selling products in an iphone app using self developed credit clearing services

Question

I'd like to sell products through my application (insurance policies) and I don't want to use the in-app purchase mechanism as it would mean sharing 30% of the product price. Instead I would like to provide the user with a page to enter his/her credit card details and perform the credit clearing through my own self-developed secured services.

My question: is selling products which are not content or features, using my own purchasing system, prohibited by Apple or appstore policy?

Answer 1

Obviously, I am not a lawyer, but I think you’ll be OK. Here’s my interpretation of the three relevant rules from the developer guidelines (emphasis mine):

11.1 Apps that unlock or enable additional features or functionality with mechanisms other than the App Store will be rejected.

11.2 Apps utilizing a system other than the In App Purchase API (IAP) to purchase content, functionality, or services in an app will be rejected.

11.3 Apps using IAP to purchase physical goods or goods and services used outside of the application will be rejected.

The first rule prohibits you from unlocking anything inside of your app with something other than the App Store. This would prevent you from, say, making a game that downloads new levels from your server based on your membership to a website.

The second rule prohibits you from, say, making a game and enabling PayPal in it to unlock more levels. Apple wants you to use in-app purchase for that.

The third rule—and this is where it gets interesting—prohibits you from using in-app purchase in an application to buy “physical goods” or “goods and services used outside of the application.” Nowhere does it say, however, that you can’t use other purchasing systems.

With that third rule, I think what Apple is saying is this: anything that runs on the iPhone must be purchased through the App Store, and everything purchased in the App Store must run on iOS. For something like insurance, which isn’t new functionality in the app, I think you’ll be OK. This is absolutely worth an e-mail to Apple’s technical support staff, but if you look at Amazon’s app, you can purchase physical goods using Amazon’s checkout system.