The Wall Street Journal is now offering in-app subscriptions on the App Store, and has added its newspaper to Apple's Newsstand automatic subscription delivery service, reports All Things D.
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The move is worth noting because up until now the Journal was one of the highest-profile print publishers that wasn’t selling app access via Apple. Earlier this year, Time Inc., which had been the most prominent holdout, also signed on.
The move means that Apple will retain 30 percent of all subscription revenue the Journal receives from "in-app" sales, and it will retain control of customer billing information like credit card numbers and billing addresses.
WSJ's biggest competitor, the Financial Times, dropped its iOS app last year because it didn't want to give Apple 30% of subscriptions purchased through the App Store. Instead, it developed a well-received HTML5 web app that replicated much of the functionality of the iOS app, including offline reading.
Newsstand support means readers can have their papers update automatically in the background.
Top Rated Comments
There's no real difference in functionality other than now its a 2-click process to launch the app and you can't put it in the dock directly.
The app is great in that you can download and go offline, such as on an airplane.
But somehow I've always been suspect that the app doesn't have the freshest material as on the website - which can be a big deal in stock trading...
The update is really impressive, especially on my iPad. I don't know if I would have subscribed to it BECAUSE of the app, but it's a huge added bonus to my online subscription.