As I added in the content section, I think that SaaS providers have the leeway to pass along the "Apple tax" to iOS users and thus embarrass Apple a little bit here. I'd like to see a service at least try to make an "iOS plan" - if a service is normally $10/mo, create a separate plan (that would be the only way of accessing the content for iOS users) that costs enough to offset Apple's take. This plan would cost the same both on the service provider's website and in the app, and would be the only way of accessing the service's content in the app, meeting Apple's rules... it would just be conspicuously more expensive than the version for all other platforms.
I'm not normally the self-promoting or blogging type, but since I'm an enthusiastic user of many of these iOS services (Rdio, Netflix, Audible, The Economist...), I expounded a little bit here: http://www.thetechbastard.com/post/3326771970/a-hypothetical...
That's an interesting way to get around Apple. I wonder if it will hold. You're basically saying that if you want iOS accessibility, you pay 43% more. So maybe WSJ has a newspaper version, a newspaper plus digital (including android, any non iOS device), and then a newspaper plus digital plus iOS plan.
Wonder if there's also another way to get around it, maybe by just jacking up the rate 43% everywhere to please Apple, but maybe giving some other type of promotion (loyalty points, coupons, free stuff) for people that don't use iOS. Maybe you could give 3 months free or something as a credit for anyone who doesn't use iOS?
Given the level of detail Apple has provided, it sounds like either option could work.
It seems to me that the simple way is pretty much what the grandparent described. Classify API/mobile access as a value-add and charge extra for it.
For a web-based SaaS, I could see them doing something like "Web-only access including mobile web, $10/mo" and "Web + native mobile/API access: $15/mo" -- then only offer the latter option in-app.
I suppose you could try to classify Android and iOS API access differently, but I suspect that might be a little over the line in terms of trying to slip it through the app store review process.
I do still wonder how third party apps to hit a subscription API are going to work, though. I suppose a lot of those will be for-pay so Apple gets their vig from that anyway, but it's always possible someone will decide to release a free one...
Another way: have entirely separate accounts for mobile access. If you have access to both a web-interface app account and a mobile app account, they can be "linked" such that the data is synchronized between the two. This would also be the only way mobile accounts could share data with non-mobile accounts.
This would work for apps where the mobile UI is only an adjunct for doing real work on the desktop version.
Keep your high-priced mobile access plan to yourself buddy! Or at least keep it with iDevice users. Us Android folks have gone with a corporate parent that doesn't abuse us or our vendor friends.
I understood that Apple required that the app and service offer the same subscription plans, so you could not force a consumer to pay a premium (even to cover the 30% fee to Apple). I suppose one could create both plans and prominently feature the iOS one in the app, and the regular plan on the website.
Don't think you need the same plans, just need to make sure that whatever plan is made available through Apple is the same rate as the plan made available through any other channel and that any plan that grants iOS access is made available through Apple. Doesn't mean you can't charge extra for iOS access or have a set of plans that has nothing to do with iOS.
While the OP comes across as a tad hyperbolic, this is what I've thought for a long time: if a business is dependent on the good graces of the provider of a platform it's built on, it simply does not have a working model. It happened before with Facebook credits, and Apple making a similar move is no surprise to me.
That's not what is happening here. My company makes all of its money from subscription services that we sell directly to customers. Now if we provide a IOS app to access that content, we risk losing 30% of our revenue if the user happens to sign up via the app instead of via our website.
I'm not sure what "open alternative" you are referring to. My website -- built on "open" everything, other than the subscription cost -- is doing fine. I would like to provide a native IOS app to access that content. But I can't accept a 30% revenue cut.
Two solutions present themself. Solution 1: Give user a separate feature for "Mobile Access" only stick that on the appstore.
Solution 2: Apple may grow wise to solution 1, in which case, make an API to your product, then have a 3rd party developer legally unrelated to your first company make a native product which accesses your product.
Apple has no relation to your real product, however you can offer a free subscription app to your service as it's unrelated an just using an API (a la dropbox or freshbooks).
