Consider yourself an Apple publisher? You’ll want to hear about the latest big changes for the app store and overall environment for magazines.
We’ve talked extensively about the great deal that the late Apple Newsstand – missed by some and not so much by others – offered magazines: a 30% remit to stand shoulder to shoulder with the big boys and the nichiest of the niche. Now, with News, if you’re an Apple publisher, the goal posts have moved … and, indeed, the field itself has been turned upside down. It’s disorienting.
But there’s still the App Store, and there sure are some rather intriguing changes “developing” there now that Phil Schiller‘s in charge. Changes that could definitely come into play for multiplatform publishers.
Ars Technica reports:
“The single biggest difference is a change to Apple’s traditional 70-30 revenue split for in-app subscriptions. Under the new system, 70 percent of revenue will still go to the developer and 30 percent will still go to Apple, but after users have been subscribed for more than a year, the split changes to 85-15 in the developer’s favor. This change will apply to all current subscription-based apps as well, so if you’ve already subscribed to Netflix or Spotify, those companies will start getting a larger share of the money soon,” Andrew Cunningham writes.
“Apple is also making changes to make subscription-based models more appealing for other types of applications, including games and productivity apps. Developers will reportedly be able to choose from “over 200 subscription price points,” which can be set differently in different territories, and developers will be able to bundle multiple apps together and offer them all through a single subscription. Developers can even offer different prices to different subscribers – users can upgrade or downgrade subscriptions based on tiers that developers set, and existing subscribers can be offered different prices than those offered to new subscribers. If you choose to increase the price of your subscriptions, you can send out messages to your users asking them to consent or unsubscribe.”
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In other big news, the App Store is going to allow search ads for those with apps, which will benefit niche publishers and other looking to separate themselves from the pack.
“The rules governing App Store ads are stringent: you’ll see just one ad per search results page, and that ad has to be from a developer that already has an app in the App Store. The ad’s content will match the content that you’d find on the app’s landing page. Ads won’t track users and ads won’t be shown to children with Managed Apple IDs or to those whose Apple IDs say they’re under the age of 13. Developers will be able to target their ads using keywords, user age and gender, device type and location, and more, but individual user habits and click data won’t be shared with developers,” Cunningham writes.
“Ads will be sold to developers ‘through an auction system’ with no minimum costs or time commitments. This setup is intended to make sure that large and small developers alike can purchase ads no matter how little they have to spend. Developers set the maximum ‘cost per tap’ that they’re willing to pay for an ad spot, but the amount that they actually pay will be affected by the amount that your competitors are willing to bid. And developers can set caps on the amount they spend so that their ads stop running when they’ve run out of money to spend on them.”
Exciting times if you’re an Apple publisher. What are your thoughts on the changes? Let us know in the comments!
To read more about these Apple publisher updates and other news, visit Ars Technica.
