After 4 months have passed I just want to inform you about the outcome
of the discussed topic (at least for our company) :
Since this questions has some meaning for our business I directly asked
Apple ([email protected]) in October ’11 before starting to implement the paypal API into our App:
Dear review team,
I have a question regarding the use of an external payment mechanism ( paypal gateway for iOS) inside an app:
we plan to create a social network app, which informs users about events,/ parties in their neighborhood
as well as provides some sort of communication between the users of the app.
We also have the idea to sell some tickets for some of the events (with the agreement of the organizers) using the paypal gateway for iOS.
Now my question is:
Since event tickets are “physical goods” there are no restrictions regarding the use of the paypal gateway, correct ?
(It’s not allowed to implement the “In Purchase Api” for this purpose, since the sold products wouldn’t be ‘virtual goods’, right ?)
Thank You for Your support
..
After 6 days we received the following answer:
Dear …,
Thank you for contacting the App Review team. Apple is not able to provide pre-approval for proposed application submissions or to review and comment on application concepts or code.
That said, apps that use In-App Purchase for physical goods, are not appropriate for the App Store. It would be appropriate to deliver the purchase of physical goods through external purchase mechanisms.
(accentuation by me)
Please review the App Store Review Guidelines against the specific application you wish to develop. The App Store Review Guidelines can be found at https://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/approval/guidelines.html.
In addition, we strongly recommend reviewing the “iOS Developer Program License Agreement,” “iOS Human Interface Guidelines,” and “In App Purchase Programming Guidelines” to ensure that your application is in compliance with all documentation.
For tips on preparing your application for submission and other information about App Store approval process, visit: http://developer.apple.com/iphone/appstore/approval.html.
We look forward to reviewing your app.
J..
App Review
So we got the green light to implement our intent.
On December 13 we uploaded our App to the App Store.
Within 4 days we received the approval from Apple “ready for sale”!
So at least for our kind of business (sales of event tickets) it’s possible to
use the paypal API inside an iPhone App.