Apple generally does not back down but this one time, the tech behemoth has agreed to ease its subscription policies. A couple of
months back, the company had announced a set of subscription rules for the newspapers and magazine apps sold through its App Store. Under those guidelines, the publishers were required to offer its iOS subscription at a matching or better price offered elsewhere. There were also required to offer one-click subscription feature.
Understandably, the publishers were not happy with this as there were several problems associated with this ruling. First off, the rule prohibited publishers from offering discounts elsewhere and charging higher price for their Apple apps. Second, publishers were also obliged to give 30 percent share of the revenue derived from one-click subscription feature to Apple. Apple had given June 30th deadline to the publishers for complying with this draconian piece of rule, but looks like Apple has now chosen to review its stand.
The rule had received mixed reaction-albeit with negative tilt- from the publishers. The rule was branded 'economically untenable' by Rhapsody. In fact, it had generated enough brouhaha that Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission were forced to look into the matter. Apple has now issued a new set of rules which takes care of some complaints while doing nothing about the others.
The new rules still do not allow publishers to provide, "link to external mechanisms for purchases or subscriptions to be used in the app, such as a ‘buy’ button that goes to a Web site to purchase a digital book.” Oh well, something is better than nothing.