When the deadline finally came for apps to conform to Apple’s new rules governing in-app purchases, giving Apple a 30% cut from any in-app purchase or subscription and eliminating links to outside e-shops, most of the biggest names — like Amazon’s Kindle app — ultimately grin and bore up.
Conspicuously, though, the Financial Times never updated its app… and after two months of standing defiant, the App Store ban hammer has finally dropped. Apple’s serious about their cut!
Not that it will make much of a difference to the Finacial Times. While their apps were still on the App Store up until a day or so ago, they’d already announced that they wouldn’t be complying with Apple and would instead off an HTML5 based web app, which is apparently quite popular, despite a subscription costing $4.99 per week. If you’re upset that the native apps have suddenly gone bye-bye, you can find the web app here.
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
15 responses to “Financial Times Gets Dumped From The iOS App Store”
Will never buy it out of iTunes. Papers should focus on quality content, not on distrubution and address grabbing.
I wish more apps would move to the web, like the Financial Times. HTML5 apps are more accessible, do not discriminate between platforms or devices, and do not involve multiple development resources (+money) to get them working on iOS, Android, WP and BB. Although they work only in the cloud, they involve almost no storage and no updates. The downside is there are very few apps that are as solid and polished as native ones. New York Times, maybe. TweetDeck. Feedly. A few Google services (Gmail and Plus). But they are all exceptions.
Apple need to take a chop to their cut – 30% is too much. Â Maybe 10% would be more sustainable and more importantly attractive.
Apple is smoking a crack pipe. Their revenue model is greedy and immoral. Just speeds up the push for developers to move to other markets/platforms.
Guys, as we all know, apple really needs money, they have next to nothing!
30% does seem too much. I think even forcing apps to remove links to alternative methods was going too far and forced these players out of the native app. Those that use iTunes, are happier having one trusted place for transactions and one place to end subscriptions if they want. Simply from the aggregation and trust factors iTunes has an advantage for the average consumer. Many would even be willing to pay a slight premium for this simplicity. Others of course don’t mind have 20 accounts across the web, but let each class of user have their own way. I think apple would actually be ahead here if more apps stayed native and they took a smaller piece. Although the HTML5 apps are good, I’d still say they aren’t quite as good as the native apps and I expect there to always be a small gap there. Even from the discovery side, being in the app store has some value.
Overall, by being too strict on the 30% and on the link rule, I think apple has lost some revenue and strong content from the ecosystem, and the consumer has lost some choice and a few of their favorite bundles of content from the native app world. The content producers actually also lose some readers here by not being a native app available in the app store. So, by being too strict, I think we actually have a lose-lose-lose result here.
30% does seem too much. I think even forcing apps to remove links to alternative methods was going too far and forced these players out of the native app. Those that use iTunes, are happier having one trusted place for transactions and one place to end subscriptions if they want. Simply from the aggregation and trust factors iTunes has an advantage for the average consumer. Many would even be willing to pay a slight premium for this simplicity. Others of course don’t mind have 20 accounts across the web, but let each class of user have their own way. I think apple would actually be ahead here if more apps stayed native and they took a smaller piece. Although the HTML5 apps are good, I’d still say they aren’t quite as good as the native apps and I expect there to always be a small gap there. Even from the discovery side, being in the app store has some value.
Overall, by being too strict on the 30% and on the link rule, I think apple has lost some revenue and strong content from the ecosystem, and the consumer has lost some choice and a few of their favorite bundles of content from the native app world. The content producers actually also lose some readers here by not being a native app available in the app store. So, by being too strict, I think we actually have a lose-lose-lose result here.
These apps want user data. The money thing is a smoke screen.
They have a web app, so its all good.