News Corp's 'The Daily' launches on iPad with Apple's in-app subscriptions - Page 3

I would be willing to bet Amazon would prefer to install their app directly on the users' iPad and not have to deal with Apple at all.

Apple does allow free distribution of free apps. However, if the app is truly free, the developer isn't profiting from it either, so there's little point in Apple trying to squeeze blood out of a turnip.

"Free" apps that essentially require the user to purchase content aren't really free, and the developer ought not be able to use this mechanism to avoid paying the cost of distribution. Amazon is profiting from it's "free" app by selling content for that app, and there's no reason Apple should have to treat that content any differently than new levels for a game. The reader app is a useless shell without the content, just like a game that comes with zero levels.

Apple may decide it's desirable to carve out a specific category of content, eBooks, that is treated differently than other content. It seems likely that they've done this with subscriptions, but they were only able to achieve this by playing hardball with the publishers, who would have gladly acted parasitically if allowed. Amazon, Sony and other eBook distributors who profit from selling eBooks, not the "free" readers are, or want to be, parasites on the iOS ecosystem. In Apples view, and I think their view is the correct and fair (to all developers) view, these companies ought to have to contribute their fair share to the costs of maintaining that ecosystem.

There are many apps available for iOS that are fronts for stores of various kinds. These apps are all free. Should Apple therefor take a cut when you buy an air conditioner through them? You don't really believe that.

I don't know why some people think that just because something can be delivered in digital form it's different, and should be charged differently. It shouldn't. A product is a product. A book is a book. And if you aren't buying that book through Apple's app store, then Apple should have no right to a cut. We're not using Apple's servers. Apple isn't an ISP.

How would you howl if Apple started charging developers for every free app of theirs that gets downloaded, as using your philosophy, they should be doing? Then there would be no free apps. Estimates are that a good two thirds of those 10 billion downloaded apps were free ones. Apple can apparently afford that. So they can afford this as well, particularly as it's one of the reasons for buying an Apple production the first place. If anything, if it's a problem, it should be relegated to advertising and marketing.

Many free apps are free with advertising much of which is not delivered by iAds so Apple is being taken advantage there. The apps are essentially selling whatever is being advertised.

It think that's a terrible rule, and thankfully, most people agree with me rather than you. If you saw their presentation today, you would see that Ad revenue is about half of magazine revenue. Having been in the publishing business in various ways, I find that number to be true. You seem to think that somehow, magically, all this information appears. It doesn't. Subs are a way to get people to get the magazine. It often doesn't even pay for the yearly postage to send it, much less for the publication itself. If it weren't for advertising, there would be hardly anything to read anywhere. People such as yourself benefit only because the vast majority of people understand that Ads are a very minor, but necessary, shall we call it for your benefit, "evil"?

I think there's a fairly straightforward test to determining which sorts of purchases should be part of the cost sharing and which ought to be exempt:

Does the purchase enhance the functionality of the app?

Case A: Purchasing an air conditioner, or a physical book, does not enhance the functionality of the app. The app does what it does and the purchase has no effect on it.

Case B: Purchasing an eBook, or game levels, clearly adds functionality to the app itself: the making available to the user, within the app, content the user can interact with.

Case A should be exempt. Case B ought not be.

http://www.tuaw.com/2011/02/02/mel-m...ist/#continued

I agree, "free" apps that generate revenue entirely through advertising not served by iAds are essentially gaming the system and the developers are acting parasitically. Obviously, this is one of the reasons Apple created iAds: to recover some of this lost cost sharing. Ideally, there ought to be a way to recover these costs from developers not using iAds, but the genie is out of the bottle and it would be very difficult to put it back in.

Let's see if I have this straight...

I should search the web to see what "misinformed" means?

With Google?

Then, form an opinion?

Based on the number of hits?


You're Schmidting me... Right.

