Last week Apple updated its App Store review guidelines to address subscriptions, SiriKit and iMessage apps, reports 9to5Mac. App Store subscriptions are now available in every app category, where they had previously been limited. This was a new change announced by Apple in June, less than a week before its 2016 Worldwide Developers Conference, along with a favorable change in fee structure.

According to the App Store Review Guidelines, Apple says its guiding principle is providing a safe experience for users to obtain apps and creating an opportunity for developers to be successful. Apple said the guidelines have not changed, but they are now better organized and provide more context so they are more easily understood.

“Whether you are a first time developer or a large team of experienced programmers, we are excited that you are creating apps for the App Store and want to help you understand our guidelines so you can be confident your app will get through the review process quickly,” Apple says in its introduction to the guidelines.

In section 3.1.2, the updated guidelines specifically address auto-renewable apps, regardless of category. Developers who offer auto-renewable apps, must provide ongoing value to subscribers. Apple offers examples of apps that provide continuous value:

• New game levels
• Episodic content
• Multi-player support
• Apps that offer consistent, substantive updates
• Access to large collections of, or continually updated, media content
• Software as a service (SaaS)
• Cloud support

Additional guidelines for auto-renewing apps include:

• Subscriptions may be offered along with a la carte offerings such as one-time purchases or rentals.
• A developer may offer a single subscription shared across their own apps, but subscriptions cannot extend to third-party apps or services. Subscriptions must work on all of a user’s devices where the app is available.
• Apps cannot force a user to rate the app, review the app, download other apps or any similar actions in order to access functionality, content or use of the app.
• Subscribers should get what they pay for without having to performing additional tasks, such as social media sharing, uploading personal contacts, checking in to the app X number of times, etc.
• Subscriptions cannot include “consumable credits, gems, in-game currencies, etc.” in combination with other offerings, but subscriptions can be offered that include access to discounted consumable goods such as a platinum membership that exposes gems for a reduced price.
• When changing an existing app to a subscription-based model, developers should not take away the primary functionality existing users have already paid for.
• Upgrades and downgrades should be seamless, and users should not be able to inadvertently subscribe to multiple variations of the same thing. Apple refers developers to their best practices for how to manage upgrades and downgrades.
• When asking a customer to subscribe, the app should clearly describe what the user gets for the subscription fee. For example, how many issues would a customer get? How much cloud storage? What kind of access to service?

Apple’s best practices include options for the duration of free trials, which are only available for auto-renewable subscriptions. The minimum free trial duration is one week and the maximum is three months. The best practices also explain that developers will receive 70 percent of the subscription price for the first year of a subscription, and 85 percent in year two and beyond. This change went into effect in June 2016. Not following the above guidelines can get a developer’s app rejected.

As 9to5Mac.com points out, the guidelines are designed to protect the customer as well as the Apple brand as it makes changes to its previous policies. Apple is also trying to keep developers from changing how content is accessed that was previously purchased through the App Store.

Insider Take:

Whether you are an app developer creating subscription-based products or a more traditional app provider like a media company, the above guidelines should already be standard practice. Ideally, Apple should have come out with these guidelines at the same time it rolled out its changes in June. Perhaps Apple was seeing a lot of violations in subscription-based apps that were submitted for approval, or maybe it was trying to cover itself in the event of legal ramifications.

To ensure that subscription companies, including app developers, understand how auto-renewals work, we are offering a free webinar on Wednesday, Sept. 21 on the topic: “Know the Law” Auto-Renew Subscription Plans & Offers.” Hosted by Subscription Insider, Lisa B. Dubrow, Esq. will explain how to comply with legal requirements such as placement of offer copy, trial offers, price increases, cancellation policies and more. Sign up today to be sure your company is in compliance.