Hi. I was wondering if anyone has gotten In-App purchasing working on an Xojo based app? If so, are you using external code like MBS or macoslib? If have gotten it working what issues did you run into that caused you and issue when trying to get it to work?
IAP is doable in Xojo, I chose the MBS route.
The most painful part is the provisioning profile for your machine. I found out the hard way, that Xcode can download the profile, it claims it’s okay, but when you test IAP it fails with server error 500. No documentation on this that I could find, no-one answered my questions in the ADF. I was at a lose. It was only when I decided to try to reset things back to the beginning did I delete the broken profile, and once Xcode had obtained the correct profile, it started working.
Probably the hardest part is knowing where to divide your application, trying to balance in terms of what the user will want to pay for. I can assure you that it is very different than what you think is fair. You may want to consult some other developers as I’ve yet to find that perfect break.
It’s doable and we have a lot of things in our MBS Plugins for that.
Sam and Christian, thanks for the feedback.
I just tried testing the MBS route and everything like showing a list of available items to purchase worked. But when I attempt to buy one of the items from list of items the StoreKit returns with and error 0, which it described as an unknown error. I attempted to refresh the profiles in Xcode but the error still occurred.
The provisioning profiles are interesting. Though I refreshed the Xcode provisioning profiles which didn’t help with IAP to allow me to purchase. The provisioning seem like they can be installed in system preferences also in addition to Xcode. When you got IAP working did you have the provisioning profiles downloaded to the system preferences also? Did you have to change anything with the sandbox user accounts?
with error?
ErrorCode zero normally means no error.
Did you read Apple’s docs about test purchases?
Yes we have read Apple’s docs about test purchases more times then number of fingers and toes I have.
[quote=154202:@Christian Schmitz]with error?
ErrorCode zero normally means no error.[/quote]
Yes, zero was the error code and it stated that it was and unknown error. I think zero is one of those codes that hide any issues related to their stuff. lol.
Update
Regardless of the error 0 I did get it to work. I created a new sandbox user account and tried to purchase with the new account and the purchase went through with out any error. I didn’t rebuild the app I was using as my test a app, so the code in the app played no part in fixing the IAP pushing issues. I’m not sure why creating a new sandbox user account did but the IAP purchasing is now working. So I can agree that the MBS plugins allows IAP purchase to function in a Xojo based app.
Yes I agree. With all the bad stigma in regards to IAP in a lot of iOS apps finding the correct balance for IAP in a Mac app could definitely be a challenge.
Great 
What we find most annoying is how well IAP works for some audiences and not others. The same can be said for doing a lite app and pro app. For some products, having a lite app is the only way to success, yet with others we’ve seen the lite app actually kill the paid app!
It comes down to understanding your target audience and here I’m afraid you’re going to need to do market research. As I mentioned before, this is an area that we ourselves are still trying to figure out. You need to understand what people will pay for, which is different than what they want or need. if you can understand that, you’re on the right track.
Sam, I agree. I might add that the Audience that we’re dealing with is split into to two camps. The traditional Mac/PC users and other type who came over from the iOS/Andriod. The traditional Mac/PC users understand the value in software and that It can cost something which determines that value. iOS/Andriod user believe that anything they buy software wise should be valued the same, which is free. Or $.99 or .99. And the only time they want to pay is when they are entertained. Well I could be placing these two camps in to an incorrect light but hopefully it got the point across.
So how can IAP be used in regards to a given app catatory and the a specific sub audience whom are willing to value what is done for them by the app developer. I don’t know the answer to either. I belive all we can do is try what we understand and if that doesn’t work hopefully learn from our misunderstanding and try again.
I have made a presentation in Koblenz this year about IAP with MBS Plugins… I’ll try to finish the how-to when itunesconnect reopen.
that would be awesome.