
        madeofpalk 8y ago
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
kartickv 8y ago
I agree. We've also had many rejections due to policies that weren't clearly stated up front, such as the price requiring to be in the button rather than below it. Apple should have given 10 examples of Dos and Don'ts with screenshots. Or even give five approved templates, so you can just change the price, duration, app name, etc and you're guaranteed to be approved. As another example, we put the terms and conditions ("subscription will renew unless canceled...") in a web view. Apple rejected us telling us to put it in the binary. We put the HTML locally, but still in a web view to display it. Is that considered part of the binary? Apparently not. We then made it plain text and didn't use a web view. But it wasn't okay, to have this behind a button. It has to be on the subscription screen. However, having it scroll off the bottom of the screen is apparently fine. This is why it's frustrating to develop for Apple's platforms — you have to play a guessing game, where each round results in a rejection and multiple days of turnaround time. I'm considering making our app paid up front to bypass this bullshit. Since the iOS dialog box has all the necessary information, and Apple can present it in a way they consider transparent to users, why make apps redundantly display the same information, and then reject them? The sensible thing to do would be to ban only apps that give misleading information, like Rs.10 if it actually costs Rs.100. Not giving any information in your app UI like price, duration, terms, should be fine.

Endy 8y ago

As a user, I genuinely don't care about your aesthetic when it comes to your IAPs. I want a clear-as-day notice well in advance that you're asking to take real money for non-physical goods and/or services. If some group is working to make that clearer, I'm in favor.

MOARDONGZPLZ 8y ago
Seconded. I am very careful to make sure that I don't spend money unexpectedly in apps, and it can be pretty difficult. I'm all for any guidelines or regulations that make knowing when I'm going to be charged more explicit.
- Endy 8y ago
  That's part of why I'd only use gift cards with very restricted budgets on paid software repositories.
- MiddleEndian 8y ago
  Payments should be client controlled. Rather than you giving online organizations your payment information, they should request payments from you and you could manually approve or reject them. You could give certain trusted organizations you trust an auto accept option (for instance monthly web hosting bills).
satysin 8y ago
Agreed 100%. Hell a white page with generic Times New Roman font and generic buttons is perfect if it tells me how much I will be paying monthly, how long I am committed for and everything else that should be shown to me before I subscribe. If you can make it a little prettier that is fine but I want the cold hard facts over some cute parallax effect when I scroll the page
madeofpalk 8y ago
To be fair, that's _at least_ up to the OS, and iOS does do this. Every in app purchase has to be approved from an OS-provided dialogue that requires hardware interaction to approve. One problem I have seen from this was an ancestry app that prompted you to scan your fingerprint to "find your relatives", and then would prompt for IAP, which asks for Touch ID approval. Because you already had your thumb on the reader, it would more or less instantly be approved. Unsure if Apple has made any changes around this yet. https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/9bxw0f/this_ancestry_app_attempts_to_make_you_use_your/ https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/9bxw0f/this_ancestr...
- wool_gather 8y ago
  Apps don't have access to the actual fingerprint data, though. Presumably they were just using it as a login guard?
  - jboles 8y ago
    The issue is not the app getting the fingerprint data, but rather literally baiting your finger onto the reader and then switching to a Touch ID subscription prompt under your finger?
    - greglindahl 8y ago
      I'd bet that A/B testing would easily show that they make a lot more money if the users' finger is already on the reader from a recent press.
    - wool_gather 8y ago
      No, I understand that, and maybe this is just a tangent, but the parent post seemed to be implying that the app was using the fingerprint itself, and I was trying to get a clarification. (And I'm honestly a little skeptical of the story.)
      - madeofpalk 8y ago
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

kartickv 8y ago

I agree. We've also had many rejections due to policies that weren't clearly stated up front, such as the price requiring to be in the button rather than below it. Apple should have given 10 examples of Dos and Don'ts with screenshots. Or even give five approved templates, so you can just change the price, duration, app name, etc and you're guaranteed to be approved. As another example, we put the terms and conditions ("subscription will renew unless canceled...") in a web view. Apple rejected us telling us to put it in the binary. We put the HTML locally, but still in a web view to display it. Is that considered part of the binary? Apparently not. We then made it plain text and didn't use a web view. But it wasn't okay, to have this behind a button. It has to be on the subscription screen. However, having it scroll off the bottom of the screen is apparently fine. This is why it's frustrating to develop for Apple's platforms — you have to play a guessing game, where each round results in a rejection and multiple days of turnaround time. I'm considering making our app paid up front to bypass this bullshit. Since the iOS dialog box has all the necessary information, and Apple can present it in a way they consider transparent to users, why make apps redundantly display the same information, and then reject them? The sensible thing to do would be to ban only apps that give misleading information, like Rs.10 if it actually costs Rs.100. Not giving any information in your app UI like price, duration, terms, should be fine.