“Big changes are coming to Apple’s App Store on Thursday — and they could mean big trouble for e-book sellers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble,” Julianne Pepitone reports for CNNMoney.
“June 30 is the deadline for app makers to get in compliance with Apple’s strict new rules for in-app payment and subscription links,” Pepitone reports. “Apple laid out the first version of its controversial new rules in February, then quietly softened them this month after massive blowback from content companies.”
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“Apple backed down from its initial demand that all publishers who sell digital subscriptions make them available for purchase within their Apple apps — and give Apple a sales cut. That mandate could have forced Rhapsody, Hulu, Netflix and others to withdraw their iPhone and iPad apps,” Pepitone reports. “Instead, Apple’s revised rules give merchants an ‘all or nothing’ option: They can either use Apple’s payment system, or include no mechanism at all for subscriptions and other purchases.”
That’s not ideal for publishers, but most can live with it… But digital booksellers rely on customers buying a steady stream of new e-books to read. Removing all links from within their apps to make new purchases is pretty user-unfriendly.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: If publishers want to be the most user-friendly, they’ll use Apple’s seamless payment system. If they’re more interested in other things, they won’t. The path publishers choose provides consumers an easy way to identify which publishers care more about their customers versus those who care most about their customers money and personal information.
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