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Has Apple Lost In A Mexican Standoff Against The Financial Times?

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Has the Financial Times just beaten Apple? A couple of days ago F.T announced plans to launch a HTML5 web app for all tablets in an attempt to dodge the 30% cut demanded by Steve and his greedy chums. The Financial Times called it a “Mexican stand-off” with Apple. “Their terms don’t work for us. They won’t move, we hope they will” they said. I laughed. Of course they won’t move I thought.  But something’s happened.

When Apple introduced the In-App Subscriptions service in February they specified two things: that they would get 30 per cent of any content publishers sell within their app and that if a publisher offered a subscription or purchase option outside their app, then they must offer the same deal within the app, at the same price or less. This is what rubbed F.T up the wrong way and led to the ‘Mexican stand-off.’ Well, it wasn’t just F.T who werewolf happy. Many bloggers and publishers warned Apple that the App-Subscriptions service was too unfair and was going to drive away investors.

Of course, at the time, Apple didn’t listen. They have limited understanding of being wrong and speaking up against them is technological blasphemy. Four months on however Apple have changed their tune.

As it stands now, publishers will still be required to give Apple 30 per cent of any subscription revenue from within its app. But there is no longer an insistence on matching the price of subscriptions offered outside the app and publishers are no longer required to offer a subscription within an app just because they offer one outside.

Apple haven’t exactly loosened their iron grip, but it’s a start. Maybe they should listen to App developers and publishers more often, since they are the backbone of the iPhone and iPad.

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