If Apple is handling Billing, Subscriptions, Payments, Merchant fees, etc, then isn't that a savings to the content maker? Does the economies of scale with handling those services rest of the vendor, or with Apple?
From everything I have ever read about iTunes and App stores, the 30% cut isn't profitable for Apple. It covers operating costs of the stores. Could someone point to me the place where Apple is making an actual profit on this?
Now take that and move that to Amazon's domain. The currently offer insanely low prices. Selling each book with a 30% to apple can make their profit margin zero or less. Which means that either Amazon must raise prices on their products and thus giving Apple the ability to compete vs Amazon on price via unfair advantage or Amazon pulls out giving apple a monopoly. I don't think Microsoft ever made these sort of policies. Though granted MS never made an amazing platform.
On the flip side, apple created a platform. That platform is where apple wants a piece of the pie of every transaction period. Don't like it? Don't make apps for it. Nobody is holding a gun to any developer's head forcing them to make iPhone/iPad apps. If enough developers turn away, apple will react appropriately. So quit complaining and pull your apps from their store. "But that will hurt my profits" well then quit whining and just accept what apple has to give you. If enough great developers move to Android, and make insanely awesome android apps that everyone wants a piece of, then iOS has some major competition.
Sure, Amazon is the poster boy for getting screwed here. But they aren't the only ones getting swept up in this nonsense.
I'm just saying, I'm not Amazon. I'm a content company that sells content to users in print form, and on the web (primarily on the web these days). Customers can only get to my content if they subscribe. Most of them get to that content via our website. Pretend I'm the Wall Street Journal (but I'm not).
I'd like to make a IOS app to allow my users to get to their extremely expensive content in a native application, but now that I have to pay a 30% tithe to Apple, I won't do that. Now I'll make a web based version which will suck more, and we'll let that ride until Apple pulls that out from under us too.
If Apple continues this course, they will lose developers and apps to Android, which could drive consumers to switch to Android as well. I've been a happy iPhone customer until now, and I'm strongly considering switching to Android when my contract expires this summer.
Now take that and move that to Amazon's domain. The currently offer insanely low prices. Selling each book with a 30% to apple can make their profit margin zero or less.
There's a new ecosystem waiting to be born here.
My read is that Apple is looking ahead at a future full of small/startup ebook publishers.
At the local iPhone dev meetup, I met this college kid with a modest little Catholic prayers and affirmations app. It's basically the electronic equivalent of a pamphlet. He doesn't put any effort into marketing it. It makes $150/month. Granted, that's a small amount, but a very tiny amount of investment went into that small return. With a little effort, I bet there's a lot of independent authors who could make a living publishing this way, and that the big players in ebooks and publishing are actually in the way of this ecosystem coming into being.
> My read is that Apple is looking ahead at a future full of small/startup ebook publishers.
If I was a small/startup, I would happily give over some percentage -- possibly even 30% -- of my revenue to Apple in order to avoid building my own payment system. The App store is really nice, and if they want to compete on the merits of the store, then that's great.
But Apple isn't doing that. They are using the power of their marketshare to force publishers into paying a 30% tithe to Apple just to put an application on the device. It doesn't matter if you are Amazon or the New York Times and already have your own subscription system -- you have to eat the 30% cut.
That's what bothers me about this. If Apple wants to compete by providing a more cost effective point of sale system, then that's great; everyone wins. But they are abusing a monopoly position to force publishers into their system, and in that game, Apple is the only winner.
You make the alternative pay? That's what the angry birds guys did.
But in the more general case, this is where it would have been great to have somebody with a business degree. Because they probably know the answer to your question.
"... they will need to give Apple 30% of their subscription revenue for all customers that want to access SalesForce via mobile."
Wow, a huge post based on this flawed understanding. It isn't 30% of every customer that accesses the mobile app, it's 30% of each client that signs up via the mobile app.
The rules are pretty simple. If you offer subscription service purchasing elsewhere, like your website, you also must offer it in your app via in-app purchase. If a person finds your service by installing the mobile app and then decides to sign up, using the now required in-app purchase ability, Apple gets 30%.
