I have to create an application where a user makes a deal and then gives me (the owner of the application) a certain amount of money for the deel to be made available to the rest of the world. I was thinking of achieving this through Google Checkout, but I stumbled upon Android in app billing sdk. My question is, is it possible to use in app billing in my scenario?
The google in app billing works only officially with receivables (AFAIK) i.e. The most effective way i could see you doing this is to make the deal, then charge for an item called for example ("Transaction fee" / "Deal fee") and then the app runs as normal.
It's not reccomended that you start using your own payment system, purely if not anything else, support could drop at any minute and your app starts breaking the ToS
I got the answer :) We can use in app billing with Unmanaged products :)
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I was wandering if I can sell digital objects(like lives in Candy Crush) from an other app.
I'll explain it a little better: I have an android game built with AppInventor from which I can't implement in-app billing. I was thinking to build an app in java and allowing in-app purchase from it an sharing purchases info on the server on which the game is based.
The question is: does Google allow me to do this or there is some restriction I've not been able to find?
I hope you can understand what I wrote as english is not my mothertongue.
Isn't there a way you can just reimplement your game with in app billing? Having to open another app to buy things on this one seems not really intuitive. Plus, you may need to advertise the "buying app" in the "game app" somehow, so you'll still need to write some code.
As far as I remember, AppInventor apps were fairly straightforward to redo if you know how to code Android, plus it's not available anymore, which means you lost support in case you want to do something else.
I am in the process of building a Video On Demand kind of app for Android which is very similar to what Google Play Movies with a few differences.
I am done with most of the things for the app and now I am deciding upon the billing strategy for renting out movies from this app. By looking at Google Play Movies I found that if you rent a movie there, you are given a period of 48 hours from when you start watching the movie. I want to understand that is such a billing strategy possible using the In App Billing method already available for Android.
As far as I understand and have tried out, In App Billing is applicable to a list of products that I define in the developer console and the users consume but for a VOD kind of app where my video listing would change from time to time, this might not be the best strategy and might not be even applicable.
If that is the case then how are things working with the Google Play Movies?
Can anyone throw some light on what other options i might have of making the user experience as close as possible to what Google Play movies provides.
I have also explored other payment options of third party payment processors like Zooz and a few others but in my opinion of Google Play Movies is using In App Purchase or Google Checkout interface then is it possible for my app to use the same and if yes any pointers are greatly appreciated.
As you've worked out, you wouldn't have one IAP product per film. But you might have one product which is a single 48-hour rental, and the user buys this product and then cashes it in within your app to rent the actual film.
Really, it's the Google Play terms that decide this question for you. If the thing you're selling is only accessible within your app, then you must use Google Play's IAP functionality. If the sale is usable from outside the app (e.g. you can buy a rental on Android and then watch the film via a web browser on any device), then you shouldn't use IAP. This is all explained in the terms.
None of the parts of Google Play use the public IAP interface, even though they all go through the same billing system in the end.
I know that for jailbreak iOS device there is a way to get in-app purchase for free. There is in-app hack too for android. Is there anyway to prevent this when writing app that use in-app purchase ?
thanks
Yes, in addition to following all the latest Google Play/Apple licensing and security best practices you can, you need to make multiplayer interaction through your servers an intricate part of the game play and the fun.
For great examples of this, take a look at "Fun Run" or "Clash of Titans".
That being said, don't make the mistake of doing this after you've designed most of your game already. Most users (even and especially legitimate paid users) hate it when their game requires them to be online even when they're only playing it in a single player mode, and they will badmouth and down-rate your app if they suspect that you've purposefully crippled your game, or removed single player mode functionality after the fact.
I would just like to ask if there are any best practices for a shared subscription billing for iOS and Android.
Right now, we are developing a mobile app both on Android and iOS (both native sdk, not cross-platform). And we have this certain feature in the app which you need to subscribe in order to access. But this will be a shared subscription. A one time payment regardless of what device a user is using to subscribe.
Sorry, but I am not really good in explaining things so maybe I will give you a scenario. I hope it helps you to understand what I am talking about.
For example, a user has two phones, an Android phone and an iPhone. He then installed our app in both his iPhone and Android phone. Now, he opens our app in his iPhone and he wants to access that certain feature so he subscribed. With this, what we want as a developer is to make it so that when he opens the app in his android phone, he will already be able to access that certain feature since he has already subscribed when he used the iPhone app.
We are still hesitant to continue since Google and Apple have different billing schemes. But maybe there are solutions for this, or are there?
I am hoping that someone could give us light on how to do this in the best practical way possible.
Thanks in advance...
I am currently facing the same issues. That's what I have so far.
There seem to be cross-platform solutions but none of them seem to work through Google Play or Apple payment methods..
You can use your API/backend service to flag the current user subscription state and sync it across all your platforms (that might violate Apple in-app system conditions).
I'm currently looking for a way to communicate to both Google Play and Apple in-app payment system that the item has been already bought in a different platform. There should be a way but as said, still looking for it.
We'll keep that up to date.
I am currently developing an application where I want to be able to have an option to allow the user to donate money for the app. Is there a particular way about doing this for android. I have tried looking at google but it mainly shows about paypal donation buttons for websites
I think it should be possible.
There's a similar discussion on Google Groups which basically says that donations are allowed as long as you don't offer additional functionality for that money.
Meaning no functionality is enabled after the donation is made.
Like #alocaly said, you're unable to recieve donations through a system different from android market payment or ads inside the application.
However, it is still possible to have your application on the Internet by free and with a donation button. The difference is that you cannot post it on the Android Market, so you'll have to do some extra work:
Upload to a webserver, so it can be downloaded to your phone.
Create a website (or post your application to another "illegal" market), so people can find your application.
Use some sort of advertising to let people know your application (Twitter retweets, community ads, GoogleAds, SEO, whatever)
Manage some kind of update system. Since you don't rely anymore on the Android Market, you don't have an automatic updating method (Android Market updates applications when you post a new version of it), so you should have a small class that checks a website looking for a new version (it's not that hard) and downloads a new version when there's one available.
Make work the Paypal button like #Tim said
However, you are able to do something that I've see out there: create a free version of your application and post it on the Android Market, and post another version of the same application called "Same program name (Donation)", costing some money. When someone wants to donate you, they'll only have to buy this version.
I hope it helps
I don't know what importance it has, but I think that the chart / terms of services we sign as android developers don't allow the usage of this kind of monetization.
As this is a subject that is changing a lot in Android world, with the soon to come API to pay in apps, I'm not sure it still has any importance, but you should still be aware of that.
Maybe you should take a look at this post, which explains how to integrate Paypal payments into an Android App witout leaving the App itself: How to integrate paypal donate in android app?