Apple's App Store Subscription Policies Raise Antitrust Issues as Content Providers F

NebulaClash said:
eaten in the marketplace already. Pick one and stick to it, trolls.

As to the issue, I'm not sure what to think. Apple certainly deserves to get paid for its work. Every time you order a book or magazine from Amazon, the postal service gets paid to deliver it to you. So what Apple is doing makes sense, but I'm not sure 30% is the right number. More like 10% seems fairer.
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Bad analogy. Apple isn't delivering a thing to you. If you buy a book via the Kindle app/Amazon's website on your iPhone, Amazon is the one delivering it to you. They're paying for the servers the book is stored on, they're paying for the bandwidth used to deliver it to you. Apple plays no part in the transaction.
 
*LTD* said:
Apple is a User-Centric organization. Once again, they've chosen users and developers at the expense of the publishing cartel.

Publishers and dinosaurs of their ilk need to evolve, or die. Oh well.
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so how will Pandora and netflix evolve?
 
I'd be less apprehensive about this if it was more on the level of a processing fees and various content hosting/pushing whatever they need to do with it.. I don't understand why Apple think they can/should charge for 30% of a sub.. Other than their own profits how is this actually helping anyone?

Its going to be really interesting watching the fallout on this issue..
 
NebulaClash said:
Apple certainly deserves to get paid for its work. Every time you order a book or magazine from Amazon, the postal service gets paid to deliver it to you. So what Apple is doing makes sense, but I'm not sure 30% is the right number. More like 10% seems fairer.
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The big difference here is that when you purchase a Kindle book, Apple does not do ANYTHING for you -- Amazon pushes the book to your device using their own servers and infrastructure.

Apple is now trying to force everybody to use Apple's infrastructure to obtain the content and furthermore, they want to hide the customers from the developers and content owners - they will be selling their content to an anonymous entity, which certainly is not in their interest.

None of this would be a problem if there were alternatives to Apple's infrastructure for delivering content to Apple's devices. But they created a Walled Garden, so this is a big issue.

Imagine Microsoft would have shut down Windows so that you could NOT use Apple's iTunes software and store on it but would force Apple to pay a 30% royalty for using the Xbox market place and Windows Media player to reach Windows users with their iDevices. That would be EXACTLY the same thing, but since it's Microsoft, you would all be screaming hell. But when Apple tries to pull off such a stunt, it's okay for you guys. That's totally nuts.
 
jmcrutch said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

I think this will only affect apps that have been or want to offer the ability to purchase or subscribe within the app. To my knowledge Netflix and Pandora can simply make their app a subscriber-only app (meaning you must already be a subscriber, or you need to sign up via traditional means, i.e. On the web).

Apple is merely saying if you are going to explicitly solicit subs within the app - then in the words of Robert DeNiro from Goodfellas - "pay me my money"
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Unfortunately not:

"Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “All we require is that, if a publisher is making a subscription offer outside of the app, the same (or better) offer be made inside the app, so that customers can easily subscribe with one-click right in the app."

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/02/15appstore.html

So if you make any subscription offer outside the app you must make an offer within the app (at the same or lesser price)
 
jonasen said:
I think the real issue is, what counts as subscriptions?
You don't subscribe to Kindle e-books, no?

How about a booking app? I don't see a ferry company or hotels having the kind of marginals to cough up 30% of their income to Apple.
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It's not a gray area. an E-book is not a subscription, you buy it. it fall under purchases. It's no-tangible, has no physical presence, so you pay 30%. A hotel room or a ferry is tangible. So no in app purchase, and no 30%.
 
It is important that we vigorously punish any sort of innovation or success, especially when such innovation or success jeopardizes long-standing, obsolete business models.
 
blizaine said:
I'm torn. I can see how this would upset the content providers and rightly so. But I can also see why Apple did this. One, so they could make money, but two, it would be worse for the customer if they had to pay more for in app purchases.
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Interestingly, that's exactly what the Times does at the moment: I'm a digital subscriber to the Times which costs £8.00 per month and gives access to the website along with the iPad apps for the Times and Sunday times. If you purchase In-App at the moment it's £9.99 for non-recurring 30 days access
 
Jack Welch's #1 rule of business, don't let anyone get between you and your customers. lets see how many of apple's content partners listen to this
 
bittervictorian said:
Unfortunately not:

"Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “All we require is that, if a publisher is making a subscription offer outside of the app, the same (or better) offer be made inside the app, so that customers can easily subscribe with one-click right in the app."

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/02/15appstore.html

So if you make any subscription offer outside the app you must make an offer within the app (at the same or lesser price)
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You could be right, however keep in mind that is a press release in human understandable conversation speak not the actual technical rules. I have not see anything in the rules REQUIRING you to offer sign-up in iOS. Only things saying IF you offer sign-ups, you must .....
 
