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What does in-app purchase (IAP) mean?

20.10.2023

Development, implementation, promotion of your applications for promoting goods and services through popular marketplaces is a certain number of tasks that need to be solved in a timely manner. Of course, both Apple developer and Huawei developer, Android developer provide a wide range of tools to automate most of all processes. Each famous brand guarantees a certain level of security. However, you also need to be personally concerned with increasing the reliability of your software and preventing potential actions by scammers as they popularize their applications and expand their user audience. One way to do this as efficiently as possible is through IAP.

What is IAP and what is it intended for?

IAP – In-App Purchase is a service for purchasing virtual goods within the application itself. A striking example is game currency, the acquisition of new levels and items in games. This is usually done by developers in order to monetize their product, but offering it for a fee is irrational or pointless. But warming up the interest of application users and their passion for the game process through the ability to quickly get all the tools necessary to advance in the game for real money is an excellent option that shows really high results.

Despite the presence of such an option, it is not so easy to immediately understand how to connect this service through Apple, having a developer account, or in Google, where you can also create a developer console. Therefore, it is better to use the guidance that is offered based on the existing experience of developers and SEO optimizers.

Main functionality of In-App Purchase

In principle, to sell virtual goods, it is enough to have the appropriate tools in the developer’s account. If a developer account has not yet been created on the Apple platform, or there is no Huawei developer account, you will need to create one. There are no problems with this, because the whole procedure is as follows:

Open the official website of the brand you are interested in.
Click on the registration button.
Enter the specified data – full name, current phone number, address.
Deciding on a tariff plan depends on whether only one developer or a team of specialists will use Huawei developer or Google developer.
Confirm your desire to register using the verification code from your email.
Pay for the service according to the selected tariff plan.
Log in to the system.

Next, we’ll look at IAP binding step by step using the example of those who have Android developer and Google developer console. The whole process looks like this:

You must have the IMarketBillingService.aidl file. It can be taken from similar applications that already have an active in-app purchase – this is also a downloadable component of the Android SDK.
Launch Android SDK and AVD Manager.
After this, you need to select Available Packages.
Let’s go step by step Third party add-ons -> Google Inc. add-ons -> Google Market Billing package.

From the downloaded example, copy the file into your project, and it must certainly go to com.android.vending.billing. Add the extension <uses-permission android:name=”com.android.vending.BILLING”/>.

It is important to take into account that in the example there will definitely be several classes of working with the payment system. The gradation looks like this:

BillingReceiver – needed to receive asynchronous responses from the marker, redirect to the next level;
BillingService – created to send requests to the market;
Consts – this contains all the constants of the example application;
Dungeons is a statistical option that allows you to see the history of successful purchases at any time;
PurchaseDatabase – local level database;
PurchaseObserver – this section marks all changes related to purchases;
ResponseHandler is a database update option;
Security – responsible for compliance with all security standards.

In the Security class, you must enter your PublicKey, which was created during registration on the developer platform.

In the Dungeons section, you need to change the list of products to the one that will be offered specifically in your application. If your own experience and skills are not yet enough to perform all these actions and adjust parameters, you can always contact the Nova.Shop company, which develops applications, configures their security and promotes the most famous brands and new but promising companies through any popular marketplaces.

Important security and functionality considerations

Actively promoting your application through the Huawei developer console or Apple account developer can ultimately significantly increase the risk of fraud. The more popular the application, the larger its audience, the more interesting the project for scammers. Their actions can not only cause some financial harm to software users, but also seriously affect the reputation of your product. To prevent such developments, it is enough to take into account the following recommendations:

Send your backend to purchaseToken to keep a correct record of all purchases.
Make sure that the purchaseToken is unique so that it can be used securely.
Ensure that users have the right to make the same purchase.

Thus, using In-App Purchase is a smart solution to automate all user purchases in your app. But the settings need to be done as competently and thoughtfully as possible to eliminate potential risks of fraud.