Apple yesterday unveiled its Newsstand service, which it claims makes setting up online subscriptions to magazines and newspapers as easy as ‘having the paper delivered to the front door”.
Newstand, which is similar in design to iBooks, is the first Apple service that allows users access to a single interface for all subscriptions to papers and magazines.
Apple unveiled the new app, which will go live later this year, at its Worldwide Developer Conference.
Under its current subscription model products are only available as individual apps within the iTunes store, and this is the first time they have been brought together into a single service where users can browse publications on a virtual newsstand.
Newsstand users will automatically receive updated versions of their subscriptions as they appear, and they can also be read offline.
On its website Apple said: ‘New purchases go directly to your Newsstand folder. Then, as new issues become available, Newsstand automatically updates them in the background – complete with the latest covers.
‘It’s kind of like having the paper delivered to your front door. Only better.”
Apple was criticised in February after unveiling its new ‘walled garden’subscription model, whereby it keeps 30 per cent of all revenue from subscriptions sold through iPads and iphones via its App Store.
Google’s rival service One Pass charges 10 per cent.
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