clicky

You may remember there was a small furore when Apple introduced a system for paying for e-magazine/newspaper subscriptions to be delivered to iOS devices. Those included restrictions like no offering the sub for a different price out side the app store (even though Apple take a 30% cut) and no offering deals outside the app store you can't offer inside.

Well, barely 48 hours after announcing iOS 5, which very prominently includes an app to manage those subscriptions, and a short period before those restrictions were due to come into force, they've dropped them. All the restrictions publishers complained about are no longer in the online T&C. Obviously the US government taking an interest has had an effect and possibly also Apple realised it was going to need some content in it's shiny new app or it was going to look a bit silly...

Jon

Apple realise they were running towards an anti-trust/restriction of trade law suit that would have made a massive dent in their cash pile and retreat.

Well the other aspect is that they would sell far more iPads and not have the aggravation of anti trust if they had more publications offering subscriptions. The content deal was not worth that much trouble.