Having reinvented the music, phone and computer-interface businesses, Apple is now targeting e-publishing. On Tuesday, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company made its new App Store subscription service available to any publisher.
The service is now open to all content publishers, including magazines, newspapers, video or music. The service was launched earlier this month with News Corp.’s The Daily, an iPad-specific publication.
Apple Keeps 30 Percent
When a customer uses the service to buy a subscription in the App Store, the same billing system will be used as has been used for apps in general. However, publishers are able to set the price and frequency of a subscription. The customer, with a single click, can then choose the length of the subscription and be charged accordingly. Cancellations can be made at any time from the customer’s personal account page.
Apple processes the payment and keeps 30 percent. A publisher can still offer the subscription from its own or another web site, but not at a better deal than in the App Store. For subscribers that publishers acquire on their own, outside the App Store and using a separate software-distribution mechanism, Apple receives nothing.
Publishers cannot link to a subscription service outside the App Store from within their offering in the store. Any subscription offers made outside the store must also be made within the store.
“All we require,” said Apple CEO Steve Jobs, “is that, if a publisher is making a subscription offer outside of the app, the same (or better) offer be made inside the app, so that customers can easily subscribe with one click right in the app.”
Publisher’s Privacy Policy
Personal information given to a publisher within Apple’s subscription service is governed by the publisher’s privacy policy, not Apple’s. In addition to electronic magazines, newspapers and books, the service could also apply to outside video…