Apple pulls Financial Times iPhone, iPad app over subscription disagreement
Apple has removed from the App Store the iPhone and iPad apps from international business paper The Financial Times after the publication refused to comply with its terms for in-app subscription payments.
After drawing criticism for its rules regarding in-app subscriptions, Apple modified its terms ahead of a June 30 deadline to allow third-party subscriptions and purchases sold outside of the App Store to be offered at a lower price than those within an iOS app.
But, the changes weren't enough for FT, which disagreed with Apple's remaining rule forbidding external links within an app to purchase content.
The publication's apps remained in the App Store for two months after the deadline, but paidContent reports that they have now been removed. Interestingly enough, the company's app won an Apple Design Award last year.
FT asserts that its biggest issue with Apple is its control over subscriber data, not the 30 percent cut that the iPad maker insists on taking.
Given that the company saw 10 percent of roughly 100,000 new digital subscriptions come from the iPad last year, as many as 10,000 users could be affected by the change. The paper has seen its digital subscriptions nearly double since the original iPad was released in 2010.
?The FT iPad and iPhone apps will no longer be available to new users through iTunes,? said a spokesperson. ?We are directing readers to the FT?s new web app available at app.ft.com. iTunes will remain an important channel for new and existing advertising based apps.?
The newspaper launched a HTML5-based web app in June as a workaround to Apple's policies. The web app appears to have met with instant success, as FT already claims 550,000 users of the app, which is accessible through mobile Safari.
Meanwhile, other app makers such as The Wall Street Journal, Amazon and Barnes & Noble, have complied with Apple's rules by removing purchasing options from their applications.
The Chinese edition of the Financial Times, which is free, and Financial Times Deutschland, which is no longer run by the FT Group, will both remain on the App Store
After drawing criticism for its rules regarding in-app subscriptions, Apple modified its terms ahead of a June 30 deadline to allow third-party subscriptions and purchases sold outside of the App Store to be offered at a lower price than those within an iOS app.
But, the changes weren't enough for FT, which disagreed with Apple's remaining rule forbidding external links within an app to purchase content.
The publication's apps remained in the App Store for two months after the deadline, but paidContent reports that they have now been removed. Interestingly enough, the company's app won an Apple Design Award last year.
FT asserts that its biggest issue with Apple is its control over subscriber data, not the 30 percent cut that the iPad maker insists on taking.
Given that the company saw 10 percent of roughly 100,000 new digital subscriptions come from the iPad last year, as many as 10,000 users could be affected by the change. The paper has seen its digital subscriptions nearly double since the original iPad was released in 2010.
?The FT iPad and iPhone apps will no longer be available to new users through iTunes,? said a spokesperson. ?We are directing readers to the FT?s new web app available at app.ft.com. iTunes will remain an important channel for new and existing advertising based apps.?
The newspaper launched a HTML5-based web app in June as a workaround to Apple's policies. The web app appears to have met with instant success, as FT already claims 550,000 users of the app, which is accessible through mobile Safari.
Meanwhile, other app makers such as The Wall Street Journal, Amazon and Barnes & Noble, have complied with Apple's rules by removing purchasing options from their applications.
The Chinese edition of the Financial Times, which is free, and Financial Times Deutschland, which is no longer run by the FT Group, will both remain on the App Store
Comments
Nothing quite says "win" like getting important applications pulled from your app store.
Maybe this will even spawn secondary cross-platform HTML5 app stores for subscription-based content. That will really prove Apple is sticking it to them.
What a fantastic result for Apple!
Nothing quite says "win" like getting important applications pulled from your app store.
Maybe this will even spawn secondary cross-platform HTML5 app stores for subscription-based content. That will really prove Apple is sticking it to them.
You don't get it. They don't need to be in anyone's app store. It makes no sense at all. It's redundant. Just go to the website.
You don't get it. They don't need to be in anyone's app store. It makes no sense at all. It's redundant. Just go to the website.
I do get it. I was just being facetious.
Since app.ft.com is available it might as well could be removed by FT.
apple's draconian in-app subscription policy is a mistake...
Yes, because giving end users the choice of not sending data to the publisher is bad.
Apple has removed from the App Store the iPhone and iPad apps from international business paper The Financial Times after the publication refused to comply with its terms for in-app subscription payments.
What the heck, Is this sentence even grammatically correct?
Yes, because giving end users the choice of not sending data to the publisher is bad.
Nice doublespeak :-)
Yes, in a way it is bad. The cost of the content consumers get from publications like the FT is subsidised by advertising. Publications sell advertising based on subscriber/reader data. The provision of this data by readers is part of an implicit agreement between publishers and readers that enables the business model to exist.
