It looks like Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and any other ereader app currently on iOS won’t be disappearing from the App Store after the end of the month after all. Mac Rumors is reporting that Apple has removed its most controversial new rule concerning in-app purchases, which said if you sold any media content elsewhere that could be viewed in your app then you had to also sell it at the same price through Apple’s system and give Apple a 30% cut.
The new rule was supposed to go into effect on June 30th, and it would have effectively either forced many ebook, newspaper, and magazine companies to pull their apps or to raise prices even for purchases made elsewhere. A possible example of the price hike effect already appeared about a month ago, when Dark Horse Comics launched its iOS app with issues priced at $1.99 instead of the $1.49 point originally announced.
Now Apple is more sensibly saying that other companies can continue to display content purchased elsewhere, meaning you can keep reading your ebooks in the Kindle, Nook or Kobo apps, or watch movies in the Netflix app.
One rule that Apple hasn’t changed is that apps won’t be allowed to link to an external purchasing option. It’s still unclear how strictly this will be enforced, so there’s still the threat that ebook apps will have to remove any way to quickly jump to their respective online stores starting July 1st. But at least these apps aren’t going away entirely for now.
“Apple Reverses Course On In-App Subscriptions” [Mac Rumors]
(Photo: ffg)
