Apple's retrospective rules changes to how in-app subscription works in their app store presents Android with a huge opportunity, because it reinforces the key philosophical difference between the two platforms, closed vs open. In-app purchasing has been a brilliant feature for publishers and app developers, because Apple has allowed apps to get around their 30% store charge by handling the purchase on their mobile sites themselves. Notable apps that use this method include Amazon Kindle, Spotify and Sky Sports.
Strictly speaking, Apple's rules didn't ever really allow for purchase outside of the app, they just chose not to enforce it. Here's the official line from the their guidelines.
App Store Review Guidelines :
11.2 Apps utilizing a system other than the In App Purchase API (IAP) to purchase content, functionality, or services in an app will be rejected
Now that has all changed, with Apple giving developers and publishers until 30th June 2011 to switch to using the In App Purchase API. You can understand Apple's reasoning behind this move. They've built and incredibly successful ecosystem for apps across some amazing devices. With publishers increasingly looking at the iPad and the future of subscription it was time to close the loop. Not receiving $1 on the cost of an eBook is one thing, but missing out on $30 for a $100 annual subscription is quite another. However, it will be very interesting to see whether Apple will really start rejecting Amazon's very successful apps, and exactly what kind of response that would receive.
Google's Digital Newsstand
At the beginning of the year, The Wall Street Journal reported that Google have been talking with media giants about the possibility of developing a e-newsstand for Android. The article suggests that Google are offering a lower fee than the 30% charged by Apple per in-app purchase and would also provide more data to publishers about their customers. The Wall Street Journal are careful to state that the who project may never materialise, but I'm not even sure that it has to for Android to benefit from Apple's change of heart on outside-app purchasing.
Open to outside-app purchasing
Android Market currently allows developers to include outside-app purchasing in their apps. Ironically, this is because Android hasn't actually supported in-app purchasing until very recently. Provided Google continue to improve on the e-commerce side of Android Market to make it more attractive for customers to actually buy apps and continue to allow outside-app purchasing, then the platform will become more and more publisher friendly. Maintaining the open market philosophy behind Android, in opposition to Apple's increasingly closed off walled garden paradise, becomes a real advantage over its rivals.
Source: MondayNote
Source: Wall Street Journal
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