“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.]