Attaching in-app purchases to your binary

[dave.kilroy]

Hi all, I spent more than a day figuring this out so I hope my description of how to do this seemingly simple thing helps others - of course once you know how to do it it's simple...

I'm not talking about the code in your app to cater for in-app purchases, there is an excellent tutorial for that here http://lessons.runrev.com/s/lessons/m/4 ... n-livecode

First of all; if you go into your app's 'View Details' page in iTunes Connect before adding any in-app purchases you will see no mention of in-app purchases - but once you have added them (see below) there will be new, very-easy-to-miss section where you assign in-app purchases to a binary you are about to upload - and if you miss it (like I did) you will wander around iTunes Connect with no apparent way to attach in-app purchases to your app.

If you haven't already created some in-app purchases in iTunes Connect then create some now:

• In the app 'summary' page click the 'manage in app purchases' button and create one or more new in-app purchases:
  
  • Reference name: something like "com.companyname.appname.consumable1"
    
    Product ID: something like "consumableproduct1234"
    
    Cleared for Sale: make sure you select 'Yes'
    
    Price Tier: select a tier, any tier
    
    Click the 'Add Language' button, chose a language and enter a name and description for the in-app purchase (these are visible to the user)
    
    Add any review notes for the review in the box provided
    
    Upload a screen shot of the capability provided by the in-app purchase in action
    
    Click the 'Save' button
  Your in-app purchase should now be displaying the 'ready to submit' status

Now 'attach' these to the next binary of your app that you are going to upload to iTunes Connect:

• First make sure that you have not already uploaded your binary to iTunes Connect and are in 'waiting for review' status - if you have then it is too late to attach in-app purchases to them - you must go into 'View Details' and then ''Binary Details' and from there click the 'Reject Binary' button.
  
  Now that we have created some in-app purchases for this app (see above) in the app 'view details' page you should now see a new 'In-App Purchases' heading (almost at the bottom of the page - very easy to miss!) - click the 'edit' button beside the heading.
  
  Then select the in-app purchases you created earlier and then the 'Save' button - and these will be added to the next binary loaded to iTunes Connect.

Then click the 'Ready To Upload Binary' button, select 'No' if you are asked about changes to the binary's use of encryption, and click continue - the status of the app should now be 'Waiting For Upload'

Open Application Loader (which is a developer tool within Xcode)

• Click the top-right button displaying your Apple ID in order to log into iTunes Connect and once connected click the 'Done' button
  
  Click the 'Deliver Your App' button and in the following screen choose your app by name and click the 'Next' button
  
  In the next screen confirm the information about your app is correct and click the 'Choose' button
  
  In the dialog box that opens navigated to the zipped .app file that you built back in step xx and click the 'Open' button
  
  The Application Loader will now start preparing your app (authenticating, verifying etc) for uploading to iTunes Connect (if you click the 'Activity' button the 'Background Activity' panel will open giving feedback on the process), click the 'Send' button to proceed
  
  Various communication takes place between Application Loader and iTunes Connect and if the process finds no initial problems starts to upload the binary
  
  Eventually if all goes well you will see a big 'tick' and you're done.

Now if your return to the Manage in-app purchases page in iTunes Connect you should see the status of your in-app purchases as being 'waiting for review' - just like the app itself! You have succeeded!

Phew