...and if your profit margin is close to that 30%, as it is with many businesses, you are now required (should you choose to develop an app for iOS) to sell your product to users whom you have to support and stand a very good chance of gaining nothing from.
In other words, such a business would be required to offer an option to hand off all of its profit to Apple, should it choose to offer a native iOS app. Apple gets a better experience for its customers, and the third party gets more customers it gets zero profit from. I can understand if such a business would find this unacceptable. (And look at it from a user's perspective: if given two options, one-click billing through Apple or time-consuming credit card entry through a web portal, which do you suppose the majority of users will take?)
So how exactly is that understanding flawed?
Edit: More details added, and some wording correction.
No-one is _required_ to sell stuff in the App Store. Don't sell stuff in the App Store, keep all your profits.
> I can understand if such a business would find this unacceptable.
Let's say you distribute a FREE app in the App Store and it requires a subscription at $10.00 per month (through Apple) but you provide a handy button labeled "Get subscription for $8.00 per month" that goes to your website.
Apple doesn't want this. It costs Apple to distribute (and market, and support) your App. Apple gets nothing. And now you are selling your profitable product via an inferior user experience AND making anyone who actually uses Apple's service look like a chump.
The problem is that they will be required to sell subscriptions through Apple. The new rule is that apps that offer subscriptions through other sources must also include in-app subscriptions for the same price through Apple's store.
It wouldn't cost apple anything if they just allow applications downloaded of websites to be installed on iDevices. I'm sure subscription services would be happy to host a small application package themselves.
> It costs Apple to distribute (and market, and support) your App
Give me a break. You used the weasel word "costs" which is technically truthful, because it is greater than zero. But it is not material, IMHO.
Because developers PAY $100/developer to get on the Apple developer program. They spend their own money/time to develop the app. And sell it to a user who's PAID for his phone and net access. Apple is serving as a glorified download.com (which btw also does reviews and ratings for free).
Apple "markets" apps: again a weasel word, since in your universe listing your app in their directory is "marketing". Ditto "support" (they test your app cursorily to reject things).
You've missed the point. Apple is providing access to hundreds of millions of potential customers who can purchase your product in a frictionless manner. The people on this platform spend more $ per person than other ecosystems because the platform is easy to use and has the widest choice of product. That makes the platform very valuable.
If it was so easy to get this kind of distribution, then why don't you just develop an Android app and put it up on your website and watch the millions of users roll in? Oh wait, there aren't hundreds of millions of customers searching for apps on your website?
A user base, especially one that spends more $ per person that another, is extremely valuable. Historically this kind of access to a large distribution platform was just not available to mere mortals. I remember just 4-5 years ago, large companies would have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars just to have their app listed on the Vodafone Live app store, and then have 50% taken as commission for the privilege.
And for content, many Telco's just didn't allow it...because they had their own content subscriptions they were trying to sell to their users..so forget 30%, you simply couldn't sell your content subscription.
Apple's app store, and a 30% cut is starting to look fair compared to the above.
But they are marketing your app by marketing the platform. Those commercials you see with catchy tunes and hands swiping and flicking apps, those make people want an iOS device to run apps. Everything Apple does is to make consumers want to come to the platform, and based on their numbers, it is working. Then you, the developer, gets to put you app in the only marketplace available to those 100M+ users. That is the value Apple is bringing.
It is the same value other market places bring. People sell on eBay because they know there are eyeballs there. Same with people who sell on Amazon. eBay and Amazon market their platforms to bring that value. No one creates their own webpage when they want to sell some stuff and hope people find it through Google. They go to where the hard part, bringing people to look, has already been done.
Apple is marketing their hardware product and the platform, not your app.Yours is just one app out of hundreds of thousands, soon to be millions.
If Apple is eating your businesses margins, and you gain nothing from operating on their platform, then what's the point? "I get no profit from my customer, and this may even be costing me money because I'll never recover the cost of iOS app development and maintenance, but at least I got to pay $100 for the privilege of being app #823,465".
