The New York Times has begun offering digital subscriptions via Apple's in-app subscription feature. The subscription offering puts the Times app in compliance with Apple's revised in-app subscription guidelines. The Times rolled out its digital subscription offerings earlier this year, but they couldn't be purchased directly in an app until today.
The Times is now the highest profile app to work with Apple's requirements surrounding subscriptions. Current NYT subscribers can login and access their content, and non-subscribers can quickly sign up using their iTunes accounts.
For new users signing up through the app, the Times is charging $14.99/month for NYTimes.com + iPhone App access, $19.99 for website + iPad, and $34.99/month for website + iPhone + iPad. Apple will receive a 30% cut of these subscriptions.
These prices are similar to those offered via the Times website, though NYTimes.com offers a $0.99 promotional price for the first month. In-App subscribers will receive a week-long subscription for free if they share their name, email address and ZIP code with the Times.
Though the deadline for compliance with the new In-App Subscription guidelines came and went yesterday, Apple is reportedly helping developers update their apps to work within the guidelines and allowing some additional time for them to come into compliance.
Top Rated Comments
By contrast, I subscribe to the UK's Guardian app for 4 pounds/year and get superb content. Of course, the Guardian still has a free website too.
Crazy to make customers pay for each device they access information on. Why not just limit how many devices you can use at any given time? Well, actually we know why: because they want more money.
I used to read the NYT daily, but because of this I've pretty much stopped.
The App store issue aside, the Times' pricing scheme, unveiled this spring, is delusional. You will pay more to access the paper's content on your browser, iPad and iPhone than getting a daily paper subscription. Check out the comparison chart at http://read.bi/mJnnDZ. It is this, and not Apple getting a slice of the pie that will make them fail. There aren't enough fools out there to pay these ridiculous prices to sustain the model.
I would have gladly subscribed to a more reasonable pricing scheme, but the Time's has shown that just like most of the old news media, they've got their heads stuck in the past.
The iPhone app of the Guardian, for example, offers a 6-months subscription for just 3,99. There is no iPad version yet, but the price for the iPhone subscription alone speaks for itself. The price does not have to be that low, but certainly not too high either.