Apple enables one-time payment for app on all its platforms

Apple has announced Universal Purchase. Developers can enable customers to pay only once for an app that runs on multiple of Apple’s platforms.

Universal Purchase applies to both app purchases and in-app purchases on iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and tvOS. Developers can associate apps of which they release versions for multiple platforms with a single bundle ID in the beta of Xcode 11.4, Apple reports. Buyers of an app from the Mac App Store, for example, do not have to pay for the same app on the iPad, if the developer has chosen this.

The move is part of Apple’s drive to let developers build apps that run on multiple of its platforms. For example, since last year, Project Catalyst allows developers to turn iOS apps into macOS applications, modifying interface elements to make the apps work properly on the OS for the Mac.

Ultimately, all apps from multiple platforms should be available through a single universal App Store. Until then, the danger seemed that users would have to pay double for what would be essentially the same apps, but with Universal Purchase developers can avoid this. Apple is also now aligning the categories of the App Store and Mac App Store. The beta of Xcode 11.4 came along with new betas for iOS 13.4, tvOS 13.4, and macOS Catalina 10.15.4.