New Yorker for iPad gets in-app subscriptions
The weekly magazine, which first appeared on the App Store back in October, is out the gates with a new update that adds in-app subscriptions. Apple first introduced the program in February.
Fewer than three months since Apple's introduction of in-app subscriptions for the iPad, publisher Conde Nast has hopped on board with the digital version of The New Yorker.
A new version of The New Yorker app, which went out as an update last night, adds the capability to subscribe to either a month or a year of the publication through Apple's recently-introduced subscription program. This option joins the existing $4.99 per issue option that's been available since the app was introduced in October, and now lets current print subscribers of the weekly magazine plug in their information to receive iPad digital editions free of charge.
"The reaction to our iPad app was instructive," said The New Yorker's editors in a blog post announcing the update. "They were less delighted about one important point: they wanted to subscribe to the magazine on the iPad or to get access to their subscription if they had one already; until now, the only way to read the magazine on the iPad was to buy single issues, at single-issue prices."
The $5.99 one-month subscription price represents a sizable discount compared to the $4.99 per issue users had initially. Signing up for an entire year represents a 74 percent savings, The New Yorker notes on its in-app subscription pop-up (pictured above).
Along with subscribers in the U.S. and Canada, The New Yorker says international subscribers in other countries, as well as digital-only subscribers, will eventually get free access to the iPad edition.
Apple first unveiled its plans for an in-app subscription plan for iOS applications back in February. The controversial plan bars applications from letting users subscribe to a recurring service unless it's through Apple's in-app payment mechanism, wherein Apple gets a 30 percent cut and does not share subscriber information with the publisher (unless a user opts to make that information available). As Wired notes, The New Yorker is collecting additional subscriber information within the application both through Apple's opt-in program, as well as offering "bonus content" to users who sign up for NewYorker.com.
As an alternative to the in-app subscription service, publishers and other app makers can link up existing subscribers to a subscription within the app. One limitation here is that publishers cannot facilitate purchases of said subscriptions within the app itself without using Apple's system, something Apple will be policing on existing applications with subscriptions by the end of next month.
Besides The New Yorker, other Conde Nast publications getting similar in-app subscription plans by the end of May will include Allure, Glamour, Gold Digest, GQ, Self, Vanity Fair, and Wired.