[LINK] Securing Apple's walled garden...

Ivan Trundle ivan at itrundle.com
Thu Feb 3 07:49:38 AEDT 2011


On 02/02/2011, at 4:34 PM, Birch, Jim wrote:

> Apple is cracking down on applications that provide access to paid
> content, rejecting anything that looks as though it's trying to bypass
> handing over 30 per cent to Cupertino.

Nothing has changed, in reality: their terms and conditions of app development (Section 11.2, if anyone is interested) are as they always were.

There's nothing to stop an app from opening a web browser and running https to make purchases external to the app store. 

However, Apple's guidelines suggest that either developers send people out of the app-store system to a web browser, or they offer this option AND an in-app purchase through the app store. This is as it always was.

What Apple is trying to do is ensure consistency in the operation of app store purchases (i.e. the purchaser has a single account with Apple).

Sure, the media describe it as a bid to capture 30%, blah blah, but I don't see it that way. As an end-user, I would prefer that I had a simple direct option to buy through my device.

On the other hand, Sony (who is the only company to be affected by the clamp down) has every right to be aggrieved, since Amazon managed to sneak under the radar with an app long before Sony submitted theirs. It does cast doubts over Kindle.app.

All this precedes significant expected changes in in-app purchases with the expected News Corp announcement tomorrow re subscription purchasing APIs in iOS.

--
Ivan Trundle
http://itrundle.com ivan at itrundle.com
ph: +61 (0)418 244 259 fx: +61 (0)2 6286 8742 skype: callto://ivanovitchk





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