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Apple Squashing iPad Magazine Subscription Plans
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Why does Apple have to do anything? I currently have a WSJ reader app. It was free. If I don't have a WSJ subscription, it doesn't do much. Since I have a WSJ subscription, it lets me see lots of things. The Apps for Time, Newsweek, SI, should be like that. You pay for a subscription, and then get a free App. This app then asks you for a login and password, and Voila! You get the latest issue of your magazine. These huge companies can't figure this out?!?!?!
Isn't Zineo doing the exact same thing? You download the app for free and then when you buy subscriptions it takes you directly to their website. I didn't think apple was getting a cut of that at all.
Distribution model
What are Sports Illustrated and other magazines thinking? They want 100 percent of the profits and they want to USE the Apple distribution model for free? No way, Newsstands get a cut of the profit, the iPad/iPhone is a virtual newsstand, of course Apple should be paid. This is ridiculous thinking on the Magazines behalf.
What are Sports Illustrated and other magazines thinking? They want 100 percent of the profits and they want to USE the Apple distribution model for free? No way, Newsstands get a cut of the profit, the iPad/iPhone is a virtual newsstand, of course Apple should be paid. This is ridiculous thinking on the Magazines behalf.
The problem is that App Store is the ONLY delivery method. So if Time & Apple don't reach the agreement - Time would have no means to deliver the app and its content to their customers. It would be as if Walmart was the only retail store where record companies allowed to sell CDs. And if Walmart decided to gouge the record companies 75% of their profit - they would have nowhere else to turn to.. and they couldn't sell CDs directly to the customers.
That's why the current level of control Apple exercises over the App/Content delivery on iOS devices is not beneficial to anyone.. except for Apple.
Bingo. Me too. Something tells me there is more to this story then is being reported or leaked from either side. I will wait to pass judgment on either camp with until all the facts, if they are released, are released.
I don't understand why they can't have people subscribe via the website, then they connect to and get refreshes from the iPad app, authenticated via username/password. Then you don't have to do any in-app purchasing at all. You sign up and pay on SI's website. Then you download the app, and sign in. Then whenever you launch the app, if you have connectivity, the app checks via https if there's a new version, and downloads it.
If you think the 30% is just to cover costs, i have some swampland i'd love to sell you in Louisiana. Don't be gullible. Apple makes tons of money from Music and movie sales/rentals.
Why do you think Apple refuses to put Blu-Ray on their computers? because they want the money from movie sales/rentals.
Apple is doing the same thing here. it isn't enough to build a computer or in this case, ipad, and make money off tons of hardware and some software. Here Apple wants to own a piece of everything sold (or advertising sales) that runs on their products.
And people called Microsoft a monopoly type company. Sorry, but this is a slippery slope, and Apple needs to back off.
Companies like Time Warner, New York Times and many more should have the ability to sell subscriptions and even software for ipad or macs which doesn't have to be sold via apple.
Why? its cheaper for the consumer in the long run, Subscriptions can be 25-30% cheaper if there isn't a middle man. end of story. People are complaining about the price of issues on Time magazine or Wired. well... getting rid of having to pay money to Apple for an issue or year's worth of issues saves money for a publisher and that savings can be sent on to consumers.
I just believe that these days, Apple has MEGAPROFITS and is a mega company, so reason they have to own a piece of the entire world. this is getting ridiculous.
Your 100% right, or allow people to subscribe via their web browser in their ipad. then use a login on the app.
Apple needs to start opening up their products like ipad, iphone, ipod and Apple TV to allow third party software that is great. and stop protecting their turn in a monopolistic manner!!!
I suspect Time doesn't want to be limited to Amazon/Kindle box either. And their app is probably designed to deliver richer experience (think videos, interactive content, etc) than what's possible via Kindle, which is just a book reader.
If SI is just giving subscribers a way to digitally view their subscription I can understand that. I may have misunderstood. But here's RTMs "Pro" features.
So to sum up. They actually support the application for you (which is garbage, I've had an open support case and haven't heard from them in over a year), you can use the mobile applications and you get to be a beta tester for them. I never even took a hard look about how much money I was throwing away on them until recently. I will not be renewing and I bought the NotifyMe2 app last week. $6 for a better feature set and they're playing nice with Apple's App Store business model.
Because the Financial Times already does this and Apple is not complaining. The FT iPad app is free, to get content, you have to register at and pay through FT's website, from which all content is being downloaded. If SI wanted to do this, they could already have it.
