Apple plans to unveil a range of updates to the App Store at next week’s Worldwide Developers Conference 2016, including reduced commission for developers and new options for subscription-based pricing.
While 30 percent commission is currently charged to app developers selling through the store, apps that can retain a subscriber for over a year will get 85 percent of their revenues and Apple only 15.
The change will be effective starting 13 June and will apply to apps that already have subscriptions that are at least a year old.
In addition, while subscription-based pricing has been limited to specific app categories such as entertainment, this option will now be offered to all apps, according to the BBC.
This change will allow new business models for developers of productivity apps, for example. Rather than developers having to charge a large one-off fee they will be able to charge according to use over a longer period.
Also important to developers will be a major reduction in the review times on the App Store. These changes, which have been introduced over recent weeks, have now been confirmed by Apple, according to John Gruber, Apple blogger.
In addition to these changes for developers, Apple has changed the search function so that ads will be displayed at the top of search results.
Apple will only show one ad at a time in the search results and they will be clearly marked as such. The ads will apparently be relevant to the user’s search term.
The WWDC conference, where developers will further explore these announcements, will run from 13 June to 17 June in San Francisco.
As well as these updates to the App Store the conference is expected to see major overhauls of iTunes, which may coincide with a redesign of Apple Music, according to Mark Gurman, who breaks news about Apple developments.