Who's fault is it that the only way to install applications on iOS devices is through the App Store? Who's is the one who set the terms and conditions of publishing on the App Store? Who set the annual developer's fee in order to post and maintain your own application on the App Store? I'll give you a hint .

Yes, Apple maintains the platform. They're also the ones who set the terms, and up until now, everyone's been playing fine by those terms. You seem to think Apple is being exploited in some way. They're not. The ones being exploited are the developers, of whom, have been largely responsible for Apple's iOS success. And now, in return, Apple wants to take a cut from everyone that's doing business on their platform. Do they have the right to? That's a separate question. Should they do it? I don't believe its in the best interest of consumers or developers to have Apple start taking such a large percentage of their business for the privilege of running on iOS, especially when Apple was content with them just doing their thing in the past.

You're missing the entire point because you seem to have some bit of philosophy you're trying to get across.

The only thing that matters in business is the practical nature of what's being done. If you don't cheat your suppliers and customers, you've done your job as far philosophy goes.

The practical matter here is not what you say. It's that Apple isn't paying for a single book we buy from our apps. It costs Apple almost nothing to host a handful of apps that allow this. The apps are small, and take up almost no bandwidth to download, a few seconds. A few updates during the year, and that's all. If it costs Apple more than a few thousand a year, I'd be very surprised. For Apple to demand 30% is outrageous. There is no way that any of these other companies can stay in the business after giving Apple a cut like that.

If Apple wasn't so stubborn, we would have a selection in iBooks that equals that of the Kindle and Nook apps, but we don't. There is hardly any books in Apple's store, and that's Apple's fault as well. Therefor, to attempt to cause problems for the other companies who are helping Apple to sell their products is nuts!

My partner in my last company had this philosophy about doing business with other companies which seems to be matched by Apple lately. He felt that he should never leave anything on the table for any other company we did business with. He believed that if they walked away happy, he didn't take enough from them. I used to have to restrain him from doing that. In business, everyone needs to walk away thinking that they got something out of it.

Apple is working too hard to squeeze every penny out of others. This isn't good. It's why there aren't a lot of media deals. It's why we don't have Blu-Ray, it's why we don't have a lot of things Jobs said we would have by now.

The Daily has more video (including ads) than other options, including the more refined and impressive WSJ. Lots of spinning sprockets as these sudden video ads load.

Not sure if it's worth about half what the WSJ is getting as it covers a lot of topics that aren't appealing to me, but that's personal taste.

I was excited to try it and will give it a whirl every day for 2 weeks, but my initial reaction is ho hum. This thing was hyped pretty aggressively.

I think I prefer the newspaper-y layout of the NYT or WSJ, with iPad features thrown in. And a really basic, functional interface. The front page of The Daily is clumsy. They really should have looked around at how others have done it and refined it from there.

But hey, at least now I know Natalie Portman is pregno.

Totally agree.

Depending on the magazine, the ads can even be a major attraction. Artistic, informative, inspiring or motivational. Ads can also be boring and obnoxious, no doubt. There are good ads and bad ones. The higher quality the magazine, the higher quality the ads are. For some people, ads can be a license to dream as well. They imagine themselves in that luxury hotel wearing that designer outfit and driving that sports car. That is part of the formula for successful advertising. You may not like ads, but most people appreciate them in magazines, maybe not so much on TV or the web.

The iOS platform owes its success in good part to the curated nature of the App Store and the freedom from malware that comes with that. Developers are directly and indirectly benefiting from the ecosystem Apple has created, so, yes, they ought to help shoulder the costs, which in many cases are almost certainly less than they would, in reality, incur operating without the framework of the App Store. (That's why so many Mac developers are moving exclusively to the Mac App Store.) The share of revenue Apple takes from App Store sales is entirely fair and reasonable.

That's nonsense. A book reader app has no purpose other to let you buy and read books. It's not like a game that you can play, and then buy new levels. No app works the way you say it does. If it did, then any store app is enhanced by your making purchases. After all, most allow you to preview products, and manage your accounts, write reviews, etc. If that's not "enhancing" the functionality of the app, I don't know what is.

