In-App Purchases in Apple Business

At work, we went down the path of purchasing iPads. These were primarily to be used as the screen/computer for running the teleprompter. We had been using Teleprompter Premium from JoeAllenPro on mine & my wife’s iPads for this purpose. It was time to get some for the company.

We are a small team. Just four. But I thought I should go down the path of setting up Apple Business accounts and managed Apple IDs for everyone. Do everything right.

After a fair amount of googling and troubleshooting, I was stumped at how to buy the ‘in-app purchase’ required to access the pro features we needed. Time to contact Apple Support.

On my second attempt, someone from the Apple Business support team was available. In the end, they were able to clarify: Businesses cannot purchase ‘in-app purchases’

The two solutions were to:

• Set up with standard consumer accounts, and buy just like any normal customer.

• Contact each developer directly and negotiate a business-to-business purchase of the unlocked app. The app file would then be uploaded to the iPads as ‘Custom Apps’

After a bunch of work setting up Apple Business, and configuring the iPads for the company, we had the answer.

I unrolled all of the work of the past days, we set the iPads up with standard consumer Apple IDs.

The second option felt like it’s for the big-boy companies who use words like synergy and have middle managers to manage the middle managers.