Last week a lot of news came out of the Mobile World Congress that will have interested the gambling industry in particular. We’re not talking about party gossip or anything of that ilk or even the presence of little people at the conference – although we’re not sure if they’re down with that in the mobile industry.
Apart from various companies telling all about their tablets, smart phones, and anything they might want to flog, the big news over the weekend is concerning the death star itself – Apple.
Controversy has come after Apple decided that time was ripe to change the terms and conditions on app subscriptions, basically amounting to them adjusting certain parts to the detriment of most that have an app in the market.
The new terms let publishers set the price and length of subscriptions while users can choose how frequently they’re charged and how long they commit to a subscription.
Apple, though, added another little gem into the terms as they increased the amount of revenue they keep from publishers in their app store to 30% – something that may rock the very foundations of the 70% chunk of the tablet market that they currently own.
It’s also thought that this will give Google’s Android a leg up as their plan, Google One Pass, allows terms that a lot more favorable. It includes the publishers keeping 90% of the revenue and allows them to charge as much or as little as they wish. They might well have rushed out their announcement but it’s plain to see that Google has seen a chance and pounced.
James McQuivey, a digital media analyst at Forrester, told the Guardian that, “the way Apple has approached this is particularly off putting for publishers – dictating terms and conditions and pulling the rug from under their feet.”
This will affect the online gambling industry as the future is likely to see more and more companies looking at mobile development and the news may well push most of them to follow the lead of other and develop apps to offer through their own websites.
