Does my app have to be approved in the app store for me to test in-app purchases?

That’s what I was thinking previously. It is strange. Do you think there are any requirements of the binary, such as it must have a reference to the products? How would Apple check that? More specifically, do I have to upload a store-ready binary or just a developer build? I’m nowhere near store ready, as yet.

I know Google Play looks to make sure the currently uploaded APK file has the Billing permission.  So in their case, you just have to upload an “Alpha” build to test.  Amazon just has to have the products submitted and approved and they test through a different tool.  But for iOS, it seems that while Apple could scan for the presence of some SDK’s (like they do to generate the push notification warnings) but I don’t believe they do. I’ve seen no evidence of it.

Rob

Thank you for your walk through - I’ll try to follow that now.

Disappointingly, almost a full month after last submitting my iAPs I’ve received this from apple:

“One or more of your In-App Purchases has been returned for the following app:”

I’m not expecting much useful info inside iTunes Connect.

Well, now I have the app submitted and waiting for review. The iAP items were created just before submitting the binary and are ready to submit. Should I reject the binary and submit the items? Should I submit the items and then reject the binary? Should I just leave it as it is and wait?

You def. should get the IAP items submitted.  I would wait until they are submitted to reject the binary.

Rob

It would appear that now I have uploaded the binary, I cannot submit the iAPs. The iAP Submit for Review button is greyed out.

You may have to contact Apple support. 

Rob

Ok, so attaching the items to the version is necessary before marking the app for binary upload.

This is complicated. Surely there’s a simpler way for the store owners to run this.

So, now, both the iAP’s and the binary are “waiting for review.”

If I revoke the binary, won’t that cause the iAP’s to not get reviewed by the App Store Police? Or, should I definitely revoke the binary in the next few hours?

Also, should I use a development provisioning profile to test the iAP’s with?

I don’t think rejecting the binary will cause you a problem.

A development profile should cause the app to use the sandbox for testing. 

Rob

Thanks, thegdog, that actually helped me figure this out.

  1. I did end up deleting the IAP and recreating it. I can’t be certain but I think leaving your IAP without a screenshot is important during the testing phase.

  2. I made an Ad-hoc distribution profile. This was the key, I think. I can’t trust distro or developer but Ad-hoc seems to work.

  3. I made sure that I could print the list of products available (see Corona’s sample code).

From there, it worked! (And my app is still listed as “Developer Rejected” - I did not have to reupload anything.)

@richard9,

Glad to hear that you got it working!

Can’t believe this still doesn’t work. After tomorrow, it won’t matter because the store will shutdown for a week…

I’ve submitted the binary and attached the iAPs to it, waited a week and the binary was Waiting for Review while the iAPs were In Review. They never appeared to make any progress, so I have rejected the binary. This appears to have put the iAPs back to Waiting for Review.

Guess I just wait…

horacebury, did you end up resolving the problem? Did the IAP get approved after rejecting, or how did you go about it?

EDIT: Not sure how up to date the iTunes connect documentation is, but according to Apple:

  1. Uploading a build (regardless of whether you reject it) guarantees that IAP won’t work. The only work around, according to the doc, is to upload a build that does not use IAP, get it approved by Apple (not live, of course, but approved), and then modify your game to support IAP after.

  2. You’re (apparently) just supposed to add the IAP without a screenshot, and then it should work…? (well, not for me, but according to the docs…)

As an FYI, having just gone through adding IAP to an existing app, I can share that you can test successfully with an adhoc profile.  I have only ever created adhoc and appstore profiles, and was able to test using the adhoc one.

@richard9 I stopped trying when the store shut down for Christmas and now I’m working on something else. I’m distracted easily, it would appear. I’ll let you know when I get back to it.

@thegdog Would you be able to post a very explicit walkthrough, for those of us who are having difficulty, please? I think this would be very, very valuable. (And when I say explicit, I mean every single click.)

Yeah, I would love to see a walkthrough too. I’d write one myself if I could actually get past this stumbling block. (As it is, seemingly the only way forward it rewrite my app to have no IAP, then write it back in after approval? Which seems insane)

Yeah. I went through the labour of deleting all the iTunes Connect iAP content and resubmitting (didn’t actually remove the iAP code) before hitting the Christmas wall.

Oh, so you submitted with IAP options but not IAP connect-side? How did that go?

I recreated the iAPs, sorry, should have mentioned that. As in: I started from scratch.