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I am building an app for a charity and they've requested the ability to receive donations from the app. In reading the app store guidelines I came across this:

21) Charities and contributions Apps that include the ability to make donations to recognized charitable organizations must be free The collection of donations must be done via a web site in Safari or an SMS

I can build the solution in Safari, that is not a problem, but I was wondering if anyone knew if apple would accept the application if the web donation form was accessed within the app through a WebView Control. I have seen other apps accept credit card payments within an app using a webview, so is it possible to do the same with charitable donations or is it a requirement that you actually have to use the Safari application and leave the application to make a donation?

Hope this make sense.

Moshe
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scottsanders
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2 Answers2

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We have a similar app (instead.com and the iOS app along with that in the app store) ... We spoke to some apple employees last year at an apple conference and they said we have to go to safari outside of the app. It was tied to liability reasons. Being in a webview inside the native app still gives the perception that it's the app making the donation or handling the donation. It's 2 sides of the same coin. So they told us we had to go outside to safari.

courtsimas
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Your interpretation sounds like that's what Apple means. You are supposed to handle it in a browser, not through native code.

You can call them in California and ask for the App Review Department. I'm not sure which one of these is the corporate office: (408) 996-1010 OR (512) 674-2000

EDIT:

I called Apple and they referred me back to the same vague manual. The fellow there didn't really know. I guess you should go for it and see what they say.

Moshe
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  • In a previous app for another charity I tried with native code (NSURLConnection) and got rejected, and so just made it leave the app and load Safari. My thinking is that the webview control is doing the same thing the safari app would. Both are loading HTML forms over an https. I will try calling when the time is better (I am in Sydney, Australia) – scottsanders Nov 04 '10 at 07:28