Apple has announced a subscription service that’s available to anyone publishing a content-based app on the App Store. It means the digital subscription service recently launched with News Corp.’s The Daily is now available to other digital magazines and newspapers, along with video and music services.
Publishers can set the price and length of subscription, enabling consumers to subscribe with a single click. Apple processes all payments, keeping the same 30% share that it does for other in-app purchases.
Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, said “Our philosophy is simple - when Apple brings a new subscriber to the app, Apple earns a 30 percent share; when the publisher brings an existing or new subscriber to the app, the publisher keeps 100% and Apple earns nothing. All we require 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. We believe that this innovative subscription service will provide publishers with a brand new opportunity to expand digital access to their content onto the iPad, iPod touch and iPhone, delighting both new and existing subscribers.”
The App Store currently offers more than 350,000 apps – including over 60,000 native iPad apps - to consumers in 90 countries.