Apple has announced a new in-app subscription charge to the companies that have applications on the itunes market that offer subscriptions through the app via your iPad or through your iPhone and iPod touch. So for example say you have an iPad and found the Netflix app while searching on your iPad for new apps but don?t have a subscription set up for this service. Well if you sign up through the application on your iPad, apple wants to take 30% of that application subscription. It?s always been the case that no matter how a person subscribes to a service the company who created the service would keep it.
So is this a good idea? It could be to make apple richer. But what does that mean for the customer? Well hopefully the companies that have apps for the Apple brands find ways to get customers to subscribe for their service outside of the itunes store, like via the web. But if there is still a massive influx of people subscribing on the App store will it force companies to sit there and take the hit or just leave the app store all together. Now you could pose the argument to me that the companies could just charge a bit more on the app store to make up the difference in lost profit. Well I am sorry to shoot you down but Apple has asked that the subscriptions be the same deals as you could get outside of the app store. So if you paying 9.99 a month for Netflix, it won?t be a different charge if you signed up in the app store.
Now the final piece to the puzzle that makes this so grand is competition. The Android marketplace is also going to be releasing a subscription service. Allegedly it will be a 10% charge versus Apple?s 30%. This could mean companies could jump over to Android and leave Apple behind. Apple does still have a strong hold on the market share however Androids being clawing up the ranks. Android is making a smart move by undercutting Apple here. Apple is setting a precedent with these charges and Android is following just a very small rate. With this, Android could see an increase in market share if companies decide that doing subscription services through Apple just isn?t work the money they would have to pay out to them. So what do you think? Is this a good idea or bad idea? I personally am not sure yet.