If you break this business model (as Apple, sadly, appears to be trying to do) then advertisers don't advertise, the publisher can't generate content, and the readers can't read it. Apple wins in the short term, everyone loses in the long term.
Nice doublespeak :-)
Yes, in a way it is bad. The cost of the content consumers get from publications like the FT is subsidised by advertising. Publications sell advertising based on subscriber/reader data. The provision of this data by readers is part of an implicit agreement between publishers and readers that enables the business model to exist.
If you break this business model (as Apple, sadly, appears to be trying to do) then advertisers don't advertise, the publisher can't generate content, and the readers can't read it. Apple wins in the short term, everyone loses in the long term.
I love this rational.
When Apple gives a choice, it's bad. When it didn't give a choice, guess what.. it's evillllll.
Yes, because giving end users the choice of not sending data to the publisher is bad.
If laws require a ten year warranty in a given country and as a result some manufacturers stop selling their products in this country because it does not make commercial sense for them, is this good or bad for the consumer?
The issue here is the use of aggregate data of personal information like name, address and e-mail. When you subscribe via a webpage all this goes to the publisher but unless you agree to it, it will only be used to create aggregate data. Every decent newspaper already offers the option to prevent the usage of these data for direct marketing via a simple checkbox. What Apple offers as an option is complete anonymity, something which has never existed in the world of subscriptions (only when buying single issue and even then the person at the kiosk might remember your face after a while).
But then this anonymity is only towards the publisher, Apple can still use your subscription habits to target iAds [in other applications] to you.
For the case of FT: check their website, you do not need their app as such!
apple's draconian in-app subscription policy is a mistake...
We can only know in the long run.
What Apple offers as an option is complete anonymity, something which has never existed in the world of subscriptions (only when buying single issue and even then the person at the kiosk might remember your face after a while).
But then this anonymity is only towards the publisher, Apple can still use your subscription habits to target iAds [in other applications] to you.
Except Apple won't do things like send you post and doesn't really make it money from Ads. Ads for papers on the other hand are a main revenue stream in some cases. These papers have no need for your data, on the other hand Apple only uses your App data and you can choose not to turn genius on. You only have compare Apple to Google for a clearer picture. Google are a shower of bastards who like Facebook benefit a lot from not caring about you. Apple has the reputation they have because they are the opposite.
If laws require a ten year warranty in a given country and as a result some manufacturers stop selling their products in this country because it does not make commercial sense for them, is this good or bad for the consumer?
Depends if you cared about a 10 year warranty or not. Should it be a law to decide this is a requirement or should it just be left to competition. With car's there are a lot that advertise long warranty's while other's advertise nicer designs. People then have a decision of what's most important to them.
As long as the law makes companies make things clear about what their doing then consumers should have the right to buy what they wan't. If someone decides they don't care that a product only has a 3 month warranty, or they don't care how their data is used then that's there choice.
apple's draconian in-app subscription policy is a mistake...
No, it isn't
Furthermore it is standard industry practice.
If I go to Walmart to buy a product, I pay the price in Walmart, the original manufacturer of the product isn't sat in Walmart saying "you can also buy from me and save a little money, don't bother going to the cashier here, i can take payment from you instead".
Consumers accept then when in a retail outlet/distribution model you pay the mark-up of the retail outlet/distributor selling the product. Sure - there are always ways to save money on your purchase, or alternative places to purchase, but when in the store, you buy from the store at the in-store price. If you want to purchase elsewhere, you leave the store.
I don't understand why people think Apple are doing anything new? They are protecting their business/profit model while giving a convenient distribution/purchase outlet for software.
I have to say that I am not a big fan of "selected partner" business model. If I give my information to Apple, then I expect it to remain with Apple and for that matter if I give it to Google or FT I expect it to remain there. They can provide further services based on that, like what Google does, but should not create a 2ndary market to sell and purchase the data. I do not want to sound doom&gloom but the advertising field is heading for a subprime market kind of crash (maybe in a few years!)
For the case of FT: check their website, you do not need their app as such!
That won't last forever http://www.nypost.com/
I do get it. I was just being facetious.
Sorry. I guess I didn't get it. lol!
I love this rational.
When Apple gives a choice, it's bad. When it didn't give a choice, guess what.. it's evillllll.
Lol and then they had the nerve to tell someone else about double speak.
As long as the law makes companies make things clear about what their doing then consumers should have the right to buy what they wan't. If someone decides they don't care that a product only has a 3 month warranty, or they don't care how their data is used then that's there choice.
Which would translate to iOS that Apple should only require a clear and public privacy policy from any app.