This is an issue I'm also running into. I don't see much on the forum regarding apps and integration with an LMS like Moodle or D2L. We want to sell online courses, and are a large educational institution, but want to build and deliver some of the courses as native mobile apps, as our multimedia and interactivity performance needs are far beyond what we can do via the web. We'd like to have prospective students buy the courses the same way they always do, through the institution's web site, and offer the apps for free, with successful enrolment in the course unlocking the course content in the app. Looks like that's going to be a problem though:
11.1 Apps that unlock or enable additional features or functionality with mechanisms other than the App Store will be rejected
11.2 Apps utilizing a system other than the In-App Purchase API (IAP) to purchase content, functionality, or services in an App will be rejected
But apps like Lumosity and NHL Gamecenter Live use a subscription model so you can "unlock" content in the app by signing in. The IAP is there, and the price is higher than through the website to cover Apple's 30% (Spotify does this also), but if you know about it, you can buy the subscription for a cheaper price on the website, outside of the app. Could this be a method we could use? I understand that we aren't allowed to use a link, button or any other method of encouraging the user to leave the app to purchase anything, but we can instruct the student on how to best buy the product from the institution website when they create a user acount and student ID with us.
That leads to another question: Would students be required to be able to create an account in the app, or merely sign in, and the account creation (which we would prefer for our LMS, CMS, student records, etc.) would have to happen at the institution website. Would Apple reject that? If someone else out there has figured out a way to integrate native mobile apps with educational institution learning management systems, I'd love to hear about it.
Another option is to build the apps as enterprise apps, use OTA distribution with a link inside the LMS so that students can only get to the link once they've purchased and been enroled in the course, and download the app to their device for free. There has to be a solution out there that works for Apple, us, and the student, without being a hassle.