App Store policies

Apple has been criticized for the control it maintains over its App Store; news organizations, like any other third-party developers, must have their apps approved by Apple before they can be distributed through Apple’s standard channel. (It is possible to distribute apps to jailbroken iPhones and iPads without Apple’s approval, but no mainstream news organization has done so.)

In one incident, Apple rejected an app submitted by Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Mark Fiore because it “ridicules public figures.” Apple reversed its decision after public blowback.

Apple also reserves the right to limit what it considers erotic or inappropriate material, a restriction that several German publications have run up against.

After criticism, Apple released more information about what it considers acceptable in apps in 2010. But critics say Apple still has too much leeway to reject applications at its choosing.

Apple’s cut

Since the App Store launched in 2008, Apple has taken a 30 percent cut of app sales. With most news applications being free and focused on mobile advertising revenue, that policy did not have a major impact on news organizations.

In 2011, Apple announced a new subscription policy that would allow companies to sell subscriptions to their news products within iPhone or iPad apps. Apple said it would take a similar 30 percent cut on that subscription revenue unless the subscription sale occurred outside the app, such as on a newspaper’s website. Several news organizations, particularly magazines, criticized the size of Apple’s cut and its restrictions on access to customer data, and Google followed with a rival plan that promised only a 10 percent take. Despite that, however, starting with The Daily, a number of media companies have started to sell their content under Apple’s in-app purchasing model.

One group does not have access to Apple’s payment mechanism: nonprofit groups looking to use the service for fundraising. Nonprofit news organizations, including some in public radio, have criticized this limitation as closing off a potentially fruitful source of donations to them.