In this lesson, you will learn how to prepare your app for publishing in the Apple & Google App Store and Google Play Store. By following the steps in the tutorial below, you will ensure your app meets Apple & Google’s app store review guidelines prior to submission and also Google’s developer program policy prior to submission.
Apple & Google have guidelines that you need to adhere to if you would like an app on their app store for customers to download some of these are things like:
- You must have an adequate Privacy Policy.
- EULA (End User License Agreement)
- If you allow users to sign up on your app then you must allow them to be able to delete their profile & data as they please.
- If you are using any feature that allows your members to interact then you have to have reporting functionality.
- If you are selling any digital goods such as memberships or courses then you must turn on in-app Purchasing.
Let Me explain a little more…
Privacy Policy
Privacy Policy is a must to protect you and let all your customers know in advance that by signing up they adhere to how your site stores and uses data from your members and that your members are agreeing to this by filling out their details by signing up.
Privacy Policies are vast and in depth especially in this line of work so we don’t recommend you sit there and try writing this yourself as this would take you days if not weeks to get them right and instead to go online and find a paid service that specializes in Privacy Policy writing.
EULA
End User License Agreement, this differs from your privacy policy as it is a user agreement between you and your customer. This is more geared around what they can expect in using your platform, this again is an in depth document which covers things about if a customer sees content posted by other members that maybe inappropriate, then this is not the intention of your platform and therefore you cannot be held responsible for others actions and can not be liable for any grievance a user might want to pin on you as the service. This then means Apple & Google also are out of the water here as you have your own EULA that you agreed to when setting up your Apple & Google developer accounts.
We recommend again that you find a paid service online from specialists that handle these policies… Luckily enough most of the services that handle Privacy Policies also handle EULA and Terms & conditions.
Profile Deletion
This may seem an obvious setting or option to have to most of us but this only became a must mid last year. This is because of other bigger social media platforms actually not deleting or removing your data when you thought you were closing your account. Instead what they were doing is using the word ‘deactivate’ your account which meant the data is still held and if you ever went back to signup again years down the line your account just got reactivated and you carry on where you left off. Now this is against people’s data rights and they now should always have the option to leave and remove their data if they choose.
So we added that in as a checkbox setting for you to turn on. You may question why this is an option.. Well not all our customers use our product for public use or run their app in the same way. Example would be if you are utilizing the Buddyboss platform as an internal business tool or a private app.
Moderation
So if you are using any of the social features Buddyboss provides to allow your members to see each other, communicate with one another or even post content for others to see be it forums or activity feeds, this then opens the doors up to spam accounts being setup, real account members sending inappropriate content or even harassing other users in some way.
With our moderation feature that Apple & Google requires, this allows your members to report on and block other members that might be in breach of any of these reasons. Your members are also able to report on content, members, forums even groups if they feel it is in some way inappropriate.
You also have full control as an admin of how these actions are to be handled as to not let your members over moderate on your platform because let’s face it some people are a lot more sensitive than others.
For example you may set the option that a minimum number of reported instances must be actioned before the member that is being reported is then suspended and then you are notified as an admin to look at, at which time you the admin get the option to reinstate or even block permanently. You also get the same options for content posting, groups and so on…
In-App Purchasing
This might not be applicable to you but is always worth noting if you decide later on to go down the membership or course purchasing route (digital products).
If you have a website and already sell memberships or course content through it then this is probably already being handled by a payment gateway such as WooCommerce or your Membership plugin.
If you then choose to have an app with Apple & Google you can go 1 of 2 ways…
The first being you can have a Read Only App or Reader App as it is referred to (read more about Reader App). Reader apps mean that your users can see any courses they might have previously bought from your website or content they may have access to due to their membership status, but will always have to return back to your site to make any further purchases. This might seem like a great idea as Apple & Google take 15% commission if purchased in the app, but as a stipulation you are not allowed any advertising of your products in the app, upselling or linking back to your products to be bought from your website within the app. So this might not be the perfect situation you thought and depends on how you run your platform.
Please Note: If you are caught trying to find ways around this by Apple or Google they deem it a breach of trust and can remove your app from the app store permanently.
The second is to set up in-app purchases in Apple & Google for the same membership or course content except the purchase goes through Apple & Google Pay to Apple & Google first, they then take their 15% and then give you the remainder! Like some of our app customers you can mitigate this cost by making the content purchased in your app 15% higher than your website prices as you have full control and pricing does not have to match your site.
Related Material
Apple App Store Publishing Checklist
Click the link below to download our Apple & Google App Store Publishing Checklist.Apple & Google App Store Publishing Checklist PDF