Thank you for the laughter! :-) I was thinking the same thing. People like studies that show how smart we are vs. others. Or how other people who have a different point of view are less successful or less informed. I liked the study that showed Apple owners were better lovers.

It's easy to poke at both sides. Jon Stewart had a great interview with Maddow of MSNBC and he rocked her pretty good by debating her issues from viewpoint of the right. He took jabs at both sides, pointing out hypocrisy with ease while injecting his usual humorous sarcasm.

Google it..it's a great moment for Stewart fans.

BTW, to ease back on topic, I browsed through The Daily this afternoon and my iPad did not tilt suddenly to the right.

Yep. Pretty much what I said yesterday. There is clearly no way that Apple is taking a 30% cut of The Daily. I'm guessing that they are working to get the payment processing percentage cut with a bit more on top for profit.

The "philosophy" I'm trying to get across is that the App Store is built on a revenue sharing model. Apple's share of the revenue largely goes to paying the costs or operating the App Store. What you are essentially arguing is that some app publishers ought to be exempt from the revenue sharing. I'm arguing that they ought not be exempt, but that it wouldn't be unreasonable for Apple to define different revenue sharing formulas for different types of content, as they have very likely done with subscriptions.

The problem is, if one is successfully cheating the revenue sharing model of the App Store then there's no motivation to stop cheating. Apple is applying that motivation, and that's fair to all developers.

Ads pay for almost everything, but not everything. But Murdock made a good point when asked why this wasn't free, and just Ad supported. It was the same thing the Village Voice found out here in NYc a number of years ago when they decided to go free.

People put more value on things they pay for. We all know the old expression of; "You get what you pay for." the Voice found that when they stopped charging, Ad revenue went way down. This is always the case. Murdock made that point, and he's right. By charging a little, he can charge advertisers more. It works out very well.

Apple just needs better category definitions of free apps. The App Store is just the installer/firewall for a free app that is a storefront for an e-commerce. That is a one time service for the iPad owner. After that, the app owner and the iPad owner should be free to conduct business between themselves without any interference or assistance from Apple.

How exactly does buying an air conditioner enhance the functionality of an app? It may enhance it's utility to you, but the purchase doesn't change its functionality.

Plenty of apps work along the lines I described where they are essentially empty shells for content you have to pay for. (Have you really never read the reviews for some of these apps?) And, you are correct, "A book reader app has no purpose other to let you buy and read books." Without those "book" purchases it's pretty much useless, which is the entire issue: eBook publishers are acting parasitically and are avoiding the revenue sharing that all developers and app publishers agree to.

Your problem here is you incorrectly insist that they are somehow "cheating" the app store. If that were the case, Apple would have either not allowed the apps in the first place, or removed them a long time ago. No, this is something new. Even though they are saying that nothing has changed in the rules, they are balding lying about that. They have nothing in the rules that says that it can't be done the way it's been done for so long now. They are now adding a new rule, even though they are saying that they are not. They're licking their chops at all the books that are being sold, and have decided to get some of that action.

The problem is that it's their own fault. I tried to buy many more books through the iBookstore, but they don't have most of the books. Who's fault is that? It's theirs. Perhaps if we could buy as many books through Apple as we can through the others, this wouldn't have become much of an issue.

It's what makes the app useful, just as buying a book makes the app useful. It doesn't matter that you're reading the book in the app. I can read that book in my Kindle app on my Mac as well. Maybe I'll never read the book in the iOS app. So what? It doesn't matter.

But I can, and have gotten free books there as well. So the app IS useful even without buying a single thing, and down goes your last argument.