If your ROI isn't going to cover the $100/developer and the cut that apple want's then you have bigger problems to deal with.
If you want freedom why not choose Android?
Then you don't have to pay anything and you get all the profit.
Only problem of course is that no one on Android is actually paying for their apps.
You are paying for access to a platform where many people actually pay for their apps. That is worth something and it is hopefully worth much much more than what apple charges.
Wow, a huge post based on this flawed understanding.
That's about 80% of the entries from this blog that make it on the front page of HN. It's a great blog for gauging general developer perception and dissatisfaction, but that doesn't mean that the opinions expressed are actually true. (Signals all stations to prepare for downvotes.)
Apple is notorious for ripping businesses built on their platforms out from under the people that created them. It has happened with OS X by them taking a popular 3rd party utility/app and integrating the idea/look/feel directly with no attribution. It has happened with iOS, and now it is just coming to a point where Apple is flat out saying that if you make money on our platform, regardless if the value is outside of iOS, we want a cut if you want to be on it at all.
This subscription model I have a problem with, but....
Ignoring the original Mac OS (and all the OS version up to 9) is the only way to say they ripped off Konfabulator. Desk Accessories finally make an appearance in OS X after missing since OS 9 and it is a ripoff of Konfabulator?
Can't believe this debate is happening again in 2011. Serious deja vu.
[edit upon downvote: I don't mean it shouldn't happen, I just thought it was funny to suddenly be transported back to that time; hadn't even thought of the app nor the arguments around it in years.]
I just get sick of people trotting this one out when it was history ignoring in the first place. It also ignores the whole Yahoo thing, but I digress. Its like during a really in-depth boxing debate trotting out the boxer's W-L record when wearing blue shorts....
I could be in a bad mood just because this foolish policy probably destroyed any hope of micro-payments on iOS devices.
This seems to be someone making an OSX version of Apple's already existing Sherlock program? I'm not really sure how Sherlock 3 was copying Watson, since it was pretty clearly an evolution of Sherlock 2.
You can't possibly be serious. You don't know of Microsoft's long history of copying software that other companies had made, putting them out of business? And three other people as well apparently.
'Copying software'? Well, no, I'm not aware of Microsoft's long history of doing this. Surely you don't count Excel as a 'copy' of VisiCalc or Lotus 123 right?
I think someone should directly ask them what their policy is on SaaS subscriptions, because you could easily make a case either way from the press release.
But I agree with the article, if Apple's intent is to get into the SaaS revenue stream, it's a major issue. I have clients who have been considering moving to platforms that include mobile apps on iOS devices, and that 30% Apple iTunes cut will get passed right on to them. Not to mention the hassle of having to create and manage purchases for individual iTunes accounts for each device.
HP has a great opportunity here to loudly announce that they are going to be SaaS friendly, and I think this could be the turning point on iOS's market share.
You can ask Apple what their policy on SaaS subscriptions is today, but it doesn't really matter. If Apple decides going after the SaaS revenue stream is in their interest, that policy will change tomorrow.
Apple does not demand 30% of out-of-app sales, just that out-of-app sales are not cheaper than in-app sales.
And as far as I read the release, SaaS is not concerned. Unless you're using Apples subscription mechanism, you're not offering a subscription in-app. So if you simply use a web API, that's not a subscription.
Can Apple change that at any time? Yes. Closed platforms take power from developers and give it to the platform vendor - in exchange for (often) a bigger pie to get your slice from.
Is the OP yet another pageview troll? Yes. Posting blatantly false information in the headline seems to indicate that.
>And as far as I read the release, SaaS is not concerned. Unless you're using Apples subscription mechanism, you're not offering a subscription in-app. So if you simply use a web API, that's not a subscription.
That's the point that you're missing. If you offer subscriptions or purchases out-of-app for use by the app, You are REQUIRED to offer subscriptions or purchases in-app as well for the same price and minus Apple's 30% cut.
