Cross-Platform In-App Purchase

Bonus content: Without making my post too long, here is some bonus content about our processes and flows.

Sign Up: Customer Signs Up, Account is Registered on our back end, Associated Account and Payment methods are Registered With Stripe, Customer is subscribed via Stripe.

Usage: Customer is logged in (Android, iOS, or Web), Customer can make access codes, modify Stripe Subscriptions, and login information (This is synced across all devices since any platform can access stripe subscription data and make modifications).

Problem: If a subscription is made via IAP on iOS, android users and web-portal cannot modify account subscription as there are no server API's or calls that can modify IAP

In terms of maintaining status for a multi-platform service there are tools that can be used server to server to help address some of your concerns. One thing to note that is modifying the current subscription does require access to the Apple ID that completed the purchase and a valid platform to manage their subscriptions from: https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/manage-purchases-subscriptions-settings-iph3dfd91de/ios

We have the existing verifyReceipt API and App Store Server Notifications (version 1) that can provide status in either pull or push model that use the StoreKit original app receipt and format. While a series of new Server API's available or releasing soon that use the original_transaction ID as the token and transactions utilize the JWS format to provide a more robust set tools, lookups, etc. for maintaining status in realtime server to server. News and doc updates coming soon. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/appstoreserverapi https://developer.apple.com/documentation/appstoreserverapi/get_all_subscription_statuses https://developer.apple.com/documentation/storekit/original_api_for_in-app_purchase/subscriptions_and_offers/enabling_app_store_server_notifications https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2021/10174

Thanks for your response! You mentioned:

One thing to note that is modifying the current subscription does require access to the Apple ID that completed the purchase and a valid platform to manage their subscriptions from.

This is my exact road block. In a situation where a user signs up with IAP and then eventually switches mobile platforms or shares an account with an Android user, then the subscription is essentially stuck and stagnant. Neither I from my back end, nor the subscriber can change and modify the subscription from an android or any other platform other than the purchasing account. I guess obtaining the status of a subscription is not an issue, as this can even be done on the back end with a database, but the issue rather lies in modifying the subscription from a device that did not purchase it, but is, however, using the shared account.

I see that you're an engineer, and it's great to speak with another engineer. I would objectively state that it is not viable nor fair for Apple to push IAP on developers who provide a multi-platform service due to the fact that Apple themselves have not built out the infrastructure needed to manage these customers. I mean I can't even obtain an email from the purchase – how can customers be verified, contacted, or notified? I get that I can associate them with a transaction ID, but again, even with that, I'm unable to modify their subscription or even have them modify it outside of the on-device Apple UI. Stripe gives developers full control. Every customer has an account that is manageable from a dashboard, there's a plethora of web hooks for different scenarios, we can see who we are reaching and provide them with emails, physical goods, and extensions on late payments – even prorate subscription changes. Moreover, they provide us with full control with subscription management and integration (or at least advanced web hooks) for external services.

If Apple has indeed established a dashboard backend with API calls that allow developers to control and manage subscriptions outside of the Apple Ecosystem (whether that be UI or script) – such as Stripe – then we would have no problem using Apple's network. It would actually be preferred. However, without the tools, IAP for subscriptions is useless for multi-platform services and services that rely on external 3rd party companion services. It is limiting. IAP has it's time and place, and that's for game tokens and levels. For real-world services that have complex architectures and heavy reliance on additional backend platforms/services, it is no where near what other payment processing services can provide. And, until Apple has built out IAP with features that allow us to do this, providing a real-world subscription with IAP is not feasible. I know you probably cannot comment on this, but we know you agree.

Did you ever solve this?