Certainly not, what would be the point of checking apps if the developer could change it at any moment to include whatever he wants (which is what he could do if hosted on its own servers).
Every publisher is free to already do this. The Financial Times follows exactly this model with their iPad app. There is nothing stopping SI from doing this.
This really isn't a big deal.
If you want your content to be sold to Apple customers, you GO THROUGH APPLE. It's that simple, and if you go through Apple you play by Apple rules.
If you don't want to go through Apple, then don't.....Again it's that simple and not a Big Deal.
You guys on this forum need to tone it down, your getting all worked up, relax , enjoy life, retire. It's just Sports Illustrated. It's not worth it.
If you want your content to be sold to Apple customers, you GO THROUGH APPLE. It's that simple, and if you go through Apple you play by Apple rules.
If you don't want to go through Apple, then don't.....Again it's that simple and not a Big Deal.
You guys on this forum need to tone it down, your getting all worked up, relax , enjoy life, retire. It's just Sports Illustrated. It's not worth it.
Which they do. You cannot host entire apps externally but you can host all the displayed internal content. Guess what, Apple even allows RSS readers which equally have their content hosted externally.
Yeah, that's great for FT and WSJ, since Apple approved their iOS apps. But for whatever reason they REJECTED the Time Inc's app. So effectively Time Inc is now locked out from getting their magazines to their customers by Apple.
Sometimes, you wish that somebody figured out a secure way of jailbreaking online, so you can download their apps without Apple Inc taking their 'protection money'.
Or Time could just put their app on Cydia as a trial and advocate how evil it is to tie developers in the App Store.
Or Time could just put their app on Cydia as a trial and advocate how evil it is to tie developers in the App Store.
What hitekalex was trying to say, is that, Companies that publish newspapers were going into the tank before Apple arrived, and now that their getting there heads above water (slowly) they want to dictate how to have Apple distribute there content.
Well NEWS FLASH,....... THEY CANT!!
These Big companies will realize that if their not selling content through Apple then there not selling to anybody. So these companies need to relax and listen to Apple and focus on their customers and do insanely great work with what their able to.
If Time Inc. had submitted the same kind of app as the WSJ and the FT, and would have received a rejection for it, you would have a point. But wouldn't then anybody mention this? Wouldn't the Time Inc. people not use these examples in their complaints? Nowhere in the complaints does it say that Time Inc. feels it is getting something rejected other publications received approval for.
But that's still only one store. Your premise of this being some sort of monopoly is incorrect. They could sell via other magazine apps like Zinio, direct from their website, Amazon, whatever. And most/all of these could easily go to users of the iPad/phone, too.
The difference is that Zineo content is not distributed through iTunes or the App Store -- new issues of the magazines you subscribe to are served by Zineo, directly to the iPad. The description of the dispute between Apple and SI makes it sound like SI wants to use iTunes to distribute the content, which imposes costs on Apple. If that's the case, it makes perfect sense that Apple wants the same kind of compensation it gets for distributing apps, since from the company's point of view it's just data they have to send.
But doing that requires having sufficient capacity to handle digital distribution of the content, and it sounds to me like SI doesn't want to have to make the investment in doing their own digital distribution. Which is their own damn problem.
Wall Street Journal is far far more powerful than Time Inc. Even Steve Jobs fears Rupert Murdock lolz.
Apple is afraid that if they ever go below their 30% precedent, other powerful publishers will want the very same deal. When you are talking about people like EA and such which put a lot of popular content in the app store, this becomes an issue.
In my view, Time is probably willing to give them the overhead costs of what it actually takes to print the magazine and maybe slightly more. Costs they have to eat in the actually print publication subscription.
Apple needs to get the deal down now if anything. In the world of computers you are on top now but perhaps not forever. Android tablets are just around the corner and google doesn't charge next to anything.
Apple is afraid that if they ever go below their 30% precedent, other powerful publishers will want the very same deal. When you are talking about people like EA and such which put a lot of popular content in the app store, this becomes an issue.
In my view, Time is probably willing to give them the overhead costs of what it actually takes to print the magazine and maybe slightly more. Costs they have to eat in the actually print publication subscription.
Apple needs to get the deal down now if anything. In the world of computers you are on top now but perhaps not forever. Android tablets are just around the corner and google doesn't charge next to anything.
Grow up. Consumers don't want print pricing subscriptions and will be glad Apple is pressing magazine publishers on this issue.
Apple isn't giving them an exemption on their ecosystem and they never should.
These aren't desktop applications via OS X. These are embedded applications via the iOS Platform.