• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, February 15, 2011

Apple today unveiled a new subscription service for magazines, newspapers, videos and music purchased through its App Store. The initiative allows for publishers to set the price and length of subscriptions (weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, bi-annual or annual). Consumers can click to select the option they want and manage all subscriptions from their personal account page.

Apple will process payments via the App Store and take a 30% cut of revenue, as it does now with other in-app sales. It will also let publishers sell digital subscriptions through their own Web sites. “Our philosophy is simple—when Apple brings a new subscriber to the app, Apple earns a 30 percent share; when the publisher brings an existing or new subscriber to the app, the publisher keeps 100 percent and Apple earns nothing,” said Apple CEO Steve Jobs, in a statement.

Magazine and newspaper publishers launching digital editions on the iPad have in particular have called for Apple to allow them sell copies on a subscription basis as they have offline for decades. Only a few publications including “The Daily,” News Corp.’s tablet-only newspaper debuting on the iPad earlier this month, have offered subscriptions through iTunes to date. But at that launch event, Apple executive Eddy Cue indicated subscriptions would soon be opened up to other publications in the App Store.

As part of the plan, Apple will require that if a publisher sells a digital subscription separately outside of the app, that same offer must be made available, at the same price or less, to customers who subscribe from within the app. Further, publishers may no longer provide links in their apps, to a Web site, for instance, which allow the customer to purchase content or subscriptions outside the app. Read more here.