This is a much bigger issue than just books. Books just happen to be a particularly egregious instance where app publishers are gaming the system to "hide" revenue. Essentially, you are arguing that a loophole can never be closed. I'm arguing that a loophole ought to be closed. (Although, I disagree with your characterization of the closing of this particular loophole, but that's irrelevant to the discussion.)

Still waiting for mine to install, one hour now.

But I did see their editorial statement, and it's got a bit of Fox-ish jingoist crap about freedom, and America being exceptional, etc.

I'm hoping that this is just language for the boss and for the hawks in News Corp. Hoping also that given the iPad demographic they will embrace a global, not-so-America-centric, outlook.

Just hoping, that's all . . .

Except that Apple has clearly drawn a line between digital content and tangible goods and the test I presented defines that line precisely. If you download only free books the distributor doesn't profit from them, nor does Apple share in any revenue, which mirrors exactly the example of a truly free, self-contained app where Apple also gets no revenue and has decided they are ok with that, so your hypothetical doesn't change anything in the equation.

Absolutely not!

This is mainly about digital content being purchased from and delivered to an iOS device. Apple doesn't sell air conditioners. Why would Apple be worried about users buying air conditioners? Apple does sell digital books. They should worry about their competition getting a free ride on their own platform. They are essentially giving their competition an advantage. Does Amazon allow other book stores on the Kindle device? Nope. So maybe Apple should just completely ban other book stores. Wouldn't that be more fair? Or maybe Apple should make an iBook "e-book" device, that's the EXACT same thing, but not allow other book stores? There are other platforms that are more closed than Apple's, but for some reason only Apple is evil and controlling!?



Hmm... not sure if referring to physical vs. digital in this argument? With physical media there are materials, manufacturing, printing, and shipping. That's overhead that doesn't exist with digital. So there is a huge cost difference.

While you may be using your own store to sell items through, you're still using Apple's massive distribution channel (i.e. platform) to sell through.



Hmmm... apparently you missed something in my post, because that was not my philosophy. My thinking leans more towards others making a profit at Apple's expense and then, only when they are a direct competitor to what Apple offers. See, for every Kindle book sold through the Kindle iOS app is a sales lost for the same book in the iBook Store. Free apps only make money through advertising (which Apple has the ability to extract revenue through iAd).



Personally, I don't agree with what Apple is doing, but I do understand why they feel the need to. Just a reminder, this in no way affects the user, except forces these other companies to offer the user direct sales and downloads in the app. What they've been doing before is pushing the user to a web site from within the app to make the purchase, then syncing with the server to gain access to the content. That is a loop hole to get around Apple's In-App-Purchasing rule.

Furthermore, these companies should be able to create a free "reader" that doesn't give access or link to the store from within the app. It would only allow you to access/sync and then view that content. Apple can't do anything about that.

1) Maybe some of the most informed, up-to-date people (journalists) lean towards the Democratic party? (I'm party-less BTW)

2) In some ways I feel sorry for Fox News. They're certainly popular, but in my opinion that's because they've abandoned any pretense of impartiality or journalistic integrity and have gone full-on to the right, while the rest of the crowd tries to be centrist or center-left. OK, MSNBC has gone pretty far left in the past 2-3 years.

3) Things I've learned from Fox News:
-Obama was not born in the US
-Obama is a socialist
-Obama is a closet Muslim (Muslim=bad)
-Climate change is not real
-Capping our carbon output will destroy our economy
-Obamacare (a term used by anchors) is bad
-"Democrat" is an adjective
-San Francisco = bad (seriously, they did a whole piece on why SF sucks)
-It's alright for an ANCHOR to lead a question with "Aren't Americans tired of Obama's ____?" Not a guest, an anchor.

4) I'm sorry, right or wrong, conservatives (as epitomized by Fox News) are the most emotional and irrational of all. Climate change is not real because one lab fudged their numbers. Glen Beck is right because he gets teary and calls on God a lot. O'Reilly must be smart, cuz he shouts over his opponents and calls them blowhards...Forget that Sarah Palin can't name a single source of news she reads, she's a mama grizzly!!

