The Financial Times has pulled its iPhone and iPad app after a bust-up with Apple over who owns the customer data of those who sign up.
Apple insisted readers must buy the app from its App Store, meaning it owns the customer data as well as 30% of revenues.
But the Pearson-owned newspaper will continue to be accessible by Apple devices via a browser-based web app. The decision to pull its apps followed months of negotiations.
About 25% of the FT’s sales come via its website, and mobile devices comprise some 22% of the traffic on ft.com.
An FT spokesman claimed the disagreement with Apple was “amicable”, and the newspaper still intended to offer other apps via the App Store, including one for its weekend luxuries magazine How to Spend It.
However, any future App Store offerings would be funded via advertising, not subscriptions, to avoid a repeat of the dispute.
The FT originally launched its web browser to provide a common point of access for all devices.
FT group product manager for emerging technologies Stephen Pinches said: “The main factors on our mind when we launched app.ft.com were that it just isn’t practical to maintain separate development for each individual technology platform. We are planning to push our web app out to multiple platforms this year: Android, PlayBook, WebOS and others, and this really is the most logical and strategic approach.”
The newspaper expects to launch the Android version of the web app in the next two months.
