How to Transfer Applications for App Store Small Business Program Members

The App Store Small Business Program offers lowered commission cost with one big caveat: no app transfer. But apps graduating from a “hobby” into a “small business” would definitely involve transferring ownership. Read how to transfer apps without engaging in the app transfer process and losing out on the program’s benefits.

How to Pass App Store Review: Guideline 4.2 Design – Minimum functionality

Delivering a “minimum viable product” won’t be viable if your app isn’t going to pass App Store Review. Is your app “good enough” for the App Store? Is it appropriate for the App Store and not better off in the web? Read on to ensure your app pass the gates of App Review.

How to Provide Free Time-Limited Trials in the App Store

Providing “lite” version of apps had been the strategy to provide free trials since the dawn of the App Store. However these reduced-functionality apps fall short on demonstrating its full capabilities, which in itself be ineffective in enticing the user to buy. Fortunately that is no longer the only option available for App Store apps.

Modeling In-App Purchases Inventory

There are four types of in-app purchases in Apple’s App Store, with their own unique ways to manage it. The challenge is how to isolate the intricacies of these product types from the rest of the application. Otherwise a move from non-consumable in-app purchase to a subscription type would involve a major rewrite. Learn how to manage an app’s inventory of purchases and get the code base resilient to changes in the business side.

Time-Limited in-App Purchase

What if you need to create a “holiday special” in-app purchase? The item would only be available at a limited period some time in the future. However those who have bought the item would be able to use it beyond the purchase-able period, including restoring purchases should they need it.

I want to let some non-consumable iAP items just be sold during a particular period of time. Also the user who purchased these items still can restore and use it after the time period has elapsed.

Creating time-based in-app purchases (iAP) can be difficult. First all iAPs would need to go through App Review, hence they would need to be available before your app is live. Second is that there’s practically no way for the app to differentiate the app review environment versus the actual production environment – nor does Apple want you to.

But what if I say it can be done? What if you can have a non-consumable iAP, pass it through app review, and only made it for sale only during a specific period in the future? Interested? read on.

Sandboxing the PubSub framework

Are you having trouble sandboxing your app for the Mac App Store? I did and here is my experience on sandboxing News Anchor that uses Apple’s PubSub framework and didn’t play well with the sandbox. This cost me a DTS ticket and you will want to pay attention if your app also consumes RSS/ATOM feed data.

Lion’s sandboxing deadline may have been pushed back, but News Anchor came through and met the original date. Bringing News Anchor into the sandbox cost me one of the two precious DTS tickets in my quota, due to the difficulties in getting the PubSub framework to function in the environment. I’d figured I ought to write this out to contribute back to the Mac Developer community.