Apple ejects FT app from iTunes
30 per cent of your subs revenue belong to us
Apple has formally booted the Financial Times newspaper app out of the iTunes store for the newspaper's refusal to hand over 30 per cent of subscription revenues to the Mac maker.
That said, FT devotees with suitable iTunes accounts can still obtain the app from iTunes Slovakia:
We suspect it won't be there for long. Not that the FT cares - it transitioned to an HTML 5 coded alternative that runs on top of the browser techology built into all iOS devices - and a few others besides.
The FT released the new app in June, prompting Apple to relax its rules. A little. But not enough for the FT.
Now, the paper doesn't have to give Apple a cut of subscription revenue and it can more easily support multiple smartphone and tablet platforms.
It's not the only one. Amazon recently released an HTML 5 version of its Kindle e-book reader app, this time to bypass Apple restrictions on implementing links to external content sales sites in iOS apps.
Some China-oriented FT apps are still available on iTunes. ®
COMMENTS
Agreed
This has been my problem with a lot of apps since the very start. You don't need an app, you need a website that targets small screen devices.
No...
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HTML5 is fine for news and some stuff, but it is not the solution to *all* applications.
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No, for that you need Flash ;)
"as HTML5 becomes the new, FREE app store"
And don't forget cross-platform. Suddenly, all these "Apps" become web pages, accessible from practically any device, rather than iPhone-exclusive and locked-in.
Seems like this will simplify things for developers...
About time too.
And so begins the end of iTunes media-app revenue model.
...that runs on top of the browser techology...
And therein the obvious solution, particularly for a non-static data model such as the FT might be expected to have.
Why build an application to handle all the data flow when there's a browser already sitting there?