Section 11.13 of the approval guidelines read:
"Apps can read or play approved content (magazines, newspapers, books, audio, music, video) that is sold outside of the app, for which Apple will not receive any portion of the revenues, provided that the same content is also offered in the app using IAP at the same price or less than it is offered outside the app. This applies to both purchased content and subscriptions."
So the whole question comes down to whether SAAS counts as a subscription, content, or otherwise.
I never even entertained the idea somebody would consider SaaS "content". The thing also lists explicitly what they consider content. There's no "etc."
Yes, you can probably bend it to mean anything, but as is, this really doesn't seem to include SaaS.
Today, it doesn't, but based on Apple's ever expanding scope, that's not a bet I'm willing to make. We're sticking to HTML5 web apps and making sure they run on Android browsers as well.
Not really - all apps that offer subscriptions must go through Apple's mechanism anyways. And subscription is (IMHO) well defined as referring to content, with types of content enumerated.
So unless you make the case that SaaS is content, the post is baseless.
Baseless? Because Apple would never try to skim 30% of all the revenue that flows through their devices. That's crazy talk. /sarcasm
The post is absolutely not baseless. Apple hasn't made their intentions clear regarding SaaS subscriptions, and it is likely that they want that money as well.
Making a statement of fact ("Apple is taking 100% of mobile SaaS revenue") with no basis in reality is pretty much the definition of baseless. Unless and until Apple speaks on SaaS, this is a figment of the authors imagination. I'm not saying "it can't happen". I'm saying "not true as of right now"
I'm surprised "making shit up" qualifies as news on HN these days.
The article begins with the premise, "It appears to me that the new "give Apple 30% of revenue" policy will apply to software subscriptions just as well as it appears to content." Assuming that sentence was always part of the article, it seems like you're just reacting to the headline.
SaaS was an angle I hadn't thought of in regard to Apple's new policies, and their decisions there have important implications. I'm glad I saw this article.
Apple has suggested that if you offer subscriptions (or purchases) outside of your app that you need to do it inside your app. At the same price. Hence the whole drama over Kindle--the purchases are done on the Amazon website but Apple has stated they want 30%.
Well they do expect a cent. Because they've banned you linking to the website, and they've forced you to use their in-app billing system, and they've banned you from incentivizing customers with a lower price elsewhere and they're taking a huge cut from in-app purchases. So unless you can telepathically control how your customers sign up, Apple's going to be getting quite a few of your cents.
It's a bit more complicated than Apple getting 30% of all your sales, but it's also more complicated than Apple just letting the iOS customers choose how to buy. You'll lose some random part of that 30% depending on your customers buying habits.
If you own an iPhone, you've got a ticket and are inside Apple's themepark. You can't leave until the end of the day, or you get charged extra (ETF). Suddenly, Apple pisses off the vendors by killing off their profits. A couple of the vendors talk about going to a different, more open theme park once its announced. You're stuck inside Apple's park, and you're hungry. But the pretzel guy just left because he can't make a profit selling pretzels in Apple's theme park. Why should I be happy as a customer here again? Because Apple's made it so I can pay the pretzel guy (who is no longer here) slightly easier?
OK, pretzels. Your analogy looks like this to me: Pretzel guy has a stand inside the park, where he gives away pretzel tongs for eating hot pretzels. You want pretzels, he used to give you his mobile phone, you'd make a call, give somebody else your credit card, and the pretzels would be delivered to the park.
Now Apple says that (1) he has to sell the pretzels inside the park if he also sells them outside the park, (2) he has to charge the same price, (3) Apple muscles him for 30% of his action on sales inside the park, and (4) he can't have pretzels from outside the park delivered to you in the park. You actually can buy pretzels by phone from his store in the park, or with your web browser, but he can't put the link to his pretzel store or the phone number of his pretzel store on the pretzel tongs he gives away.
If pretzel guy can't make a profit, he leaves. If enough vendors leave, the park is less attractive and fewer people buy tickets.
So yeah, maybe as a customer you won't be happy if pretzel guy can't figure out how to make money at Apple's expense. And yeah, maybe as a developer you aren't happy if you can't figure out how to exploit Apple's customers without Apple exploiting you. And maybe everybody goes somewhere else.
