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I am looking to develop a mobile application that allows users to sell and purchase a digital asset using a micropayment credit system. We also may require using internal functionality of the mobile device such as photo library. After reading it looks like we have to create a native application for iOS because of the functionality requirements.

The questiona are:

  1. Is this something that would be difficult to get approval in the apple app store?
  2. Does it make sense to just target android?
  3. Is there any way to circumvent the issue of internal functionality like photo library in an html5 safari application, or would you rethink the application functionality?
  4. What would be the logistics of having apple take such a large chunk of revenue for users when its less on android or the web based application version?
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What do you mean by "digital assets", for example? – David Mar 21 '11 at 17:02
Something that is creative content that is created and exist digitally, such as a text or photo. – mconnors Mar 21 '11 at 17:28

1 Answer

up vote 3 down vote accepted

1. Likely your app will be rejected:

  1. Purchasing and currencies

11.1 Apps that unlock or enable additional features or functionality with mechanisms other than the App Store, except as approved in section 11.13, 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 11.3 Apps using IAP to purchase physical goods or goods and services used outside of the application will be rejected

source:http://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/approval/guidelines.html

2. It may make sense:

The market is big but the heat is in the App Store.

3. Sure:

For example just make the users send the photos from an email. Or make an app to just upload and view pictures in your market. Rights then could be bought there.

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Thanks, I finally came to the same conclusions. I realized after a lot of reading, you can only sell anything that apple has approved through itunes- meaning you can't resell other peoples content unless it went back though the approval process. Thank you for the response. – mconnors Apr 7 '11 at 4:51

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