“Time Inc., the country’s largest magazine publisher, has reached a deal with Apple Inc. to make all its iPad editions free for print subscribers, marking a break in the impasse between publishers and Apple and lending support to Time’s contention that it’s business-as-usual after the ouster of its chief executive,” Russell Adams reports for The Wall Street Journal.
“Starting Monday, subscribers to Sports Illustrated, Time and Fortune magazines will be able to access the iPad editions via the apps, which will be able to authenticate them as subscribers,” Adams reports. “Time Inc.’s People magazine already had such an arrangement, but readers of most publications have had to pay separately for the iPad version regardless of their subscriber status.”
Adams reports, “Time Inc. and other major publishers have yet to agree with Apple on terms for selling subscriptions to their iPad editions, the next step beyond making them available to existing print subscribers. Talks are hung up on Apple’s resistance to sharing information with publishers about their iPad customers, which publishers say is critical to applying the ‘TV everywhere’ model to magazines. The standoff has left most magazines with only one way to sell titles on the iPad: one issue at a time, which publishers say is asking too much of readers, particularly of the weekly magazines that form the core of Time Inc.’s business.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote on April 4th: “With App Store subscriptions, Apple’s on the side of the consumer yet again. Anytime you read differently, it’s highly likely that it’s from a publication that wants to continue to be able to force your name, address, telephone number, email address, credit card number, credit card security code, job title, job responsibility, and industry from you at the time of subscription… Apple requires publishers to first ask for permission from customers who choose to subscribe to publications from within iOS apps (customers can also opt instead to subscribe directly via the publishers’ sites) to access the customers’ personal information… Apple’s App Store lets customers keep their information in one safe place, with Apple, not spread among X number of publishers, at the whim of their ‘security’ or lack thereof.”