Apple appears to have made a u-turn in its in-app subscription pricing policy on the App Store.
The in-apps subscriptions service was launched in February, but it came with restrictions.
Not only did a 30% cut of sales go to Apple, but CEO Steve Jobs stressed that “if a publisher is making a subscription offer outside of the app, the same or better offer [must] be made inside the app, so that customers can easily subscribe with one-click right in the app”.
Some content companies threatened to sue, and the fact that publishers had to sell in-app content at their lowest possible price was cited as one reason that the Financial Times recently scrapped its iOS app and replaced it with an HTML5-based web app designed for the iPhone and iPad.
But Apple has now changed its developer guidelines, with the relevant section now stipulating only that publishers can’t link directly to another payment platform from their in-app services.
According to reports, the revised App Store Review Guidelines say that “apps can read or play approved content that is sold outside of the app as long as there is no button or external link in the app to purchase the approved content”.
Disclaimer: Some pages on this site may include an affiliate link. This does not effect our editorial in any way.
