According to PaidContent, The Economist has submitted an update of their iOS application to Apple that not only includes a number of bug fixes, but that also brings the application into alignment with Apple’s App Store terms and conditions.
Publishers, including The Economist, were given a deadline to stop routing subscription payments through their websites, bypassing the iTunes subscription policies. Until now, The Economist continued to take subscriptions and single-copy payments directly from consumers through the web. The Economist application now asks users to re-download the application in the App Store: “Please download the new Economist iPad app. This app will be phased out shortly.”
Also included in the update are a number of patches that address broken bookmarking, Twitter-sharing functions, and “choppy” library Cover Flow.
It’s interesting to see that The Economist, unlike The Financial Times, decided to continue paying Apple 30 percent of their sales as opposed to creating an HTML 5 based standalone application. It could be a bit of a tell about the readership they have currently. Should a majority of The Economist readers be traditional print subscribers who read on the iPad for free, the 30 percent cut being sent in Apple’s direction won’t be that big of a deal. Apple will only be paid their 30 percent cut for new subscribers.
You can get the “new” Economist app by following the links below.
Image Credit: Urban Mixer
