Europe already found Apple guilty of monopoly price fixing with iTunes. The ability to turn to other platforms is not relevant if they don't have significant market share.
Phazer
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Apple Debuts App Store Subscriptions
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Europe already found Apple guilty of monopoly price fixing with iTunes. The ability to turn to other platforms is not relevant if they don't have significant market share.
Phazer
This is a great deal for publishers. I published a magazine (Flash Magazine http://flashmag.com) for a decade. The cost of printing and mailing was horrendous. It ate up almost all of our income from subscription and copy sales. Magazine distributors took 40% so Apple's 30% is a great deal. As a publisher I would be overjoyed. As a reader I think it is great too.
Apple sure seems very capable of setting this 30% percentage. In the negotiation with the publishers, they sure seems to have the ability to fix prices.
If currently 95% of all you tablet subscriptions are on iOS devices, you might not feel so free to run away. The consumers have a choice, the publishers less so.
People were always free to use a different OS from Windows, MS nevertheless got into legal trouble.
Visa/Mastercard etc... don't rely only on service charges. They rely on deadbeats who accrue lots and lots of interest at 20+%
Apple's method of app store income is their only method of making money by charging 30% on paid purchases while taking a hit on free software.
Data centers aren't free, nor is the bandwidth. several million copies of the 40+MB "Daily" app sent to Americans isn't free for Apple.
But can they inform the customer of a better deal? From the press release.
Apple's is blocking providing a choice. Effectively, the publisher is left with the situation of informing the customer that there is a better deal but can't tell you how to get to it. "Believe me there is a better deal on the internet I just can't tell you were it is because Apple won't let me or you can just press this button. " That is not facilitating consumer choice.
This is akin to brick-and-motar stores making magainzes remove the mail in subscription cards (you know the ones that fall out of the vast majority magazines when you leaf through them) and their subscription contact information out of the magazines that are sold in the stores.
When has Europe not found a United States company guilty ? It's just another form of protectionism by Europe.
Yes, it does. Nobody ever claimed language was logical.
Here is a dictionary definition of 'bi-monthly':
°Occurring once every two months
°Twice every month
It's more like forcing them to remove those things UNLESS they also offer an option of the store to sell the subscription for them IN ADDITION to the sub cards. From the customer's perspective they can say, "Alright <store> you already have my credit card information and look after the purchase plan for the TV I just bought, I'll subscribe through you since it's easy" or saying, "But then you're the middle man, right? I'll just take the magazine and use the subscribe card at home that way 100% goes to the magazine and you don't get a cut. Sure I have to fill out all of my information again, give some other company my credit card company but it's worth it to me."
It would seem that all a developer has to do is eliminate any links that would give a consumer the ability to purchase outside of the app. Like Amazon no longer directing purchases to the Safari web browser. Anyone who uses the Kindle app or Netflix app knows where to purchase content without being directed there through the app.
You're missing the point. They don't have their own supply chain because they are relying on the iPad/iPod to deliver the content to the user. If they had their own supply chain, they could deliver directly to the end user without Apple.
If they want to deliver to the iOS ecosystem, they need to pay the price for the additional rewards that brings them.
What service is Apple providing? They aren't printing anything. They're not delivering anything. The only thing they're "providing" is the ability for the publisher to publish on their OS.
So? If Apple's hosting all iOS programs, that's their choice to do so, not the developer/publisher's.
Actually it is. If this is done in-program and pulled off a seperate server it has nothing to do with Apple at all. Now maybe "the Daily" is hosted by Apple, I don't know how that works-it may be a joint Apple thing. But other publications aren't. Apple isn't doing them any favors by forcing them to host something-or not even hosting it but just requiring they pay anyway. If this is such a wondrous service Apple is providing, then they shouldn't need to enforce it, since publishers and developers will flock to it on their own.
When did an American ever hear about an anti-trust case in Europe unless the company involved was American?
That's what I'm thinking as well. If that's the case, it's not a bad deal at all.
are you referring to EU's (dropped) lawsuit against Apple and recording companies about inconsistent pricing across nations? EU has a point if apple were to charge one price (or percentage) in one nation vs another nation. But I don't think this is the same.
P.
Who cares! Europe doesn't like Apple's practices so the EU is <insert political buzzword here>.
Subscriptions for apps sound great! But I will definitely go through the website for a publication so that the publisher gets 100% of the sale if that's how the whole deal will work.
While I do like that Apple makes things easy, I would rather take the time (couple of minutes?) to sign up with the publisher rather than Apple. After all, the publisher is the one that creates the app AND the content every week or month. Apple is simply the middle man taking a gigantic cut.
While I do like that Apple makes things easy, I would rather take the time (couple of minutes?) to sign up with the publisher rather than Apple. After all, the publisher is the one that creates the app AND the content every week or month. Apple is simply the middle man taking a gigantic cut.
Um,
what?Pretty sure 'Watch It Now' will still work without Apple's help... Apple could cease to exist tomorrow and the 'Watch It Now' isn't going to change...
Unmittigated bollocks all the way.
Irrespective of your nonsensical fabrications, that doesn't change the fact that Apple makes a very, very significant amount of it's operating profit from Europe and isn't going to withdraw from it. So European anti-competition regulations are very important, because a multi-billion dollar anti-competition fine would hurt Apple.
Apple is legimately scared of these things irrespective of what you think - removing the block on applications exported from Flash was precisely due to a threat from the EC of a full investigation into the matter.
Belgium's competition authority has already started investigating this - http://paidcontent.co.uk/article/419-publishers-ipad-subs-grumbles-earn-apple-antitrust-attention/
Phazer
I think you all are seriously overestimating the iPhone's market share.
It's nothing like Windows or the iTunes music store.
Thank you! I can't believe people are seriously thinking it's reasonable for one company to take 30% from another company that actually made the content, for...uh...the privilege of getting to display it on iOS, I guess.
Doesn't matter, they have a monopoly on iOS distribution. Their market share is 100%. iOS itself has a huge marketshare too for that matter. Android has virtually zero percent for anything but phones.
I agree. Amazon can quickly comply just by removing the "Shop in Kindle Store" button in the top right. Job done!