In App Purchase: dynamically add non consumable items

Question

I\'m developing an app where the user can purchase digital maps, charts and so on. I\'d like to wrap these in in-app-purchases. The thing is that I don\'t know beforehand how ma

Answer 1

Whether you have these purchased directly via IAP or through some kind of in-app "currency" you could simplify the amount of work you'd need to do in the future by using a naming system which would guarantee a unique map name for each item you want to sell. For example:

 NSString *myMapName = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@%@%@%@", app_identifier, map_type, top_left_corner_location, scale];

This way if your server passes that information for a new map, there's a programmatic way to know what the IAP identifier should be— just make it the value of the string myMapName.

In the case where you use currency (which sounds easier than the alternative option, and is what lots of big apps out there seem to be doing) you just need to make a hash with some data in your map so that people can't guess the code you're storing in their keychain/plist and magically get all your maps without paying :)

In the case where you actually have individual IAPs for each map, sadly you do have to make an IAP for every possible map once. (But you can hire some kid to do that part for minimum wage, right? It's just data entry) They can be basic shells, though, with the actual info provided via your server as described above, once it's verified that the map has actually been purchased.

Hope this helps!