Readability pulled from App Store, calls out Apple for its greed

Apple's new in-app extortion subscription fee model hasn't made the company many fans since it was announced last week. Apple has further vilified itself by pulling Readability -- a longtime geek favorite -- from the App Store for violating the new in-app subscription rules.

Readability is an odd target, especially considering Apple liked the script enough to build it into its Web browser as Safari Reader. Nevertheless, rules are rules, and Apple helpfully pointed Readability to section 11.2 of the App Store Guidelines, which requires developers to utilize Apple's payment system. The Readability team is pretty miffed, going so far as to say, "we believe that your new policy smacks of greed."

The team goes on to say it's Apple's right to make policies like this, but "to impose this course on any web service or web application that delivers any value outside of iOS will only discourage smaller ventures like ours to invest in iOS apps for our services." To close things out, Readability takes one last dig at Apple -- saying it would re-submit the app if Apple would be willing to give 70% of its 30% take back to content producers the way Readability does.

We're guessing that last bit is highly unlikely.

Tags: apps, iap, in app payments, InAppPayments, InAppPurchases, ios, ipad, iphone, mobile, readability, subscription, web