Creating a magazine issue model to sell via in-app purchase

Question

We have developed a magazine style app for a client. Even though we're pretty happy about it we want to migrate to a in-app purchase version ASAP. The idea is to have an app much like Wired or Popular Science where you can purchase issues on a monthly basis.

We have read the in-app purchase programming guide, but the problem we're having is not related to the in-app purchase process at all. The real problem is the issues themselves, since they are made of View Controllers, assets, and so on.

I guess the question is how do we package a magazine issue and make it available to an app? Does anybody have an idea how to do this?

Answer 1

You could create your content with Interface Builder put the compiled nib files with their linked assets into a bundle and ship that. May you need to add a plist to the bundle that contains information about the content.

You will not be able to ship executable code (ViewControllers) via in-app purchase. There's no way (and your contract with Apple forbids) to get executable or interpreted program code into your app after the user downloaded it.

So you will need to define possible functionality upfront and include all code into your app. Only assets and nibs can be loaded afterwards.

In fact I am not quite sure about the nibs. From all I know and understand they are just a document format without any code, but I maybe wrong.

Answer 2

As a web page, displayed in a UIWebView?