Did you notice that e-books became a little more expensive after Apple entered the game with iBooks? So did the U.S. …
publishers
Can Digital Textbooks Truly Replace the Print Kind?
The pain points of traditional print edition textbooks are obvious: For starters they’re heavy, with the average physics textbook weighing in at a burdensome 3.6 pounds. They’re also expensive, especially when you factor in the average college student’s limited budget, typically costing hundreds of dollars every semester.
But the …
Apple Eases Pricing Rules for Newspaper and Magazine Apps
Mac Rumors is reporting that Apple has quietly relaxed its controversial guidelines regarding in-app subscription pricing for developers, which most directly affects apps by magazine and newspaper publishers.
Apple’s policy had required in-app subscriptions to be the “same price or less than it is offered outside the app,” which …
Leaked: Sony Letter to Publishers About PSN Outage
“Don’t call us, we’ll call you.” That’s the gist of a new, reportedly leaked letter from Sony to its publishing partners about the PlayStation Network outage, handed off by an anonymous source to Industry Gamers. If legit, it suggests Sony’s vague public tale of when and how the outage occurred doesn’t gain any insightful …
Why Are Magazine App Subscriptions Priced So Weird?
Yesterday The New Yorker unveiled a new deal that allows print subscribers full access to their lovely iPad app. The oddity that caught everyone’s eye was their pricing model: for the app-only version, The New Yorker currently costs $59.99 for a one-year subscription, while the print version plus the app is a whole twenty bucks cheaper …
Steve Jobs: Subscription Terms Only Apply to Publishing Apps
Apple’s recently-announced subscription model for apps has caused a bit of a ruckus with publishers. To recap, any content-based iPhone and iPad apps wishing to leverage recurring subscriptions must give Apple a 30% cut of sales that originate from within iTunes or the app itself. Subscriptions can be sold outside the app but pricing …
Google Announces ‘One Pass’ as Publishers Push Against Apple Subscriptions
Yesterday, Apple announced how it plans to handle subscriptions inside apps. The basic details are that subscriptions to content-based apps sold within the App Store earn Apple a 30% cut of any revenue generated unless the subscriber is referred directly to the app from the publisher.
(More on TIME.com: The Basics Behind Apple’s New …
The Basics Behind Apple’s New Subscription Payments System
Apple has officially opened its new subscription payment service up to publishers today. Here’s how everything shakes out.
How does this affect you?
Unless you’re a publisher that wants to sell “content-based apps” in Apple’s App Store, it doesn’t affect you all that much. You’ll probably start to notice more newspapers and …