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Restoring subscriptions while not re-logging into app account

  • 10 December 2021
  • 2 replies
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Hi,

I’m developing an app that requires the users to sign in before making purchases (subscriptions).

However, as I understand, Apple requires that we add a Restore button that enables restoring purchases without the user having to log into app’s account.

My question is about the following case:

  1. the user logs in, makes a purchase
  2. for some reason, e.g. on a new phone, the user enters the app w/o being logged in, does not log in and restores his purchases, his subscriptions therefore transferred to the id auto-generated for the anonymous user
  3. Question 1: if the same user does log in on their Android device, will they be able to access the subscription?
  4. Question 2: I understand that if the user logs in on said new iphone device after restoring purchases, the new anonymous id along with the purchases will be merged with the existing id, therefore providing access on Android devices where the users signs in as well. Is that correct?

Thank you kindly. :)

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Best answer by ryan 10 December 2021, 02:29

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Hey @KKG!

 

You technically just need a mechanism for customers to restore, you don’t necessarily need a restore button necessarily. More info in this article: 

 

  1. the user logs in, makes a purchase
  2. for some reason, e.g. on a new phone, the user enters the app w/o being logged in, does not log in and restores his purchases, his subscriptions therefore transferred to the id auto-generated for the anonymous user

 

Since your app requires customers to sign in, in this scenario I would not present the “restore” button to users if they have not signed in (you can check the isAnonymous property on PurchaserInfo or your auth mechanism probably has this). So customers need to log in or create an account first before they’d be allowed to restore. 

Of course this is under the assumption that Apple does not require a restore button pre-sign in...

However, as I understand, Apple requires that we add a Restore button that enables restoring purchases without the user having to log into app’s account.

I know a lot of apps on the App Store make you sign in before taking any other action (Netflix, Spotify, HBO, Salesforce, etc.).

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I would not present the “restore” button to users if they have not signed in(...)
I know a lot of apps on the App Store make you sign in before taking any other action (Netflix, Spotify, HBO, Salesforce, etc.).

 

I know! And that would be the obvious and the best way to do that. Although the RC docs say:

“Apple does require a restore mechanism in the event a user loses access to their purchases (e.g: uninstalling/reinstalling the app, losing their account information, etc).” which made me ask the question.

I guess the quotation above might mean providing a means to recover lost account information (e.g. password recovery), not necessarily allowing restoring w/o logging in.

Thank you for your advice.

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