As far as I know this is not documented by Google.
What happens when the developer manually refunds a paid app purchase, using the Order Management console (like shown below) ?
Can the user still use it and receive udpates?
If the purchase price for a Paid app is refunded then Play will remove the app from the user's library. This means future checks that depend on app ownership (eg the Play License Verification Library) will return the app is not purchased. However, the app isn't guaranteed to be removed from the user's device, which is why use of the license verification library is recommended.
For refunds around in app purchases and subscriptions the answer might be different. Your question isn't completely clear about whether it is buying a paid app or an IAP/Subscription, but I think you are asking about a paid app.
it would be trivial to pay for and install the app, then make the phone go into airplane mode and do a refund from your desktop, thus extending the period of time the app could be used well beyond 2 hours. But of course as soon as you go back on line the app would get uninstalled as soon as the play store checked in with google, which happens even if you don't actively open the play store.
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I am planning to publish a new app on store. The app will be free, but you will not be able to use the app unless you purchase an in app product.
You will not have to pay to download the app, but you will have to pay use it, because without a purchased product, you can not use the app.
Will google accept my app? I couldn't find any answer for this, neither the support from google gave me a clear answer.
Thanks
Your use case is certainly unusual.
While it is possible that the app is allowed on the google store, I can almost guarantee that if someone reports your app, it might get removed under the Minimum Functionality section.
It will depend on what the description of your app says because as you should have guessed it should describe the base functionality of your app if it has in-app purchase or summarize the all features the app has to offer in case it is free.
As long as you mention in the description of the app that the user will have to purchase a product to use your application, you should be good to go.
Edit: My question may not have been clear: so I'll rephrase:
I'm asking: is there a way to update my app through the App Store (continue to push updates to users) if I decide to stop selling my app?
Original question:
I'm a mac dev assessing whether I want to sell my app through the App Store.
One question I had was, if I ever decide to stop selling through the store, will I still be able to issue app software updates to the initial users who downloaded the app.
Hopefully this is an easy YES. This seems important to me because if the answer is NO, then Apple's kind of locking the dev in to keep selling the app.
Define "stop selling the app". Meaning you are offering it for free, or pulling it from sale in the App Store?
If you are offering it as FREE, then YES, you can still issue updates to new and existing users.
If you pull the app from the App Store by "Remove from Sale", then NO, your app will not appear in the App Store, and the same goes for updates, you will not be able to push any new updates until it becomes available in the store again.
Apple does not want you to offer your app outside of the App Store. Back in the day you could provide it as an unsigned developer binary and Mac OS would complain, but allow you to install. Apple is now making it harder if not soon impossible to do this.
I published 8 of my apps earlier in the year with a one-time payment option, without any issues. I have also seen sales come through on the merchant account. Today, when I tried to publish the ninth app, I get the error -
Up-front payments aren’t supported for ARC apps at this time, but you
can still publish your app as free and add consumable products for
in-app purchase. We’re working hard to enable support for paid ARC
apps, so be sure to check back soon!
Why does it no longer work? Any guesses? I'm trying to get them published soon so they are available for schools to purchase.
My company needs to upload an app to the store , that will only be available to 80 people over the world that will get the permission to test it.
The ad-hoc method requires their iphones id's to be register with the app, and obviously we dont have it.
Whats the best way, to upload the app to the store ,to let this people to get it ?
(NO, without just go to the review process of apple)
thanks.
Besides the enterprise developer program, Ad-Hoc distribution is the only way to limit your audience.
If you try to game the app store with an unreasonable high price and promo codes (limit of 50 codes per app version) Apple will kick you out of the review process in no time.
Use testflight to get device IDs easier and deploy you app to the testers.
There is no way to do that, for the Adhoc, you must register their UDID devices.
You can upload the app in the AppStore, put it's price high, and give the prople that you want to test the app a redeem code that will download the app free, but i think the number of redeem code you have is 25. If you find anyway to do that, share it with us please.
If the 80 people that will be testing/using the app are employees of the company, you should look into the Enterprise Developer Program. Enterprise development lets you deploy an internal app to employees of your organization that is not released to the App Store. It essentially lets you build an Ad Hoc like version of your app that can then be installed on devices without the need to get UDIDs.
The cost is $299 instead of the normal $99 and there are a few caveats on whether or not your organization qualifies. But if you do qualify, it vastly simplifies deploying an internal app and it gives you specifically what you were asking for - no review and no need to ask for UDIDs. You can put the signed bundle up on a website and simply give people the URL to it for OTA installation, so you don't even need iTunes.
Alternatively, if the end users are not a part of your organization, you can also look into developing Custom B2B Apps. This one comes with a few more hoops to jump through and it also requires an Apple review, but it allows your app to be sold only to specific customers and doesn't put it in the App Store. If you're already a developer with Apple, there's even a WWDC video on it.
I am developing an app, which I have tested on the visual studio Emulator. I would Like to deploy it to about 8 Phones within our organization. Is there a way to deploy apps directly to the phones without going through the marketplace, or without having to pay the $99 per year app hub memebership fee. I don't need to deploy apps to the marketplace place at this time, just directly to our personal company phones.
I have tried running the "windows phone developer registration", but I get a message stating that I have to register my phone in the Marketplace, and that is where I am asked to pay a $99 membership fee.
Nope, unfortunately you can't deploy to any phone you want. The phone needs to be developer unlocked, meaning you need to have paid the $99 AppHub membership fee and registered the phone. I believe you can register a maximum of 3 phones under one account.
The other option is to, of course, jailbreak the phone. Google to see if you can lay your hands on a copy of Chevron WP7. The other owners may not be very willing to go along with this though. On the other hand, they'd probably love it if you bought all of them AppHub licenses :-)
You can unregister phones on AppHub, so maybe you can buy one license, unlock 3 phones, test on those, then unlock another 3 after unregistering the first 3 ...
If you have one developer account, you can use the beta feature on the AppHub to allow the other users in your organisation to download the app from the marketplace.
You just have to add their LiveId to the app. There's a limit on users, but if it was 10 or 50, I can't remember. You should go check it out.
If you don't have a developer account, you're pretty much square.
Stay tuned for Chevron Labs, where you will be able to unlock multiple devices for a small fee (in case you don't need to distribute apps in the Marketplace - exactly your situation). Otherwise, your only official choice is the AppHub unlock.
You must register as a developer, for which you have to pay the $99 registration fee. However, the new AppHub update gives you the ability to deploy your apps to the phones in your enterprise at no further cost, and they do NOT have to be developer unlocked.
You have two options. First is the private beta, in which you can have up to 99 people get your app before it goes through certification. I don't remember if this is time-limited or not. Second, is after your app gets certified, you can publish it as a hidden app, and only those people that you want to be able to install the app can. No one else can even see it in Marketplace.
Don't mess with unlocking the phones you want to put the app on - the best way is to go through the process and publish the apps as hidden.