Apple has quietly revised its iOS app review guidelines to loosen the restrictions it had announced earlier this year regarding subscription-based content accessed via iOS apps. Previously, publishers were required to offer an in-app purchase option for subscriptions at the same or better price than what was offered elsewhere. Now publishers can choose any price they like if they decide to offer an in-app subscription method at all.

When Apple announced it was adding APIs to iOS to allow content providers to offer subscriptions to iPhone and iPad users, it originally required that apps include an option to buy the subscription via an in-app purchase if there was a way to subscribe outside the app, such as through a publisher's website. Furthermore, publishers were required to offer the same or better price via the app, even though Apple would get a 30 percent cut of that revenue.

"Our philosophy is simple—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," CEO Steve Jobs said in a statement in February. "All we require is that, if a publisher is making a subscription offer outside of the app, the same (or better) offer be made inside the app, so that customers can easily subscribe with one-click right in the app."

Apple gave app makers until June 30th to comply with the new rules or risk being ousted from the App Store.

While some publishers were fine with Apple's system—apparently they had been prepared for much worse—others were irate. Rhapsody president Jon Irwin called the plan "economically untenable," and European publishers complained about being forced to accept Apple's commission while at the same time giving up direct access to subscribers and their valuable demographic information. "The business model of newspapers is dependent on publishers and editors knowing their readers," argued the European Newspaper Publishers' Association at the time. "It is essential that this close connection is maintained. Without direct access to their subscribers, this vital bond between newspapers and readers would be broken, to the detriment of both."

The move also attracted the attention of the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, with both agencies launching non-public investigations into Apple's requirements to determine if they violated any antitrust or anti-competition statutes.

Apple revised its App Store review guidelines this week, noting (among other changes) that apps are no longer required to offer an in-app subscription option. Content providers can continue to offer outside subscriptions that are accessible via an iOS app, so long as no external links to outside purchasing mechanisms are built into the app. If subscribers can pay for content within the app, it must use in-app purchasing APIs, though content providers are now free to set whatever price they like.

These changes should address one of the major complaints about Apple's subscription requirements, allowing content providers to set pricing to account for Apple's 30 percent take. Also, it clearly spells out that services like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Kindle, and others can continue to give its users access to content paid for via subscriptions that are handled outside the app or the App Store.

These changes don't address the other major complaint that content providers have, namely that they won't be able to collect detailed demographic information directly from subscriptions paid for via in-app purchasing. However, Apple allows latitude for developers to optionally request the information from users as long as the requested information and its transmission and storage are covered by a privacy policy compatible with Apple's own.

While the timing of the changes comes a few weeks before the previous June 30 deadline, it's also worth noting that they were published just one day after the Financial Times announced its strategy to offer subscribers access to its content via a Web app, which bypasses Apple's App Store requirements and its 30 percent commission entirely. While some publishers already announced plans to support Apple's previous in-app subscription plan, Apple's changes may encourage others to produce native apps instead of Web apps. While Web apps offer cross-platform compatibility and don't require Apple's approval, native apps tend to have better performance and integration with iOS's native user interface.

Listing image by Image by Apple Inc.