Apple App Store adds subscriptions for magazines, newspapers, video and music

by Nick Marshall | February 15, 2011 10:50 AM | Comments

Apple App Store adds subscriptions for magazines, newspapers, video and music

Publishers of content-based apps in the App Store now have a new source of revenue. Inspired by the innovative digital subscription billing service launched with News Corp.’s “The Daily” app, now all publishers of magazines, newspapers, video and music will be able to cash in. Just like payments for traditional apps, Apple will be keeping 30 percent — here’s what you need to know.

Subscription is king, or at least Apple thinks so. Under the new subscription model, 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 percent and Apple earns nothing. There’s only one catch — if the publisher is making subscription offer outside of the app, the same (or better) offer be made inside the app with one-click access.

With more than 350,000 apps available in 90 countries for iOS (60,000 for the iPad alone), there’s a 160 million iOS devices around the world for publishers to sell their content. As a publisher you’ll need to provide your own authentication process inside the app for subscribers that have signed up outside of the app. One last tidbit before we go, “publishers may no longer provide links in their apps (to a web site, for example) which allow the customer to purchase content or subscriptions outside of the app”.

There you have it: the good, the bad and the ugly of the new Apple App Store subscription model.

Tagged as: App Store, Apple, The Daily

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