It’s been another interesting few days in the mobile world. While Apple’s new subscription policy continues to come under heavy scrutiny and garner much criticism, Twitter also created some controversy of its own by denying access to a few popular clients used by many different mobile services.
Fallout Continues from iOS Subscription Policy
Last Wednesday, Appolicious’ own Howard Wollinsky broke down numerous stories that essentially wondered how publishers would feel about having to give up 30 percent of their subscription revenues for in-app purchased made via the App Store.
Now, a week after Steve Jobs’ announcement of the subscription service, a developer displeased with this new arrangement has fought back with an open letter to Apple (AAPL) urging them to alter this new model.
The developers in question created Readability, an extension that works in Safari by essentially creating new page views of websites without all of the ads. For this service, the developers are charging a $5 monthly fee, 70 percent of which they say goes towards writers and publishers.
According to their letter, however, the iOS version of this extension was rejected form the App Store because, of App Store Review Guideline 11.2, which bans apps that don’t use the “In-App Purchase” API for their content delivery system. Readability, with its subscription service web-based, does not use the IAP.
The letter isn’t quite the stuff of a scorned teenage lover. There is no ultimatum issued, just a few suggestions of greed on Apple’s part met with an understanding that they’re free to charge any sort of subscription fees they want. The letter does end on a conciliatory note, with the Readability team suggesting they’d be fine with an iOS version of their app, as long as 70 percent of Apple’s 30 percent cut of their app also went to publishers. Whether Apple takes them up on the offer, or even responds, will be an interesting development to follow.
UberMedia and Twitter, Together Again
In happier news from the world of apps, TechCrunch has the pleasant resolution to UberMedia’s recent ban from Twitter.
On Friday all of UberMedia’s Twitter apps (UberTwitter on BlackBerry & iPhone and Twidroyd on Android) were blocked from picking up tweets due to alleged accusations of violations of privacy and trademarks from Twitter.
Today, things are much rosier. UberTwitter has now become UberSocial and Twidroyd remains Twidroyd, but both are now receiving tweets normally, at least on the BlackBerry (RIMM) and Android (GOOG) phones.
iPhone users are still put out while the usual update and approval processes take place, but it shouldn’t be long before UberSocial is up and running there as well.
