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by Bitmobrich 5599 days ago
Lets take Hulu for example, who currently has a subscription model of $8.00 a month. Now if a users decides to subscribe to Hulu through an iOS app the price of the subscription is the same for the user. But for Hulu instead of collecting $8.00, they are now collecting $5.60, since 30% is now going to apple, because that person used an iOS device. So it is a tax on both the app publisher and the consumer.

Apple's new term of service states: "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". For the app maker, the quickest way to compensate for a 30% Apple tariff is to raise the price by at least 30%, which hurts the app maker and the consumer. Even before this announcement the app market as we know it today, is on it's way out. In favor of creating a browser based mobile web app. With this new tax, I believe the adoption rate to create browser based mobile web apps will continue forward at full throttle so app makers and consumers are not losing 30% of subscriptions and content purchases to apple.

1 comments

Flash pros/cons aside, it's a shame Apple blocks any and all browser plugins on iOS, which could help mobile web apps innovate faster.