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I'm not happy to have predicted this in comments early today: (some slight paraphrasing) The current state of affairs - where Apple provides a nice sales chann

I'm not happy to have predicted this in comments early today: (some slight paraphrasing) The current state of affairs - where Apple provides a nice sales channel (marketing in a sense) on their already highly profitable devices and where service providers bring attractive service to the platform - is a fairly even trade. Apple is asking for such a drastic renegotiation of this "trade balance" that I predict services will need to reprice for iOS or abandon the platform. Content services are already struggling enough - and Apple has too many viable competitors! - for me to imagine them simply submitting. Sony's withdrawal of their app was the writing on the wall, I'm afraid.

theBobMcCormick 16y ago
Could be good news for the Android and Windows Phone 7 ecosystems. Seems like it'd be easy for most of these publishers and services to re-focus their mobile strategies on platforms that are more friendly to their business model.
- SoftwareMaven 16y ago
  But if end-users don't see any loss (e.g. Apple provides similar capabilities to Rhapsody, et al), then it won't matter. People won't leave the iPhone for another phone over this. My prediction is that Apple will make sure it has similar capabilities.
  - theBobMcCormick 16y ago
    I'm not sure "similar" capabilities will always be enough. If Apple succeeds in chasing off Amazon and B&N, then WP7 and Android phones will look much more attractive than iPhones to Kindle and Nook owners. Netflix availability so far has been an advantage that iPhone/iPad has over Android, but that'll turn around completely quite quickly if Netflix get's chased off the IOS platform by Apple's 30% cut. Let's get serious. iBooks and iTunes are good, but are they really going to be able to take on Pandora, Rhapsody, Last.fm, Amazon, B&N, Netflix, Hulu, etc. all at once? By pissing off all the content providers at once Apple is basically gifting a huge chunk of the app ecosystem to Android and/or WP7.
    - dmfreck 16y ago
      You are absolutely correct. I've invested hundreds of dollars into the Kindle platform. If, suddenly, I can't access this content then I will go where the content is. Apple's platform is compelling because content providers have set up shop there. That's the synergy that Apple has seemingly ignored. I can go anywhere for $0.99 fart apps.
rst 16y ago
They're not allowed to reprice for iOS, unless they also reprice for all their other platforms. Quoting the Apple announcement[1], "we require ... that, if a publisher is making a subscription offer outside of the app, the same (or better) offer be made inside the app." [1] http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/02/15appstore.html http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/02/15appstore.html
- elai 16y ago
  You can make a token better offer with pricing that is near %30 more, since "better" is fairly subjective. Mobile carriers do this all of the time with things like unlimited texting, or caller id in canada. Since apple is a premium product, you have have premium service pricing.
- saturdaysaint 16y ago
  I think it would follow the letter of these rules if service-providers made "with iOS" versions of their services available - both on their website and in-app. So Rhapsody could say their service is $10/mo for everybody... except if you want iOS access, in which case you pay $13/mo.

theBobMcCormick 16y ago

Could be good news for the Android and Windows Phone 7 ecosystems. Seems like it'd be easy for most of these publishers and services to re-focus their mobile strategies on platforms that are more friendly to their business model.

SoftwareMaven 16y ago
But if end-users don't see any loss (e.g. Apple provides similar capabilities to Rhapsody, et al), then it won't matter. People won't leave the iPhone for another phone over this. My prediction is that Apple will make sure it has similar capabilities.
- theBobMcCormick 16y ago
  I'm not sure "similar" capabilities will always be enough. If Apple succeeds in chasing off Amazon and B&N, then WP7 and Android phones will look much more attractive than iPhones to Kindle and Nook owners. Netflix availability so far has been an advantage that iPhone/iPad has over Android, but that'll turn around completely quite quickly if Netflix get's chased off the IOS platform by Apple's 30% cut. Let's get serious. iBooks and iTunes are good, but are they really going to be able to take on Pandora, Rhapsody, Last.fm, Amazon, B&N, Netflix, Hulu, etc. all at once? By pissing off all the content providers at once Apple is basically gifting a huge chunk of the app ecosystem to Android and/or WP7.
  - dmfreck 16y ago
    You are absolutely correct. I've invested hundreds of dollars into the Kindle platform. If, suddenly, I can't access this content then I will go where the content is. Apple's platform is compelling because content providers have set up shop there. That's the synergy that Apple has seemingly ignored. I can go anywhere for $0.99 fart apps.

rst 16y ago

They're not allowed to reprice for iOS, unless they also reprice for all their other platforms. Quoting the Apple announcement[1], "we require ... that, if a publisher is making a subscription offer outside of the app, the same (or better) offer be made inside the app." [1] http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/02/15appstore.html http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/02/15appstore.html

elai 16y ago
You can make a token better offer with pricing that is near %30 more, since "better" is fairly subjective. Mobile carriers do this all of the time with things like unlimited texting, or caller id in canada. Since apple is a premium product, you have have premium service pricing.
saturdaysaint 16y ago
I think it would follow the letter of these rules if service-providers made "with iOS" versions of their services available - both on their website and in-app. So Rhapsody could say their service is $10/mo for everybody... except if you want iOS access, in which case you pay $13/mo.