Apple updates its App Store; New rules for subscription

Even if the developer has raised the monthly or annual fee, Apple has amended its App Store regulations to allow subscriptions to auto-renew without your full permission. Users had to manually opt-in to a subscription renewal if it came with a price increase before the rule change; now, you won’t have to, though you’ll still be warned about the price change before it happens.

Apple’s stance on the issue is that it might save customers the trouble of having their subscriptions automatically cancelled because they didn’t see the price rise notification or email.

“As a result, some services have been inadvertently interrupted  customers, and they must take steps to resubscribe within the app, from Settings on iPhone and iPad, or in the App Store on Mac,” the company said in its note.

The fact that developers can’t raise the price more than once a year without turning off auto-renew is a safeguard to ensure that no one exploits this feature.

Customers who don’t keep a close eye on their inboxes and miss Apple’s emails; those who have their iOS notifications silenced or aggregated summaries using Apple’s own notification management tools; and those who use a subscription-based app so infrequently that they would rather have their subscription lapse than be automatically opted in to pay more.