News landed yesterday that Apple will have a subscription service in their Mac App Store for “all publishers of content based apps.”
Apple is using the same model it has for The Daily for those publishers — it will take 30 percent of subscriptions bought through the app store. If the publisher brings the subscriber to the app through its own Web site or by other means, the publisher then gets to take 100 percent.
There are some rules that will affect some content sellers, particularly Amazon. From Computerworld:
Publishers and content sellers must remove any links within their apps to outside-the-App Store purchasing options, Apple said, a requirement that means Amazon.com must eliminate the link to the Kindle Store that it currently provides in its iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad apps.
Subscriptions and other digital content can still be sold outside the App Store — thus sidestepping the 30% cut — said Apple, but the company will now demand that if that’s the case, the app also include in-Store purchases.
That’s a pretty bold move on Apple’s part considering the success thus far of Kindle book sales. The downside of the increase in Kindle sales has been a slide in profits for Amazon. My guess is, their margin is not that high to begin with, and more Kindle sales has made the margin smaller. Giving up an additional 30% to Apple is a rather large chunk.
By forcing Amazon to remove links to the Kindle Store from their iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad apps, they’re setting themselves up for the possibility of Amazon discontinuing their app altogether. In addition, moves like this on the part of Apple just seem to cry out for anti-trust investigation by the federal government.
Thoughts?
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