IOS apps and subscriptions?

Question

Do I need to use Apple In-App Purchase support if I want to enable subscription in my application? I am currently working on an application that will be available for download and use. It will be supported by advertising, but I also offer a premium version of the service that will not display ads. Can I independently implement the subscription functions in the application / backend service (registration, credit card processing, etc.)? Or should I use Apple's in-app purchase support (thereby also denying 30% of my monthly fee).

Answer 1

Yes, you are required. Apple will give up everything that is trying to get around their 30% shot

Answer 2

Actually ... there is a workaround in which you can save 100% of the income:

"If you want to make an offer to subscribe outside the application, the application can offer the same (or better) subscription price for users who want to subscribe to the application." Source: https://developer.apple.com/appstore/in-app-purchase/subscriptions.html

I'm not sure that this directly speaks to your question about making a free application, but you can save 100% of the income if you make the same offer as when buying the application.

Apple canceled these recommendations some time ago, which allows developers to mark in-app purchases, but I'm not sure if this is still relevant.

See: http://www.macworld.com/article/1160430/apple_removes_pricing_restrictions_in_app_subscriptions.html

and

http://help.rdio.com/customer/portal/questions/433219-price-discrepancy

Answer 3

As already mentioned, you must use the original Apple APIs. Moreover, according to Apple policy, a developer cannot choose which type of In-App-Purchases to use for their applications. You can learn more about this in the dev post.

iOS In-App Shopping Review: Our Practical Experience

In short, there are 3 types of subscription:

• free - used by applications that offer problems for free
• auto-renewable - after the first successful purchase, they renew themselves automatically if the user's credit card is valid and if he did not stop it manually

• non-renewing - a subscription is initiated by users, lasts a certain period of time and stops when the period ends, in order to subscribe again, the user must manually initiate a subscription.

  The use of automatic renewable subscription is limited only to mass media applications . A free subscription may not be used for demos distributed for commercial purposes. And, of course, if the application violates Apple’s requirements for use and restrictions in the In-App, it will be banned from the AppStore.