Enabling payments on the mobile web breaks our app in native iOS - 【StackMirror】|ios|mobile|facebook-credits

Turning on "Enable payments on the mobile web" in the application settings prevents our application from showing up in the native Facebook app! Is this supposed to be happening?

We built the app in sandbox mode, and used FB.UA.nativeApp() to determine if we were in native. In the case that we are in native, we disable all of our Facebook credits buttons.

However, now our app is live and when we check the "Enable payments on the mobile web" box in the developer settings, the app disappears from native iOS and/or offers up an access error (everything fine in Android). As soon as we un-check the box, the app is back in action, but of course all of the credits buttons don't work in Android.

It seems strange that Facebook would keep us from using credits across all platforms with a single checkbox. Are we doing something wrong, or is this just what we have to deal with?

2012-04-03 21:17
by Stephen

Do not use any features from the JS SDK than those officially supported through the documentation. Ref https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2012/05/16/platform-updates--operation-developer-love/ - this is actually pretty important as FB.UA will go away in not to long - Sean Kinsey 2012-06-09 02:13

Which version of native- 1.9 - Anna Billstrom 2012-06-12 20:21

Also, what does "disappear from native iOS" mean- it's not a bookmark anymore in the native FB iOS app menu? Do your credits work with the native FB iOS - Anna Billstrom 2012-06-12 20:23

@AnnaBillstrom By "disappear" I mean that it is not in the bookmarks, cannot be searched for, and when attempting to access directly it goes to a "page cannot be found" screen - Stephen 2012-06-13 13:17

@Stephen right, sounds like FB knocks your app out of the system for being misconfigured on mobile, because you're trying to set it up for native and android & web mobile, when it's only supposed to be fore web-mobile&android OR nativ - Anna Billstrom 2012-06-13 19:09

Looks like it's either/or.

"Accepting payments are different on iOS since Facebook Credits are not supported within iOS native apps.

On the mobile web (including mobile web apps linked from Android), you must use Facebook Credits.
On iOS, you must build a native app and use iTunes payments." https://developers.facebook.com/docs/credits/

You can't have an app that is native iOS and Android. (well you can, but as you saw, it's not going to work). You can have mobile Web that serves iPhone and Android, but the iPhone won't be native.

Thanks for the question, I was curious to implement, and wonder if this is a deal-killer for us, too.

2012-06-12 20:27
by Anna Billstrom

Yeah, I knew about the FB Credits issue on iOS, but I was hoping to be able to turn on Credits for Android, and turn off Credits for iOS. It looks like FB doesn't support this behavior, unfortunately - Stephen 2012-06-13 13:19