Effectively Handle iOS Payments in Rails

It's no longer sufficient to run an exclusively web-based application. You need a mobile strategy if you're to stay ahead of the competition. However managing payments on mobile is a developer's worst nightmare. Stripe has solved this very well for web-based applications, but on mobile, it's a different story.

How Payments Work on iOS

Purchases in iOS are available either in-app or upfront. Payments are taken care of by Apple and they take a hefty 30% commission of the sale. For their part, they cover security of the user data and ensure that the purchases are available in all of the customer's devices.

While this sounds great on the surface, it is actually a pain to manage in real life. You'll have to ensure that the customers have access to this content at all times. If you're running a subscription which works across all devices, things get a little tricky. Apple does not send you any information on who subscribed. Apple protects the user's identity very well by making the developer's life harder.

In this article, I'll help you learn how to accept iOS payments and subscriptions from your Rails app, including the common gotchas, and how to stay on Apple's good side.

Continue reading %Effectively Handle iOS Payments in Rails%

by Vasu K via SitePoint