New York Times Offers In-App Subscriptions

[MacRumors]

The New York Times has begun offering digital subscriptions via Apple's in-app subscription feature. The subscription offering puts the Times app in compliance with Apple's revised in-app subscription guidelines. The Times rolled out its digital subscription offerings earlier this year, but they couldn't be purchased directly in an app until today.




The Times is now the highest profile app to work with Apple's requirements surrounding subscriptions. Current NYT subscribers can login and access their content, and non-subscribers can quickly sign up using their iTunes accounts.

For new users signing up through the app, the Times is charging $14.99/month for NYTimes.com + iPhone App access, $19.99 for website + iPad, and $34.99/month for website + iPhone + iPad. Apple will receive a 30% cut of these subscriptions.

These prices are similar to those offered via the Times website, though NYTimes.com offers a $0.99 promotional price for the first month. In-App subscribers will receive a week-long subscription for free if they share their name, email address and ZIP code with the Times.

Article Link: New York Times Offers In-App Subscriptions

 

[Chaos215bar2]

So they want me to pay 75% more if I happen to have an iPhone and iPad and want to use my subscription on both?! How can they possibly justify charging as much as the iPhone + web subscription just to add iPhone access to the iPad + web subscription?

 

[marksman]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8G4 Safari/6533.18.5)

Someone gets it. There is significant vale to the iOS ecosystem for most publications. More will get it as time goes on. Being able to sell subs right away to a dedicated iOS userbase is worth the price.

 

[Fuchal]

$15 additional to access on your iPhone? What a crock

 

[wordoflife]

Too bad they started charging for access. It was nice while it was free. I would still read the NYT, but I'm already paying for the WSJ, which I like a bit better.

 

[aawil]

Pretty difficult to justify spending that much every month for news I can get somewhere else for free.

 

[rdowns]

I guess the NY Times found out the hard way that 70% of something is way better than 100% of nothing.

 

[pksteffen]

Too much

I love the NYtimes but the content is still not easy to sift through - it based on the old newspaper model. For example, I want to look at ART alone but have to sift through design etc. to find. Newspaper is actually easier to read. Plus it just costs too much. We are used to paying max $9.99 for apps etc. on iOS. I see that as being their biggest hurdle. For what it is worth, I think the only way this and other news organizations can make it work is by volume. Sell lots of it and very cheaply...

 

[Lennholm]

So they want me to pay 75% more if I happen to have an iPhone and iPad and want to use my subscription on both?! How can they possibly justify charging as much as the iPhone + web subscription just to add iPhone access to the iPad + web subscription?

$15 additional to access on your iPhone? What a crock

Blame Apple for that, their rediculous transaction fee of 30% is what created these prices.

 

[Porchland]

$15 additional to access on your iPhone? What a crock

On my iPhone, I prefer the mobile.nytimes.com site to the iPhone app because the app is so slow to update.

 

[PDE]

I don't get the NYT pricing. I mean, they could go after a huge market and yet they choose to overprice and limit themselves to a small, but affluent market.

By contrast, I subscribe to the UK's Guardian app for 4 pounds/year and get superb content. Of course, the Guardian still has a free website too.

Crazy to make customers pay for each device they access information on. Why not just limit how many devices you can use at any given time? Well, actually we know why: because they want more money.

I used to read the NYT daily, but because of this I've pretty much stopped.

 

[cozmot]

Blame Apple for that, their rediculous transaction fee of 30% is what created these prices.

You're incorrect. This pricing plan was in effect before this. Do your research before making claims like this. Take a look: http://bit.ly/iWwDJo

 

[KALLT]

I think that the NYT could do much better. A subscription of the paper version of the IHT costs in Europe at around € 35 per month and includes website access. I would have to pay the same amount just to get access on an iPhone and iPad. I do not understand why they just don't offer one reasonable, flat price for any online content, regardless from which device I read it.

The iPhone app of the Guardian, for example, offers a 6-months subscription for just € 3,99. There is no iPad version yet, but the price for the iPhone subscription alone speaks for itself. The price does not have to be that low, but certainly not too high either.

 

[cozmot]

Delusional pricing

The App store issue aside, the Times' pricing scheme, unveiled this spring, is delusional. You will pay more to access the paper's content on your browser, iPad and iPhone than getting a daily paper subscription. Check out the comparison chart at http://read.bi/mJnnDZ. It is this, and not Apple getting a slice of the pie that will make them fail. There aren't enough fools out there to pay these ridiculous prices to sustain the model.

