On Oct 18, 9:33 pm, Tim Mensch <[email protected]> wrote: > On 10/18/2011 6:12 PM, Nathan wrote:> Despite the Market's crappy support for > inapp purchases, I am > > making some progress at providing some addons. > > > First, what problems have you seen with Market in-app purchases?
Oh, it tends to wear on me when I'm told that people have been trying for months to buy from me and can't. Especially when there are probably a lot more who just give up. If you look at this site, you will get a good idea of what things can happen, and hopefully won't. This is actually the site for the sample code, but most things logged there are Market problems. http://code.google.com/p/marketbilling/issues/list You will experience different things based on whether you are using managed or unmanaged items. Note: I am using the Urban Airship library, thinking that would save me some implementation and maintenance time (I was wrong). They do two things that the Market doesn't do, host a server side inventory list, and handle the delivery of binaries. Unfortunately, they appear to have less than 1/2 person working on it. It doesn't list inventory in HoneyComb, and they haven't fixed that after two months. On the plus side (kinda), they should be charging .05 per download, and haven't charged me a thing because they don't seem capable of tracking this. I've filed a support ticket. However, the Market appears to have even fewer people working on it. Maybe one quarter person? You'd think they'd put more importance on it after hyping it up at Google I/O, but defects just sit with noone working on them. Middle of June, I was tearing my hair out for days, blaming my own code and then Urban Airship, then discovering defect 14 from the list. I was unable to do any successful tests, so I didn't ship until July. Right now, issue 50 is on my mind. http://code.google.com/p/marketbilling/issues/detail?id=50&colspec=ID%20Type%20Status%20Google%20Priority%20Milestone%20Owner%20Summary It is fairly common for purchases to fail with the error "Took too long to deliver". Most people can get the order done on the third or fourth try. But some people are stuck for life. Despite the order being cancelled, the Market tells them they already have a pending order. I've sent google checkout numbers to the Market Help and asked users to do the same. No response. They've know about this problem for months, and it hasn't stopped a buggy version of the Market from being shipped more widely. > > If you just mean problems with an SDK that seems about 10x more > complicated than it should be, True, but no it hasn't been just that. > Second, since you're SELLING the app, it seems like the Market agreement > doesn't bind you to using the Market in-app purchasing SDK >From what I read, there would be some question if I were offering upgrades or enhanced functionality, or even virtual items like special game weapons, more game levels, or cheat codes, there could be issues. But since I am offering content, analogous to mp3s for a music player or books for an ereader, I think I am free to use another service. > -- and there > are a whole slew of payment processors that charge you less than a 30% > tithe and that offer Android SDKs. Who is on the top of your list? I'm very much interested. I'm hoping they can host binaries, list inventory, and preferably offer a web store. I may even offer content for non-Android users, since they are people too. >Some of those might actually be > easier to use than the Android payment processor, though I haven't gone > down that road myself. So why did you choose the Market in-app payments? > Am I missing some clause that makes it against the rules for a paid app > (AFAIK, it's only against the rules to use a third-party service to > activate a product downloaded for free from the Market)? > There is one reason to use the Market's official method: People have less buying resistance once they've already opened their wallet. When the Market is working, this has been true. Many people are very willing to buy an addon right after they have bought the product. If twice as many people are willing to buy, saving 30% is not a bargain. These people have already bought at least one paid app (mine) so they are likely to have gone through all the pain of putting a credit card into a small screen. But that said, I may need to offer an alternate way to buy and it could become the primary. I would like to streamline the process and eventually offer 100s of inapp items - not an exaggeration. Nathan -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Discuss" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-discuss?hl=en.
