What a major clusterfudge. I want to put ads into my app. Because I’m going to offer my app for free, ads would be the only way to get some income. Should be easy, I would think. First, I do the necessary research to find out that I accomplish this via AdMob, a Google product. I visit the AdMob website, create an account for myself, create an ad unit that will be used by my app, and do everything else they want me to do. Done. Can I put ads into my app yet? No. I do more research and find out that in order to use AdMob on my Mac, I need to download a file called GoogleServiceInfo.plist, and add it to my project. So I do that. Done. Can I put ads into my app yet? No. I do some more research and find out that I need the Software Development Kit (SDK) for AdMob. Okay, how do I get that? I do some more research and find out that in order to put the SDK into my project, I need to have something called Firebase incorporated into my Xcode project. Once I have Firebase installed, then I can simply tell Firebase to install the AdMob SDK, after which I should be able to put ads into my app. So I visit the Firebase website and begin researching how to put Firebase onto my Mac. The instructions say that Firebase is put onto my Mac by using something called CocoaPods. I have no idea what CocoaPods is, so . . . I research CocoaPods and find a website that explains what CocoaPods is, and how to install it on my Mac. The instructions say, “CocoaPods is built with Ruby and it will be installable with the default Ruby available on macOS. You can use a Ruby Version manager, however we recommend that you use the standard Ruby available on macOS unless you know what you’re doing. Well, I have no idea what I’m doing, so I’m pretty sure that using the standard Ruby is the way to go. After reading the next paragraph I begin to think about taking my own life. The next paragraph says, “Using the default Ruby install will require you to use “sudo” when installing gems.” First of all, I have no idea what “sudo” is and, secondly, I didn’t know I was trying to install “gems”. I thought I was trying to install CocoaPods, not gems. Maybe CocoaPods is some kind of gem. Whatever. I ignore this confusion and proceed. The instructions tell me to open up a terminal (fortunately, I do know how to do that. Then I’m suppose to type in an instruction that, they tell me, will install CocoaPods. I’m thinking to myself, once I type in this instruction, I’ll get CocoaPods. Once I get CocoaPods, I can then install Firebase, and using Firebase, I will be able to load the AdMob SDK, after which I should be able to put ads into my app. But no. There’s more. I’m now asked to put in my password. Password? Which password? My Apple password? That doesn’t work. My Mac password? That doesn’t work. My AdMob password? that doesn’t work. How about my banking password, or my medical records password or my gaming password? No, no, and no. Is there any reference to password in the instructions? No.  Does anyone but me think this is really screwed up? Do any of the highly educated people at Apple understand how this might be a little confusing? Does anyone care? Probably not.

I'm have an existing app in the AppStore which is paid. I want to update this app to be free with ads, with an In App Purchase option for removing ads. The problem is: for all the people that already paid for the app, I want to provide the update with the ads removed by default. Is there any way to accomplish this?