same subscription with same appleid twice

Hi,


I need your help with a problem. In my app, I offer a registration for access to an online portal via Mac or PC. If the user completes a subscription for one month, he can register and log into the online portal.


The problem is, however, if e.g. a company has linked all employee iphones with the same Apple ID. Then only one subscription has to be completed and another time, on a second device, is not possible, because then comes a message that this subscription has already been completed.


Even if I link the subscription with a UserID and the DeviceID in the backend, the second device with the same AppleID can not complete the subscription. Right?


Should every iPhone in this case have its own AppleID? That would of course be a big disadvantage, since certainly the company devices all use the same account for reasons of purchase.


How can I solve this problem? I really want to use auto renewing subscriptions and no consumable purchases.


Many thanks for your help!

Replies

>a company has linked all employee iphones with the same Apple ID.


This is rare and inappropriate. It also means that each employee can access the credit card associated with that Apple ID.


>Even if I link the subscription with a UserID and the DeviceID in the backend, the second device with the same AppleID can not complete the subscription. Right?


Apple policy is that a user should be able to restore an IAP to all their devices so it would be a violation of that policy.


I was able to limit a non-renewing subscription 'restore' to 5 devices 'owned by the same user' using the Apple ID's iCloud key-value file to count the number of devices during a subscription period. App Review objected until I added a method whereby a user could contact me and explain how they have more than 5 devices. Then it was ok. You could implement the same thing. The iCloud key-va;ue file is specific to the Apple ID.

>Even if I link the subscription with a UserID and the DeviceID in the backend, the second device with the same AppleID can not complete the subscription. Right?


You can link on your backend all you want, but in that example, the second device should prompt the user with the blanket Apple ID to restore the previously completed purchase (same apple id, multiple devices), which by default denies them the opportunity to complete an already completed subscription purchase.


Otherwise, it's not clear if you're having trouble getting this done, or, trouble prohibiting one or more specific scenarios...my guess is the former. If your problem is many users having to make only one purchase, you may want to re-visit your business model and cover that up front with the company, such as via VPP/B2B, and not via IAP.