As a kid in the 1980s and 90s, Macs always seemed like barren wastelands with so little software and hardware options.

When so many legitimate apps leave the app store, will iPhones look the same?
 
At first this shocked me but the more I thought about it the more it makes sense. Apple is the one who created all of the iOS devices and the iOS that people use to gain access to all of this content. Isn't more Netflix streaming done on the Apple TV than any other means of streaming? And Netflix gets all of that exposure for free? I'm not jumping for joy about Apple's decision but all of this anti-trust crap that is getting thrown around just doesn't make sense. Why wouldn't Apple charge people for using what they created?
 
Yeah it is hard... If they sell stuff elsewhere it has to be the same price as in iTunes store or more expensive... Except in iTunes they pay 30% to Apple... =/:rolleyes:


:apple:
 
tripjammer said:
This is what I am talking about...U go Google...but...they market place still sucks....but they have the potential to dominate. Microsoft were are you at what are you doing? Oh yeah you pretty much bought Nokia for peanuts...which was a good move since Nokia does know how to make awesome hardware.
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So does Microsoft. Sadly, the marketing and software divisions screw them up. MS hardware and gaming are both really great divisions.
 
jhall527 said:
At first this shocked me but the more I thought about it the more it makes sense. Apple is the one who created all of the iOS devices and the iOS that people use to gain access to all of this content. Isn't more Netflix streaming done on the Apple TV than any other means of streaming? And Netflix gets all of that exposure for free? I'm not jumping for joy about Apple's decision but all of this anti-trust crap that is getting thrown around just doesn't make sense. Why wouldn't Apple charge people for using what they created?
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So by that same logic, all of the TV and DVD/Blu-Ray player manufacturers deserve a cut of Netflix subscriptions because their devices make Netflix possible. It's a bogus argument. iOS was not created specifically for Netflix, just like TVs and DVD players weren't created specifically for Netflix. Apple doesn't deserve a penny of Netflix's revenue.
 
Question: Is purchasing a book with the Kindle app considered a "subscription"?

I am considering purchasing 2 new iPhones this year, but if Kindle and Netflix get pulled I would definitely think twice. This is a total douche-bag move by Apple.
 
rwilliams said:
I read an article last night that stated that Amazon would lose money on every book they sold through their iOS apps. No way they're going to accept that. The article guessed that Amazon would rather remove the ability to buy books through the app altogether and simply make it a reader.
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I think this is part people don't understand, and I maybe wrong myself, Netflix, Pandora, etc, do not have links in their app to buy stuff, so they will to be effected this action. Apple is requiring Amazon to change their link to their website to buy book, which is pain, to an in app buy button. Which is an improvement for user in terms of it's a lot easier to buy a book. Apple is taking a the risk on the transaction, they should get paid for this risk and their fees for doing the transaction. Now the questions is should they get 30% or something smaller like 10%...
 
bittervictorian said:
Unfortunately not:

"Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “All we require is that, if a publisher is making a subscription offer outside of the app, the same (or better) offer be made inside the app, so that customers can easily subscribe with one-click right in the app."

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/02/15appstore.html

So if you make any subscription offer outside the app you must make an offer within the app (at the same or lesser price)
Click to expand...

It works both ways my friend...they will just make 30 percent less if somebody subscribes though the app store. Apple has to make some kind of money since they are handling the transaction. Why would apple do this for free?

From wikipedia....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appstore
"In February 2011, Apple announced it's new subscription based service which will allow publishers to set the length and price of a subscription. Previously, new magazine or news releases would be sold on a per release basis. The new service allows publishers to sell their content through their apps allowing users to receive the new content over specified period of time. More interestingly is that Apple will allow publishers not only to sell from iTunes where revenue will be shared (70% for the publisher, 30% for Apple), but they are also allowing publishers to distribute their subscriptions directly from their websites where no revenue will be shared with Apple."
 
Google just announced their service, 10% instead of 30%. They give consumer information to the publisher. Apple does not.

Now - where's that monopoly everyone is talking about?
 
This seems to put lots of people in a place to make some very important choices.

For the content publishers, do you stay on iOS and eat lose the 30% from iOS customers, but at the same time get access to those millions of potential customers or do you leave the platform and leave those customers?

Then for the consumers, do you stick with iOS if publishers start to leave?

I think Apple is betting on everyone staying, as a publisher leaving the platform could mean a huge cut in revenue and users. And if they do stay then the customers will stay because now they have super easy billing for anything on the platform, just click buy and type your password, no more sign up forms and entering credit card information.

If it works it will make iOS just that more easy to use for the consumer, if it doesn't work then it could cause major issues for iOS in the future.

The next few months will certainly be interesting as an iOS developer...
 
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