Apple has quietly changed its guidelines on the pricing of In-App Subscriptions on the App Store. There are no longer any requirements that a subscription be the “same price or less than it is offered outside the app”. There are no longer any guidelines about price at all. Apple also removed the requirement that external subscriptions must be also offered as an in-app purchase.

When Apple sent out the new subscription plan, however, it placed quite a few requirements on developers – from the App Store Review Guidelines — in regards to pricing of any subscriptions. Enforcement of the new policies were to go into effect on June 30 of this year. By far the most controversial was section 11.13:
“11.13 Apps can read or play approved content (magazines, newspapers, books, audio, music, video) that is sold outside of the app, for which Apple will not receive any portion of the revenues, provided that the same content is also offered in the app using IAP at the same price or less than it is offered outside the app. This applies to both purchased content and subscriptions.”

You have to wonder if this change is mainly due to the fact that Android is gaining ground and had a much lesser subscription pricing plan. Is Apple scared of Android? Could this be the first step in Apple’s superior dominance dwindling? Apple has always been very strict with their rules and regulations when it came to app developers and to loosen the reigns a bit could show Apple is not taking Android lightly.