So, I have an idea but need some guidance...

[vyper91]

Hi guys, I didn't know where to look and figured the Apple/tech community are a friendly bunch (outside of the gaming crowd) and wanted to ask for some advice.

I have an idea for an app that essentially a service that would use in-app purchases so a user could use the app, select a product (something digital, say a photo), and purchase it and have it delivered and shown within the app, so people could also view their purchase history and such (I realise this doesn't sound very good but there's obviously a lot more to it that I have to omit).

Essentially it would be based around a web-store type thing, but instead just having the app to display a nice looking GUI and access the web-store.

Now I was just wondering, not in technical terms (once I get a general outline of how things have to go, I'll start learning and figuring out the complex parts myself), but what general outline of things would have to be done for this to work...I realise this is very vague but in terms of...

1) Would I have to develop a website first and then is there a process of 'converting' a website into an app, or is it a LOT more complicated than that?

2) Could I just have the website end of things merely being more of an online database to connect to and then just create the app as the sole way to connect to it?

A pre-emptive cheers for all the advice!

[baja_yu]

1. Well, how complicated it is depends on what your skills are. If you asked me, making a website would be more complicated But, I wouldn't go that route anyway. I'd basically go with point 2 of what you said. What you really need is a webservice (PHP, ASP...) with which your app will communicate. The app asks for a list of products, the server sends it back, the app sends the product ID list to Apple server, the server returns a list of valid products with all details (price, description, name...), you present this to the user. The user selects a product. The app sends the product ID to the Apple server to make a purchase, server returns receipt, app .... well this gets a lot more complex and you can find it explained here so I don't have to rewrite it for you:

authentication - How can my server securely authenticate iPhone in-app purchase? - Stack Overflow

Do read the In App Purchase Guide from the Docs, it has all this explained in great detailed with some code as well.

So, in short, you have the basic idea down.