Movie Rental App

Hello,


I am looking into possibly providing a Transactional Video-On-Demand (TVOD) feature in our app where a user could rent an asset to watch for a given time period (i.e. 2 days). After the time period expires, the user cannot watch the asset, even if they have not viewed it previously.


1. What type of IAP should we use for video rental? Non-renewing subscription?


2. In the case where titles become available and unavailable on a weekely basis, would we have to create a single IAP item for each video in App Store Connect, or is there some other way Apple recommends to implement/manage a service like this?


Thanks In Advance,


Joe

Replies

Joe:


1. Non-renewing consumable for a one time buy/view. You'd use a non-renewing subscription for something like a season pass. See: https://developer.apple.com/in-app-purchase/


2. Look into using tokens instead of 1:1 title-centric purchase


Ken

You can use a single IAP - a non-renewing subscription for X days, and allow the user to purchase it multiple times. Each purchase would be for a video of their choice. A user could buy multiple subscriptions to extend the time period. You could have multiple tiers of non-renewing subscriptions (e.g. Non-renewing subscription "A" for tier one videos for 2 days, "B" for tier two videos for 2 days, "C" for tier 1 videos for 30 days).


Alternatively, and different from what you are proposing, is to sell a consumable 'credit' that lasts forever but once used allows the user to view a particular video for a particular time period. e.g. purchase 10 credits on April 1. Use 5 credits on May 10 to allow me to view video A until May 15. Use 5 credits on July 4 to allow me to view video B until July 9.


Both of the schemes above would allow you to apply the purchase to any video available at the time it was either purchased (in the case of the non-renewing subscription) or utilized (In the case of the consumable credit).


Non-renewing subscriptions are very flexible; autorenewing subscriptions less so. You could though offer a premium autorenewing subscription that allowed the user to view anything during the renewing term of the subscription.

Hi JoeRadTMUS, KMT and PBK


I'm currently dealing with a very similar issue and I think we'll go for the non-renewing subscriptions route. The only issue I see is that if I have a non-renewing subscription "A" that can be used for multiple "movies". How would identify each of the subscription individually? I'm thinking for example that I want to know when user cancels the subscription to a certain movie. How would I know which one it is?


Any tips on that?


Fran

A user really doesn’t ‘cancel’ a non-renewing Subscription - they instead just don’t renew it. All you would need to do is ask the user, immediately after they purchase a subscription, for which video they want to use the subscription. Then create or extend the subscription for that video.