This news is well over a week old, but the fact that Apple has changed their subscription policy is both a surprise and expected. The old policy¹ was extremely controversial and left a lot of potential for companies to pull themselves out of the App Store to avoid complying. I think Apple made the right decision because the policy was a little harsh and the fall out could have been substantial. If companies like Amazon, Netflix and Hulu were forced out — because they might not have been able to comply and remain profitable — it could have been the jolt in the arm Android tablets needed.

1. The old policy required companies that provided subscriptions to offer them for the same price within the app, which Apple takes 30% of, as outside of the app. [↩]