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Accidental Tech Podcast · Thursday, August 13, 2026

Cross-Platform In-App Purchase Dependency Halts App Releases

A developer's release of a Mac app is blocked because its required in-app purchase is bundled with an unapproved iOS app. Apple's system requires in-app purchases to be approved alongside the app, and the dependency prevents the release of both.

companyApple

The tape

3 quotes
Because the in-app purchase that it needs is submitted with the iOS app. Because there's no way to make one submission that covers when you submit an app that requires an app purchase, you have to submit the in-app purchase itself for review as part of the submission of the app.
Marco Arment
So the Mac app is sitting there waiting, it's approved after six days, which is, you know, which is really long. Um, and the iOS app is now day 12, still not approved, but with the in-app purchase bundled with it. So I can't really seize either one of them if I wanted to.
Marco Arment
And I also can't release any new test flight builds. So I can't be working on like version 1.01.
Marco Arment
Heard on Accidental Tech Podcast — “704: Past the Ternus Horizon, published Thursday, August 13, 2026. Heardvine summarizes and quotes with attribution and timestamps, and links to the original everywhere.
Transcribed via Gemini audio transcription · $0.10
Cross-Platform In-App Purchase Dependency Halts App Releases — Heardvine