Apple has issued a note to developers to explain a new feature that will make it easier for people to deal with App Store payment issues without having to delve into the Settings app to do it.
Currently, people who have a billing problem when making a subscription payment are left with no option but to go and find the issue and fix it themselves in the Settings app. That’s all changing so long as those people are using iOS 16.4 or iPadOS 16.4 or later.
Apple also says that there is no need for app developers to do anything to implement the change.
Issue resolved
Apple shared details of the tweak in a post to its developer website (opens in new tab), saying that people will soon be able to fix their own billing issues right from within the affected app.
“Soon it will be easier than ever for your customers to resolve payment issues, so they can stay subscribed to your content, services, and premium features,” Apple says. “Starting this summer, if an auto-renewable subscription doesn’t renew due to a billing issue, a system-provided sheet appears in your app with a prompt that lets customers update their payment method for their Apple ID.”
Right now the same payment fix involves opening the Settings app and spelunking through the Apple ID section.
The iOS 16.4 and iPadOS 16.4 updates are already available for download — iOS 16.4.1 and iPadOS 16.4.1 are the latest available at the time of writing — so developers can be relatively sure that this mechanism will be available to their users.
The feature will of course also be part of the iOS 17 update that is expected to be announced at WWDC23 in June. That’s the software that will power Apple’s best iPhone of the year, the iPhone 15 Pro, as well as the rest of the iPhone 15 lineup when it goes on sale this fall.
