One of the most overlooked things about iOS and iPhones are the crazy expensive apps and services that live on the App Store. Developers and Apple make crazy amounts of money from these, and the subscriptions are often really expensive. And if that wasn’t enough, some developers get really creative with trying to trick people into giving them more money.

And that’s changing now.

Apple now requires developers to make the pricing of subscriptions really clear to the user, as first spotted by 9to5Mac. Apps will now have to make sure that the monthly price of a subscription is prominent, while yearly or other periods of subscription needs to be less prominent, possibly also showing the discounts users can get for getting the longer period of subscriptions.

The updated guidelines for in-app subscriptions also states that the terms and conditions need to be above the fold of the screen and visible to he user, making the terms of the subscription even clearer.

Although these changes might not sound major, they are actually going to be really helpful. Some apps try to trick users into expensive subscriptions — for example, stating the monthly price of a 6-month subscription instead of the full, upfront price of the 6-month subscription. The new changes to the guidelines will help prevent these.

Tagged with Apple, iOS, iPhone