I would have gladly subscribed to a more reasonable pricing scheme, but the Time's has shown that just like most of the old news media, they've got their heads stuck in the past.

 

[Xtremehkr]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

To purchase the paper edition of the NYT's in Arizona would cost $5 a day. $15 a month for iPhone and computer access is not a bad deal.

The NYTs are a business and can't be expected to give away their product for free.

 

[Lennholm]

You're incorrect. This pricing plan was in effect before this. Do your research before making claims like this. Take a look: http://bit.ly/iWwDJo

Before what? Before Apple introduced in-app subscriptions with the 30% toll? Not if the date in the image you asked me to take a look at is any indication.

 

[kiljoy616]

So they want me to pay 75% more if I happen to have an iPhone and iPad and want to use my subscription on both?! How can they possibly justify charging as much as the iPhone + web subscription just to add iPhone access to the iPad + web subscription?

No one said you have to get it, but the prices are in par and if it keeps something as valuable as the NY Times afloat I am all for it.

 

[InfernoShade]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8G4 Safari/6533.18.5)

Someone gets it. There is significant vale to the iOS ecosystem for most publications. More will get it as time goes on. Being able to sell subs right away to a dedicated iOS userbase is worth the price.

Agreed. Again the 70% of something wins out over the 100% of nothing. Good business.

 

[InfernoShade]

$15 additional to access on your iPhone? What a crock

NYT is $20 on Kindle (and from what I understand it's not the whole paper). So the pricing seems to have something to do with size of device, who knows. In iOS for $20 you get web + iPad. Seems like the iOS deal is better.

 

[InfernoShade]

I guess the NY Times found out the hard way that 70% of something is way better than 100% of nothing.

Oop! Just saw you beat me to this. Hats off.

 

[InfernoShade]

You're incorrect. This pricing plan was in effect before this. Do your research before making claims like this. Take a look: http://bit.ly/iWwDJo

Good point, agreed. I appreciate you trying to make people understand. But don't worry there are tons of people who think the 30% should have never been there, Apple should not make any money of other people's sales, and should run the whole infrastructure for free.

 

[Scott6666]

I like the Times and read the free Top News page daily. But there is NO way I'd pay $35 a month for it and I won't pay to just get an iPad/web version.

If they had saner pricing like maybe up to $20 a month for all I might. For $10 a month it would be an easy decision to say yes.

I would think that their market is tiny at $20/$35 a month. They'd make a lot more money with the quantity they'd get with more reasonable pricing.

 

[Lennholm]

Good point, agreed. I appreciate you trying to make people understand. But don't worry there are tons of people who think the 30% should have never been there, Apple should not make any money of other people's sales, and should run the whole infrastructure for free.

The only part of Apple's infrastructure that is used for subscriptions is the payment processing, and that is certainly not worth more than a 5% cut, which is in the area of what other payment processing services charge.
The other parts of Apple's infrastructure, the hosting and delivery of apps to customers, is covered by the developers yearly license and the 30% cut of the price of the app, nothing wrong with Apple charging 30% when the infrastructure IS ACTUALLY USED.

 

[cozmot]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

To purchase the paper edition of the NYT's in Arizona would cost $5 a day. $15 a month for iPhone and computer access is not a bad deal.

The NYTs are a business and can't be expected to give away their product for free.

You're quoting a New York Times subscription in Arizona to make your point, which is only by mail? The NYT is not a national newspaper; of course the digital subscription in this case is better. Why not cite the daily price for Juneau, Alaska, to make an even better case?

The fact is, if you live in New York City, you pay more for a total digital subscription (browser, iPhone and iPad), than you do for a paper delivery subscription. You don't have to be an economist to figure out that distribution costs for a hard copy newspaper is more than for digital content.

Nobody is saying the Times has to give it away for free. But to your point about their being a business, overpricing their product is not a smart business decision either. If the Times wants to use a subscription model, it can't succeed by an Old World model -- "Other" World may be a better description -- but has to have an adaptive one.

 

[cozmot]

Good point, agreed. I appreciate you trying to make people understand. But don't worry there are tons of people who think the 30% should have never been there, Apple should not make any money of other people's sales, and should run the whole infrastructure for free.

Oh, I'm in agreement with your point. Apple's take of 30% is ridiculous.