Apple Eases Rules For Subscription Apps

pjfontillas writes "Apple has quietly reversed their decision that required publishers who sell content and subscriptions in their iPhone and iPad apps to go through iTunes, with Apple taking a 30% cut. It's not so quiet in the workplace, however, as this news has a pretty big influence on developer workloads. Here at The New York Times our developers breathed a sigh of relief once we realized we don't have try and work around that requirement like The Financial Times did. Apple seems to have been doing much better with their community (consumers and developers alike) recently." Reader imamac notes that Apple has also filed a motion to intervene in the Lodsys patent suit against several iOS app developers that we've been following.

Comments

Re:I am not usually a gramer Nazi, but...

[Jason Levine]

I can't decide if a grammar Nazi making a spelling mistake on the word "grammar" (as "gramer") is ironic or requires the arrival of spelling Nazis.

Android

[robertl234]

Having a strong competitor will do the most amazing things :) I'm so glad that Google didn't let Apple achieve the >75% marketshare that they did with the iPods. Can you imagine the iPhone being the only credible smartphone in the market?

Protecting their bottom line

[sideslash]

I'm a cynic. I think they decided it would be more profitable in the long run. Android is growing like a weed on phones, and at least has some nifty tablets, even if those sales stink. Windows Phone is getting all the bells and whistles in the fall (even though their sales numbers stink too), and next year Windows 8 will attempt to take on iPad and OS X at the same time with a unified platform.

Apple has made tons of money already from their mandated royalties, and I think they are just feeling worried and trying to assuage old grudges of their partners in preparation for the next waves of real competition.

The devil is in the details

[QuasiSteve]

Note that the devil is in the details.

While Apple will

• no longer require publishers to also sell through iTunes
• publishers are now allowed to charge more through iTunes if they so desire

They're still bound to some rules:

• If a subscription is offered through the app, it must go through iTunes
• a subscription through iTunes still nets Apple the 30%
• customer data is still not made available to the publishers (unless the user so chooses, and the data provided in that case is limited)
• Publishers may not use an UI element (button) that redirects to their own subscription portal

In other words.. they can offer the subscription elsewhere, but they're not allowed to make it easy for users to pick up said subscription.

It's still an improvement (for publishers, for users I'm sure the proposed earlier method was already ideal) as publishers can now at least offset the Apple take through price differentiation - but it still has its idiosyncrasies.

Re:Surprising

[gumbi west]

Yeah, look at the exorbitant fees they are charging for iCloud ($0) and for Lion ($29). It's just ridiculous.

Re:Break up Apple

[Phleg]

Right. Because the one thing we all can agree on about Apple is that it's an unorganized mess without a strong controlling central authority.

Break up Apple? On what grounds?

[jamrock]

Apple's gotten too big. It's got a major case of left-hand not knowing what right-hand is doing. It's almost a culture.

Gotten too big? By what arbitrary standard could that be decided? Because you don't like Apple?

Please give even a single instance of "left-hand not knowing what right-hand is doing" where Apple is concerned. That's about as far from reality as you can get in Apple's case. Not only is their integration working remarkably well for them, but their focus is almost terrifying in it's scope. Everything Apple does informs everything else, from the design of their hardware, software, and retail stores, to the thrust of their advertising and their carefully managed public image. That is their culture, which is diametrically opposed to your assertion. You're really describing Microsoft, with their multiple competing fiefdoms.

When Apple first announced their guidelines for subscriptions and the publishers protested in outrage, I predicted in a discussion that Apple would change them before they went into effect. I argued at the time that it seemed to me that Apple were merely floating a trial balloon to see how far they could push, and were probably well prepared in advance to exercise some flexibility. This also works for them, because they can then give the public impression that they're prepared to be reasonable, when in fact they had probably planned internally for less stringent terms. As I said, Apple manages their public image with extreme care, and I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised that they pushed their original terms knowing full well that they had no intention of implementing them. In fact I would argue that they would have been surprised if they had been widely accepted.