Apple will reportedly hold its next big press event on 25 March at its Steve Jobs Theater venue.
BuzzFeed described the event as “subscription-services focused”, which is thought to point towards the launch of a news-subscription service – although perhaps also an announcement about Apple’s video strategy.
The news-subscription plans are making headlines though, and not entirely positive ones. Apple acquired a startup called Texture last March, which had an app offering a Spotify/Netflix-style subscription to a catalogue of digital magazines. That’s thought to be providing the basis for a new, offered-with-iOS news-subscription app.
The Wall Street Journal reports that news publishers are grumbling, however, at the planned business model. It claims Apple plans to keep 50% of the $10 monthly subscription. “The rest of the revenue would go into a pool that would be divided among publishers according to the amount of time users spend engaged with their articles.”
The terms of this deal, as well as the perennial argument over access to customers’ data, are reportedly at the heart of some publishers’ complaints.
We’ll be interested to see what (if any) role Apple Music plays at the event: while there have been rumours of Apple ultimately launching some kind of all-in-one ‘media bundle’ subscription covering music, video, news and games, March feels too soon for such a venture, given that only one of those four individual subscription services has actually launched.
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