With the holiday season upon us, the team at AppCoins has been working around the clock to deliver new features before the hustle and bustle of the season. We’ve focused on several fronts to increase the added value of the project for both developers and users.

We believe we have to continue delivering value on both fronts because:

Part of the added value for developers comes from the AppCoins Protocol having a good user adoption rate .

. (However) users can’t use the AppCoins Protocol without developers integrating it into their apps.

The Hopper release builds on top of the Ada release, and today we are launching a new way to integrate payments in mobile apps, a new payment method for users, and a new user incentives program to help boost adoption of the AppCoins Protocol. Below you’ll find the ins and outs of the release for both app developers and users.

For App Developers

Past releases have been focused on delivering a billing system that’s packed with a lot of features and tools to simplify the way developers manage purchases and that take away from developers the need to manage purchases and payments by themselves. However, developers still need to perform a series of tasks in order to make their apps compliant with our billing system, which means the integration process might take some time.

On one hand, our billing system works great for developers who can’t handle purchases and payments. They integrate the billing system and after that, it manages everything for them. On the other hand, there are developers who may not need a complex billing system because they either manage purchases themselves or don’t need any kind of purchase management. These developers may just need a way to enable users to perform payments.

We didn’t realize this when we started developing our billing system. However, with the help of our community we managed to improve the way we did things, as some developers reached out and gave us valuable feedback about these use cases. Since then, we started implementing what we’ve called in the ANU #24, One-Step Payment, which simplifies the integration process to a great deal.

With One-Step Payment, developers can build a simple URL with the necessary parameters to enable users to pay for in-app items. We’ve simplified it to the max, and that’s all developers need to do. That URL will trigger the wallet, which will handle the payment. Developers can even pass a callback URL, which is called by our system when the payment is done. They can use this feature to track purchases with their systems.

One-Step Payment is the easiest way to integrate payments in Android apps.

For Users

From the users perspective, performing payments should be as easy as possible. This means the payment process should be simple and clean, with payment methods familiar to users. In the past, we’ve integrated support for credit card payments, since a large part of users has access to them. Nonetheless, sometimes people prefer to use other payment methods that are provided by third-parties in which they trust. Because of this, we’ve also built support for PayPal in the AppCoins BDS Wallet. In addition, we’ve built support for 3D Secure payments, when they are available.

Integrating a worldwide known service such as PayPal in a blockchain-based wallet is another significant milestone for the AppCoins Project.

Moreover, until now users couldn’t choose the payment method that suited them best. Based on a number of conditions, it was the wallet that would automatically choose the payment method:

APPC Credits if the user has enough for the given purchase

if the user has enough for the given purchase APPC if there is enough in the user’s wallet

if there is enough in the user’s wallet Credit card if the user doesn’t have either APPC or APPC Credits

In this release, users will have a screen where they can choose the payment method before performing the payment. Methods that are unavailable, either because they are not supported in a certain region or because the user’s balance is insufficient for the purchase, will be shown as such.

Screen to choose preferred payment method

In addition, and in true holiday cheer, we wanted to give away rewards as an incentive for users for their purchase activity. So, this release will also see the rise of a new feature in the wallet that enables users to get rewards in APPC Credits for each purchase they make. The amount of APPC Credits earned in a single purchase depends on the level of the user. In turn, the level of the user is based on the amount of APPC spent on in-app purchases. Purchases done with PayPal and credit card will also count, as the amount paid in the local currency is converted to APPC at the moment the purchase is done.

Screen showing user’s current level

Dialog detailing how to level up