Seems like the free market at work. So what's the problem here? You have choices, exercise your right to choose.
The original article pointed out that the mobile app doesn't represent all the value the customer gets from the service, then hypothesized that it represents about 30% of it; so 30% of the subscription revenue represents 100% of all the mobile service revenue.
It might be a decent argument, if he hadn't pulled that hypothesized number out of his left nostril.
That, and the fact that it's 30% of the mobile service revenue. If you sign up out-of-app, you don't pay 30%. He hypothesized (out of his right nostril, presumably ;) that all mobile users sign up via the mobile app, even though it only gives them 30% of their usage value.
In other words, "I made up random number A. Then I made up random item B. Together, they prove <really outlandish claim that will drive visitors to my blog, but has no connection to reality whatsoever>." I hear AOL is looking for writers.
I'm starting to see a whole bunch of posts/comments about people reacting to losing 30% of their SaaS software revenue but no one seems to be calling out the Apple contract specifically lists content as defined as magazines, newspapers, books, audio, music, video. So I don't see where the SaaS angst is coming from.
Apple can charge 30% for apps and content because the ENTIRE product is being delivered on iOS. They can't charge that cut for SaaS because only a subset of the product is being delivered.
Could Apple attempt to take a cut from SaaS products if a user signed up from within your app IN THE FUTURE...sure, but I doubt they'd be stupid enough to try for 30%. Should Apple be compensated in some way for hosting/downloading your mobile app for your SaaS backend...maybe, and I'd be prepared to pay some commission if it drove signups, it might just be a tad lower than 30% though.
The argument in your last paragraph is almost exactly what everyone said about Apple's approach to subscriptions. "Apple would be crazy to demand 30% from publishers and distributors. Amazon can't afford 30%!"
Yet here we are today, wondering just how the hell everyone is going to carve 30% out of their business model. Anyone who thinks that task is anything even approaching trivial has never run a business.
I wasn't arguing that Apple won't do it, just that they would be even more crazy to try this for SaaS than for content subscriptions. It's one thing to charge 30% for when someone is selling an entire product through your platform.
It would be unprecedented if they tried to charge 30% merely for access from your iOS device to a SaaS app. I think there is a pretty big difference.
Lastly, carving 30% out from your list price is pretty common if you're the wholesaler, manufacturer or orignal producer. For most of those scenarios they'll often be able to afford much more than 30%. It's the middlemen and distributors that get really hosed...and unfortunately services that do provide value but licence their content from others are collateral damage.
affecting companies like Amazon, and companies like SalesForce that have made a significant investment iOS investment, one has to wonder whether building iPhone apps is safe
This. iOS remains, by the numbers, one of the worst places for freelance developers to spend their time. Profits are diminutive in the average case, and app store policies impose additional risks that have forced entire shops to leave the iOS ecosystem or change how they do business inside it.
If this is true, this will be a very unfair policy coming from Apple. This will be the divorce between web apps and iOS. I can see HP/Microsoft/Google/etc opening their doors to free SaaS.
Apple is getting greedy and capricious, and when this happens no good will come from it.
I'm confused by how far-reaching this is. Let's take Netflix: I currently subscribe to netflix via their website and consume it via multiple channels, including the iPad. What, if anything, is Apple asking netflix to do? It sounds like: provide a link in the app to subscribe to netflix, which must cost the same as signing up elsewhere, and pass 30% of the $18 a month to Apple.
APIs for software services make this whole thing even more complicated. Some company has a web service offering which they charge $10/month for. They also have a web API, which allows 3rd-party developers to write apps for the service. Case (1): The services writes an iOS app to access their service. Case (2): A third party comes along and writes an iOS app for the service, using the service's API.
If it's true that in (1), they have to offer an IAP-way for users to purchase a subscription, what does that say about (2)? The third-party developer has no way of adding IAP to their app (it's not their company and the API doesn't expose such functionality).
