At Apple’s developer conference this week, Apple announced new changes for the magazine and newspaper space that will benefit both publishers and users.
They will be introducing Newsstand as part of the OS5 release in the Autumn; a separate section for newspapers and magazines in the App Store, which users can visit with a simple tap on the Newsstand on their desktop. It’s a clear next step following the introduction of Apple’s subscription system.
Newsstand will enhance the shopping experience on the App Store and help readers organise and manage their subscriptions on their devices. It is both a logical and beneficial improvement for magazine and newspaper publishers, allowing for the automatic download of new issues and cover art in the background, without any effort by the user, arranging all of the user’s subscriptions automatically on their devices.
The new features, architecture and the code required to implement this feature will be revealed in more detail later this week but it appears that Newsstand will follow the user experience of the iBookstore but without placing a creative straight jacket on publishers, who are still free to produce their magazines and newspaper as apps, with features and interactivity that suit their titles.
Apple is laying down their marker that the Newsstand is THE place to sell magazine and newspaper subscriptions. Other non-Apple rival newsstands will have been presented with a strategic headache that can hardly get worse. Coupled with Apple’s soon to be instigated rule enforcement on the30% sales commission for all purchases from the app store, due on 30th June, this could be seen as the end of the road for them on Apple devices and begs the question; what will rivals do to keep up?
YUDU has always believed the App Store would be improved and become the best platform for sales and distribution for publishers. It has never been our policy to compete with Apple on distribution but rather to provide the tools for publishers to deliver and monetize through the Apple ecosystem. This new announcement will enable our clients to generate greater revenues and build on our Dual Subscription system that we launched last month.