New App Store policies are unclear as to whether apps that don't offer content or services qualify for subscriptions
From Lauren Goode's interview with Phil Schiller for The Verge, specifically regarding the new 85/15 revenue split after the first year of a subscription (italic emphasis mine):
Context & Ripple Effects
Lauren Goode's interview with Phil Schiller for The Verge surfaced a gap in Apple's new subscription terms: the 85/15 revenue split after a subscriber's first year was announced for 'content or services,' leaving unclear whether utility apps with neither could qualify at all. Two days later, Apple answered through Macworld that any app may qualify, provided it delivers 'ongoing value' — converting a category rule into a judgment call.
The timing matters because the same-day report that Google Play is testing an identical 85/15 model for all subscriptions means both stores were converging on subscription economics at once, making Apple's eligibility criteria the differentiator rather than the rate itself.
First-order effects
- Developers of non-content apps gain a potential path to recurring revenue under the new split, but only by convincing Apple their app provides 'ongoing value' — approval now depends on App Review's interpretation, not the developer's category.
Second-order effects
- With Google Play testing the same 85/15 structure, competitive pressure shifts from take-rate size to review discretion: whichever store applies its 'makes sense' criteria more predictably wins marginal subscription launches.
Third-order effects
- Ambiguous text plus discretionary enforcement is a durable Apple pattern — the same structure behind the later HEY debacle over vague App Store policies — and it points toward external rules (regulators, courts) eventually substituting for Apple's own case-by-case judgments about who may charge subscribers.
The trend: App store subscription economics are standardizing around an 85/15 split while eligibility itself becomes the contested lever, decided first by Apple's discretion and increasingly by outside pressure.