[Macworld]

Post your comments for Apple, Microsoft spar over fees for SkyDrive iOS app here

[Hologram]

@Jared

re: "Apple's policies have added an extra step of inconvenience for the user."

...or, from a glass half full perspective: "Apple's policies offer the extra convenience of in-app purchases to developers and users, for a fee."

[TONYOR]

re: "Apple's policies have added an extra step of inconvenience for the user."

I would tend to agree with you Jared and many thanks for an informative article. Notwithstanding the financial motives for this spat between Apple and Microsoft, one thing that Apple has not got the hang of yet is cloud-based computing. Microsoft's Skydrive works seamlessly on my Mac machines, IPads and PC's. I can drag and drop any file type into my Skydrive folders and while there may be other cloud-based alternatives, ICloud is most definitely not one of them.

[ingus]

I wonder just how important the in-app purchase of extra space is. Just patch the bugs, and upgrade storage from your PC/Laptop. 30% problem solved!

[ZPedro]

Err… It might have been the case when they introduced it, but since then Apple eliminated the price-matching restriction http://www.macworld....scriptions.html ; Microsoft can introduce an in-app purchase with price 43% higher that the out-of-app price if they want to.

Anyway, I don't want to comment on in-app subscriptions in general, but their applicability to software as a service is a cluster[censored]. Steve Jobs famously answered an email telling the new subscription rules (in fact, rules on all content purchases) would not apply to SaaS, but how is it decided what is SaaS and what isn't? Even worse, it seems if you're not a magazine or similar that you can't in fact use auto-renewing subscriptions, as Marco Arment and other discovered: http://www.marco.org...on-restrictions , so Microsoft would in fact have to use non-renewing subscriptions if the purchase is made from the app, making the experience worse for the user in the long run.

But Microsoft is going the wrong way about it; Apple on the other hand will react if they get credible competition to iOS that offers a better deal to developers, and that happens to be something Microsoft can do.

[ZPedro]

Also, TNW's claim that Apple rejected an offer from MS to remove all subscription options seems fishy to me, as that's exactly what Kindle does, for instance. I'd wager that is what the unnamed sources claimed was the offer, but the actual offer was not quite exactly that.

[jdb8167]

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Also, TNW's claim that Apple rejected an offer from MS to remove all subscription options seems fishy to me, as that's exactly what Kindle does, for instance. I'd wager that is what the unnamed sources claimed was the offer, but the actual offer was not quite exactly that.

I think they would have to remove the signup option to meet Apple's restrictions.

[ZPedro]

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I think they would have to remove the signup option to meet Apple's restrictions.

Ah, I missed this subtlety, sorry. I should have properly read the linked article.

Of course, if Microsoft used a signup page that did not do any upsell whatsoever and only ever allowed to sign up for the free option, and for the people who signed up this way Microsoft would only send emails (because I suppose they get your email address in case of outages or other needs to contact the subscriber) where there is no link whatsoever to a page that could lead to a page that could lead to a page that could allow the subscriber to learn about the paid options, then I think Apple would approve it. But we will never know, because in practice such signup pages don't exist! It will soon get to the point where the entire world has to be made to fit around Apple's guidelines.

[gbswales]

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@Jared re: " Apple's policies have added an extra step of inconvenience for the user. " ...or, from a glass half full perspective: "Apple's policies offer the extra convenience of in-app purchases to developers and users, for a fee."

Or to put it another way Apple should be grateful that Microsoft and the like produce apps for their operating system - maybe apple and google should be subsidising developers rather than the other ways around - at the end of the day it is the plethora of free apps that draws users to iOS and Android cutting off even part of the developers revenue stream makes it less likely that apps will stay free as they should be. It is actually an argument about nothing because I cant imagine any sensible person paying anyone for storage when there is so much free storage out there