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SkyDrive 3.0: Microsoft Gave Up Fighting Apple's 30% Cut
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft on Wednesday released SkyDrive 3.0 for iOS out of the blue. Last time the app was in the news, Apple was stopping Microsoft from pushing out an update in the App Store because the company doesn't pay a 30 percent cut of the subscription revenue it generates. Now we've learned how Microsoft managed to update its iOS app today. 'We worked with Apple to create a solution that benefited our mutual customers,' a Microsoft spokesperson told TNW. 'The SkyDrive app for iOS is slightly different than other SkyDrive apps in that people interested in buying additional storage will do so via the web versus in the app.' Does this set a precedent for an iOS version of Microsoft Office?"
It sounds like Microsoft didn't so much as give up, as go around Apple. If you buy on the web, Apple doesn't get the cut. Microsoft got the app into the app store. Pretty much seems like Microsoft got most of what they wanted, and Apple got nothing other than the ability to say their policy is still unviolated. Which, considering the nature of it, isn't exactly a great marketing ploy.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Apple explicitly allows this - I think this goes back a couple years with Kindle stuff. If you sell through apple, they get a cut. If you are going to take money thought the app, you have to do it via the AppStore, thus Apple will get a cut. The other provision is that if you allow you app to merelty talk to an existing "subscription", you can do that. You just cant do purchases, or exchange money through the app. For example, I can go to Amazon's web site and buy a Kindle book and link it to my Amazon account. I can get the Kindle app and look at any books in my Kindle account. I CANNOT however purchase books through the Kindle app while NOT doing this through Apple and the AppStore. This is why you can read Kindle books, but not purchase them via the iOS app.