As they shouldn't but nevertheless, they do not permit in-app sales of real world goods, however, it appears that many apps do exactly that and Apple has not enforced the rule equally across the board.

You keep expanding the argument. Let's keep it to the point.

It's not a loophole. If Apple thought it was, they wouldn't have allowed it in the first place, as i've already noted.

What likely happened is that, as I also already noted, their book sales are dismal, due to their own fault, and they want to make it up from others' sales, that are out of their system, something the rules allow.

I don't see Apple drawing any line. All I see is them ALLOWING in app purchases. Not requiring them. Until now.

Your original statement isn't what you're saying now. Your test was for usefulness of the free app without having to buy something to make it so. You keep moving the goalposts further away.

Apple explicitly tells developers not to use Store Kit for "real world goods". Are you aware of any apps using Store Kit to sell "real world goods"?

They've also said that you have to make "content" you are selling for your app available through Store Kit.

There isn't any inconsistency in that.

Very well put. If people on the right want to be taken seriously, they have to comprehend why what you said makes them clowns.

They really are like babies, and "conservatives" these days tend to be anything but, with fear funneling them into the mindset that the military can't have ENOUGH money, because after all, we're fighting an advanced breed of terrorists who "hate our freedoms."

By definition, a loophole is a way to exploit something through a condition that wasn't taken into account. So, the argument that, if it were a loophole, they wouldn't have allowed it, doesn't really make sense.

I don't know about Store Kit specifically, only Apple's document about in-app sales which says not to sell real world goods. I did link to one example yesterday Freshdirect grocery store in NYC. I can probably find more if that is not enough proof that apps are selling real world goods.

Nothing whatsoever has changed in what I'm saying. Perhaps your understanding of it has changed, but the goalposts remain firmly in the same place they originally occupied.

However, I have no idea what you are trying to say in this sentence: "Your test was for usefulness of the free app without having to buy something to make it so."

My argument is that the App Store is built on a revenue sharing model. For truly free apps, there is no revenue, therefore, nothing to share. For "free" shell apps downloading free content, there is also no revenue, therefore, nothing to share. For "free" shell apps, like eBook readers, downloading paid content, there is revenue, and that revenue ought to be part of the revenue sharing model, not "hidden" through some means that allows the app publisher to profit from it but not fairly shoulder the cost burden of the App Store.

Apple is only interested in making sure that apps (and enhancements to those apps) go through their AppStore.

App developers wanted a method for charging extra to extend those apps, whether it be additional features or additional content rather than making the user constantly download newer or different versions for new features or content (which would eventually have to go through the AppStore anyway). That is what In-App-Purchasing was created for.

As an example, if you'll remember when the AppStore first opened, there were tons of "points" apps for certain games. Which you bought, downloaded and launched to activate those "points" within the game. That was a cumbersome work-around for developers to charge users for additional features.

If you're selling something through an app that in no way adds to that app, then there's no problem. I can't open up the Amazon app, buy a toaster, and have that toaster in anyway affect the app on my iOS device. It adds nothing to the app, no new content, no new feature.

If Amazon sold those books as individual apps through the AppStore, Apple would get their cut. Seems like a silly notion, except go look at the AppStore and all books available as a stand alone app.

They don't use Store Kit, and "real world goods" are specifically excluded -- prohibited, in fact -- from the App Store's revenue sharing model so there's nothing that I'm aware of that's wrong with what Fresh Direct's app does.

Again, does the purchase of groceries enhance the functionality (as opposed to the utility) of the App? No. Does the purchase of an eBook enhance the functionality of a reader app? Yes.

I personally never buy ANYTHING that I have to manually stop, but otherwise will automatically renew a charge!!! If you lose your IOS device you get billed for content that you don't get or that is now old. Option should be offered rather that automatically accessing my account or card. I'll pass.... The info is available free anyway.