Time Inc. Now Selling Subscriptions Through the App Store

U.S. iPad owners can now subscribe to the iPad editions of all 20 of Time Inc.'s magazines through Apple's Newsstand, including InStyle, People, Sports Illustrated and Time, the company announced Thursday.

Time Inc. has been selling magazines on the iPad for almost as long as the two-year-old device has been on the market. Until now however, users were unable to subscribe to its magazines within the App Store. Instead, they had to subscribe to individual print editions through Time Inc. or a third-party vendor, and then authenticate those subscriptions through their respective apps. Some magazines, such as Sports Illustrated, deviated by offering bundled digital subscriptions on their websites, which permitted users to access content from a variety of connected devices.

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Why didn't Time Inc. allow subscriptions to begin with? The company contested Apple's terms for the offering, which forbid the sharing of subscriber information with publishers. That information that is critical to Time Inc., which needs it to sell advertising packages.

Some publishers, including Conde Nast and Hearst, have bystepped this obstacle by asking users to opt-in with their information immediately after purchasing subscriptions in their apps. If users refuse, they may be prompted again to opt-in when they attempt to open certain features, like article bookmarking. A Time Inc. spokesperson told Mashable that the majority of customers have agreed to share their data with publishers via those methods; as such, the company now feels that "Apple understands our needs as publishers and we feel confident we can manage our subscriber base well," the spokesperson said.

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This story originally published on Mashable here.

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