Under these (more and more crazy sounding) rules, is (2) still required to pay the 30%? And given that it's impossible for (2) to have an IAP subscription option, maybe (2) isn't even allowed to exist? But if it is, then the service company could just pay 3rd-party developers to write apps for their service to add value for their subscribers without having to deal with the 30% stuff.
The example of SalesForce in the article sounds wrong. Apple's 30% fee on subscriptions does not apply to ALL subscription revenue of a publisher, just to the subscriptions of users who found the publisher in the App Store. Quote: "when Apple brings a new subscriber to the app, Apple earns a 30 percent share; when the publisher brings an existing or new subscriber to the app, the publisher keeps 100 percent and Apple earns nothing". If this is true, there is nothing unfair about it.
This assumes that every business model has a 30% margin they can give up to an "agent"; in this scenario, Apple. Many, many businesses operate on less than 30% margins.
Because of this, offering an iOS app becomes a loss leader. No, 100% of your user base will not sign up through iOS, but the 30% commission to Apple will dilute your margins on non-iOS sales. The net effect is that any company who operates a direct sales model will see a dilution of their margins, and must bet on the fact that in-app subscriptions will compensate for this in increased sales. There are many scenarios where this makes absolutely no sense.
The press release begins by referring to "publishers of content-based apps", and uses "publishers" throughout. I think it is pretty clear that they are not talking about SaaS.
The article also fails to understand that it is not taking cut of revenue from existing subscribers: only those that sign up through an iOS application.
I'm inclined to believe you as it regards Apple's policies as of today. As regards the future policies about non-content SaaS apps, suffice it to say that there is non-zero informational value in this announcement.
What would a "content-free" app look like? Aren't all apps, by definition, based on content?
I'm not meaning to be cute or trite -- I'm genuinely confused from the press release which category of apps will fall under these new rules. Which is why we'll need to wait for the legalese in the iOS developer terms to understand what this _really_ means.
Here is "content" being used to mean "everything that's in an app":
"The Application Provider of each Third-Party Product is solely responsible for that Third-Party Product, the content therein, any warranties to the extent that such warranties have not been disclaimed, and any claims that you or any other party may have relating to that Third-Party Product."
And here is the section on subscriptions, in which content is, in my opinion, not well defined:
"Certain App Store Products may include functionality that enables you to purchase content on a subscription basis (“Paid Subscriptions”)."
I just scanned all 72 mentions of the word 'content' and couldn't find the definition you're alluding to.
And lo & behold, I give you Section 11.13: "Apps can read or play approved content (magazines, newspapers, books, audio, music, video) that is sold outside of the app"... yadda, yadda.
Just 4-5 years ago most Telco's were building portals and walled gardens where they were licensing the content themselves (or even had teams creating it in house) and selling it in various ways to their customer base. So never mind a 30% cut, they were competing with content producers. If you were trying to sell content the Telco was hoping to sell forget a 30% cut, you couldn't even get on their platform and you earned a big fat $0.
If you really were lucky they'd decide to let you on but would take a 50/50 or 60/40 revenue share.
30% is starting to seem not so bad...compared to that at least.
I think they need to just offer a "iPhone connectivity" option for extra $$$. Then they need to offer that and only that via the appstore in app purchase on the phone.
I'm assuming that if you decide to sell your SaaS via the AppStore, you can't move your customer data outside of it should you choose to discontinue offering your AppStore interface?
So anyone who purchased a recurring subscription via the AppStore would be lost (would have to be prompted to re-purchase) should you leave the AppStore?
If so, then iOS definitely doesn't seem like a good investment for a SaaS business.
Sounds pretty similar to Apple's earlier attitude about 3rd party developers being parasites on 'their' platform. While (of course) they do own it, the 3rd Party developers are partners that add value, not parasites.
I'm not normally the self-promoting or blogging type, but since I'm an enthusiastic user of many of these iOS services (Rdio, Netflix, Audible, The Economist...), I expounded a little bit here: http://www.thetechbastard.com/post/3326771970/a-hypothetical...