Subscription services seem to have become the business model of choice for the tech world, with Adobe, Autodesk and Netflix, being some of the biggest benefiters. It seems like Apple wants to go down the same route for the App Store.
The Washington Post reported that Apple's head of worldwide marketing, Phil Schiller, made an announcement that would potentially create a significant change to the way users have been using the App Store.
According to Statistica, the Apple App Store was home to over 1.5 million apps in 2015, and now, users can soon expect to pay a monthly subscription to app developers. So far only streaming apps, cloud services and dating services have been allowed to charge users a monthly subscription, but now, even game developers like Bethesda can soon start charging users a monthly subscription to users.
Currently, a majority of the apps on the App Store offer in-app purchases, even the ones that are free to download, which Apple feels isn't as great a business model as subscription.
"Ultimately, this should lead to more apps, better apps and more innovation," Computer World quoted Jan Dawson, chief analyst at Jackdaw Research, said of Apple's plans.
Schiller confirmed that the new rules will come into effect in fall 2016, which the CW report believes will coincide with the launch of iOS 10 and the iPhone 7, possibly in September. The report also added that starting Monday, Apple, which has so far been receiving a 30 percent share of subscriptions from developers, will halve its cut. The deal however, only applies to developers after their first year of operating their subscriptions service.
TechCrunch observed that the logic behind the variable profit share will help incentivize app developers to consistently update their apps.
