Mention an outside payment system for subscription in an iOS app

in-app-purchaseitunes

According to Apple's In-App Subscription Rules,

Apps can read or play approved content (specifically magazines, newspapers, books, audio, music, and video) that is subscribed to or purchased outside of the app, as long as there is no button or external link in the app to purchase the approved content.

The questions are:

  1. If I don't link my webpage (where the user would be albe to subscribe without going through iTunes) directly but I just mention that it is possible to subscribe via my website (and perhaps I write my website down but I don't make it clickable), would Apple reject my app?

  2. What if I also mention that if you subscribe via the website you'll get a free month of subscription, but again, I don't provide any automated way to go to my website?

  3. What if I mention that if you subscribe via website the price will be lower?

Best Answer

What you suggest will get rejected very quickly. I read a quote from the guidelines somewhere (sorry, can't pin it down) that included a phrase about not being allowed to induce users to use another, external, payment system of any sort, which would apply to your various mentions. This is exactly what Spotify ran into recently, they removed the ability to subscribe from inside the app, and put in a page mentioning that there was a way to subscribe outside (with no direct "go here, do this"). They also (separately?), asked for an email address (to which they could eventually send subscription offers, though they made no mention of that). Apple shot it down, Spotify complained very publicly, Apple's lawyer responded publicly.