“Apple’s announcement last week introducing App Store Subscriptions has generated a lot of controversy across the web,” Arnold Kim reports for MacRumors. “At issue is Apple’s policy requiring publishers to also offer all subscriptions through Apple’s In-App purchase system which gives Apple a 30% cut. Meanwhile, publishers are still allowed to sell subscriptions outside of the App Store (and keep 100%) but they can’t undercut the App Store price.”
“While the wording of the original announcement was aimed specifically at content publishers, there has been growing concern that the terms don’t allow for ‘software as a service’ (SaaS) apps as well,” Kim reports. “These are apps such as DropBox and SalesForce that provide specific services to users for recurring subscription fee.”
“One MacRumors reader also had these questions and emailed Apple CEO Steve Jobs with these same concerns,” Kim reports. “Steve Jobs replied in his typically short and, unfortunately, somewhat vague response:”
We created subscriptions for publishing apps, not SaaS apps.
Sent from my iPhone
Kim writes, “On the surface, our interpretation of this response is that the new in-app subscription rules simply don’t apply to Software-as-a-Service. And, if you review the new guidelines and press materials that Apple has released, all the context is specifically related to publishers of content. Based on that interpretation, apps such as DropBox and even TinyGrab may not be subject to the new rules. Readability’s rejection, however, shows there are some borderline cases where the line between publisher and service provider is a bit blurry. Hopefully, Apple will provide more clarity on this issue.”
Read more in the full article, including the email that prompted Jobs’ reply, here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Brawndo Drinker” for the heads up.]
We shall see.
I suppose the problem is going to be that 30% is probably easier to swallow for companies wherein their costs are essentially whatever they spent on developing an app and then future development and so on. With Apple providing all the bandwidth and registration etc the loss of 30% is hopefully offset by the increase in volume of sales they are likely to receive via the app store.
Services like Dropbox, Spotify where they offer a service with an identifiable cost per new user (server space, music licensing. bandwidth for streaming content) are obviously going to earn more if they sell more, but if there margins aren’t enough to accommodate 30% to Apple (or indeed any third party) then by and large it doesn’t matter how many they sell, the only way to deal with it is to not be available on iOS devices, or raise prices, but that obviously has issues of it’s own.
I don’t begrudge Apple their 30% by any means, I just can definitely see that it’s a more complicated situation than companies just not wanting to give 30% away.
That Steve Jobs would even bother replying to a question on his iPhone says a lot about the retention of his mental faculties despite taking time off from day-to-day activities at Apple.
You can’t keep a good man down!
I hope that this is true. If it is, Apple needs to clarify this to Apple developers (such as me). There is a lot of confusion on the developer discussion boards right now.
“Readability’s rejection, however, shows there are some borderline cases where the line between publisher and service provider is a bit blurry.”
As I understand it, Readability ran afoul because it was attempting to run a “subscription” program outside of the App Store API. They wanted to collect $X from their customers on a monthly basis, send 70%x to the content creators, and keep 30%x for themselves. In other words they wanted to do what Apple is doing without spending billions on infrastructure.
What Apple doesn’t want happening is that the creator gives the App away for free and then charges you after the fact so they can cut Apple out of the money picture! If I was Apple I would want to stop this too!
How much of a cut does Amazon take? Groupon takes 50%.
Tha backpadling started.
It’s not back peddling. The problem is that there is so much mis-reporting. Apple’s position may not be 100% crystal clear, but nor is it as muddy and indistinct as some are portraying. Some developers break published rules that 80% of the other developers clearly understand, and then publicly bitch about it when Apple rejects their app. And then there is limitless media prepared to run with ANY story about Apple. The more contentious the better. Even if there is no merit to the claims.
Nor is it backpedaling.
Apple’s guidelines are NOT written in legal language. They are written in human language, and anyone who has a reasonable command of that language can understand completely what they are saying. Reading them with a healthy dose of common sense will completely clarify any ambiguities. The only time there will be confusion is if someone were to try and think up an artificial scenario which would try to explore the precise boundary between content subscription and SaaS. In real life, these scenarios simply don’t exist.
It IS and it’s a bIg time … set’s see:
Section 11.2 of the App Store Review Guidelines may give you a pause:
“Apps utilizing a system other than the In App Purchase API (IAP) to purchase content, functionality, or services in an app will be rejected.”
“Services” sounds quite a bit like, well, “service” – such as in Software-as-a…
Cheers.
Hahahahahaahhahahahahah!! Why won’t you people donate all these special precious valuable items to the poor people in other countries! I shall be dignified and reincarnated for the people’s rights!