“Time Inc. likes to show off its iPad apps as a symbol of the company’s future. But inside the publisher, the digital editions have become a source of hair-pulling frustration,” Peter Kafka reports for AllThingsD. “That’s because the magazine giant has been unable to get Apple to let it sell and manage subscriptions for its iPad apps — much to Time Inc.’s surprise.”
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“Last month, the publisher was set to launch a subscription version of its Sports Illustrated iPad app, where consumers would download the magazines via Apple’s iTunes, but would pay Time Inc. directly,” Kafka reports. “But Apple rejected the app at the last minute, forcing the Time Warner unit to sell single copies, using iTunes as a middleman, multiple sources tell me.”
Kafka reports, “Since then, Time Inc. executives ‘have been going nuts,’ trying to figure out how to get Apple to approve a subscription plan.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Isn’t this what In-App Purchase is for? Just add the new issues and let the users buy them using that process. What are we missing? Is it just that the magazine publishers don’t want to give Apple their 30% cut even though they’re distributing through Apple’s App Store to devices running Apple’s iOS platform?
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]