Hi there,
Scott Nover here, once again filling in for Sara Jerde who is out this week.
You may have heard that Epic Games, the company behind the wildly popular game Fortnite, is in an all-out legal brawl with Apple over its App Store policies. Well, publishers are also beefing with Cupertino, Calif.'s most prominent corporate resident.
Despite her absence, Sara published an excellent story yesterday detailing publishers' own consternation with Apple. The trade body Digital Content Next (DCN), which reps The New York Times and other major news outlets, sent a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook taking issue with the slice of the pie Apple takes from their in-app subscription sales (30% on first purchase and 15% in successive years.)
As it turns out, Cook had revealed in his testimony before the House antitrust subcommittee last month that Apple had renegotiated these terms with Amazon over in-app Prime Video subscriptions.
"If Apple can offer other apps, such as Amazon Prime, fairer terms, publishers deserve a better deal, too," Sara writes, summarizing the DCN letter.
Publishers are grappling quite publicly with Apple: There is also looming concern about what the debut of iOS 14 this fall means for them, plus they continue to suffer the ill-effects that ITP has had on monetizing Safari users.
One thing seems certain in the face of mercurial tech platforms: Publishers need to foster direct relationships with users.
What else we're covering:
Give me a heads up on news tips and interesting items at scott.nover@adweek.com.
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