Ave AppFactory software enables anyone to build an application, without having to write a single line of code. Digital tablets and d smartphones Digital devices require apps developed specifically for operation systems such as Apple iOS ® or Google ™ Androïd™. Ave AppFactory enables the creation of applications for iPad, iPhone, and iPod today. In the near future, it will also be possible to create applications for Android™, Windows® Phone 7, RIM® (Blackberry®).

The Application Development Framework (SDK) enables programmers to manipulate existing templates (the templates and samples we provide) to build any type of apps from scratch, and adapting our reader to existing apps. Using the SDK you can create applications for iPhone, iPad, and Android-based devices in significantly less time compared to conventional development.

The InDesign plugin is free.

We are planning to add text search in myKiosk, however, at this time we don’t know the release date for this feature.

AvePublishing lets you define 'titles' and 'assortments'. You would typically create a 'title' for a periodical publication, such as a periodical press title. You would create an assortment for content that is not subject to periodical publication, such as books. Publishing content is as easy as choosing your target title or assortment, and filling the details about the new content. At this stage, you will also choose what type of issue your are publishing since each title/assortment lets you differentiate issues via a type descriptor. By creating different types, you can create different products inside a same title: for example, a regular issue and a special issue that could have a different price.

Yes. Simply create a 'free' product in the application that will receive your content and a 'free' issue type in the title/assortment.

The main concept behind the idea of selling content, is the concept of 'product'. In AvePublishing, we let you create Application Specifications and define products for these applications. Let's take an example. Consider that you have a magazine called 'MySportMag' with 2 different issue types: the regular issue and the special issue. You would on AvePublishing.com:

  1. Declare a title called MySportsMag
  2. Define the 2 issue types for your title
  then, you would go to iTunesConnect, the Apple portal for iOS app, and do the following steps there:

    a. Create a BundleID for your future iOS app
    b. Declare your future iOS app (metadata, icon, ...)
    c. Declare 2 in-app items. Lets assume you give them the following productID: com.MySportsMagApp.itunes.1 and com.MySportsMagApp.itunes.2

  3. Create an application specification called 'MySportsMagApp' and use the Apple BundleID to identify its iOS variant.
  4. Add 2 products to your application specification. You can specify for each product whether it is attached to an existing iTunes productID. You would simply create a product called 'Regular Issue' and associate it to the com.MySportsMagApp.itunes.1 productID. Then create a product called 'Special Issue' and associate it to the com.MySportsMagApp.itunes.2 productID.

You're done.

Now everytime a user will hit the BUY button for an issue, the kiosk engine that we provide in all our AveAppFactory templates as well as in our SDK will retrieve the issue type, then the associated product, then the associated ProductID. The Kiosk will call iTunes to initiate the purchase of the item. This automatically display the standard iTunes dialog box asking for a confirmation of the purchase. This dialog displays the price and full name of the product.

There are several strategies that can be used when publishing content on the AppStore. This is a general comment that goes beyond the AVE Publishing solution. You can either:

  1. create a product for each item that you sell.
  2. create a 'generic' product that you re-use.

The first product is called a consummable product. A user can buy it once. If he attempts to buy it again, iTunes will let him know that he has already purchased the item.
The second product is called non-consumable. A user can buy it over and over.

The solution 1. requires a validation by Apple of every new product that gets added. This can become really tricky if you work with magazine, because every new issue would require a validation, so you have to plan in advance and create the iTunes ID well in advance for Apple to validate them in time for the release of the associated magazines. But your content will often be ready at the last moment, so it is not always possible to validate products enough in advance.

We would recommend to use solution 2. and create only a few productIDs with Apple. In the most simple case, where all the issues of your magazine have the same price, you could just create one productID. All your issues will use the same productID. The good news, is that AvePublishing records all transactions that are made inside your applications. This means that if a customer purchases the January issue of the magazine, then the February issue, we can differentiate the two purchases, despite the fact that they both use the same productID.

Every time you publish content in an application, it has a TEST status by default. This means that only those devices that are registered as test devices will be able to see it. This feature provides an easy way to validate your content with Apple because it provides the following 2 key features:

  - it lets the Apple review team view the new content in the real app
  - it hides the content from all the other users of your app.

When you submit content to be validated by Apple, contact the AppReview team and ask them for the UDID of the device they will use to test the content. Add the UDID to the list of test devices and tell the AppReview team that they can proceed.

In the case where you create a generic product (cf previous question), you only have to validate that product with Apple. Ideally, you should have 1-3 issues in TEST for your validation, so Apple will feel confident about your product and approve it. It is always a good idea to add a little comment for the reviewer explaining your strategy. Since Apple will require you to guarantee that your application will be able to restore the content of a user in case he resinstalls his iPad/iPhone, we would recomment that you add the following note for the iTunes reviewer at submission time.

Our application uses the AVE publishing framework. This framework includes the ability for our users to:

  1. restore their purchases in case they have to reinitialize their device, even if we use non-consummable in-app items
  2. associate their purchased content to a named user account that they can create inside the application.

Yes. A subscription is a product that you set up for your application through your account at the Publisher Portal. A subscription must be linked with the iTunesConnect SKU of your iPad or iPhone app, which defines the corresponding in-app item.

So as soon as a Publication Certificate is associated to a title, we count the issue as published.

You never put the AVE file into AVEPublishing, only the AVE File Validation.

There is no limit but each app has to be paid for.