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Usually the typical (recommended) implementation of Android consumable in-app purchases is (cf TrivialDrive example):

  • Purchase
  • If purchase OK, consume
  • If consumption OK, "provide" the consumable to the application.

I was wondering if instead we could not do:

For the first purchase

  • Purchase
  • "Provide" to the application

For the subsequent purchases of the same consumable

  • Consume the item
  • Purchase
  • "Provide" to the application

This way the user could recover at least its last consumable purchase (of each consumable) when installing the app on another device by a recovery mechanism. Of course this would require to store locally a "flag" stating that the user was provided with the content of the consumable, to avoid the user to be able to purchase the consumable once, and then "retrieve" it again and again on the same device.

This would be somehow useless for "micro" purchases like a small pack of gold for 50 cts, but for huge fat packs (like the one we usually find a 15-20$) this could be a good thing IMO. Am I missing something important here?

BTW this would also allow to :

  • not have to check for not consumed consumable purchases when starting the application.
  • limit the error cases where after the consumption (but before providing the app) the app crashes and the user gets nothing (it can still half happen during a subsequent purchase: if the app crashes after the consumption and then the user finally decides to not buy the consumable another time, he will lose the possibility to recover its last purchase if it installs on another device).
Consign
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  • I'm just learning how to use in-apps so I cannot answer, but big thumbs up for actually being concerned about users' welfare. – ElDoRado1239 Jul 05 '15 at 02:02

1 Answers1

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It is possible to:

  • Purchase
  • "Provide" to the application

You simply skip the consumption step. However, it is unclear when you would consume the item. Perhaps you can give some further details and I'll expand my answer.

user2768
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  • I was thinking about consuming when attempting to purchase the item again, before actually performing the 2nd purchase. If the item is a consumable of course. – Consign Oct 12 '14 at 15:11
  • Yes, you wrote that above, but there is no need to make a 2nd purchase if you already own an item. – user2768 Oct 12 '14 at 15:13
  • I was talking about a consumable (ie repeatable) purchase, like a pack of gold or something like that. – Consign Oct 12 '14 at 15:18
  • Yes, sure. But, if I have something -- e.g., a pack of gold -- then there is no need to purchase it, hence, I'll never consume. – user2768 Oct 12 '14 at 15:25
  • But you can purchase it, thus "providing" your app with it (giving +100gold), but not consumed, and then you can purchase it again (doing so would consume the item in Google before actually making the purchase) if you want another +100 gold. Consumption by itself would do nothing except allowing to purchase it again in Google IAB. – Consign Oct 12 '14 at 15:33
  • I think you are suggesting that your app will handle logic to make everything work. I am inclined to agree that this could work. But, it seems to place an unnecessary burden on you. – user2768 Oct 12 '14 at 15:37