Hulu Plus Now In Compliance With Apple’s In-App Subscription Policies

In a new report by All Things Digital today, Peter Kafka highlights that the latest update to Hulu Plus for iOS has brought the application in line with Apple’s recently introduced in-app subscription policies, just in time for the firm’s June 30 deadline.

Previous to this week’s update, Hulu Plus boasted a login panel which featured a small link at the bottom asking potential subscribers who didn’t yet have an account with Hulu to leave the app and go to hulu.com/plus in order to find out more. However, under Apple’s new subscription rules this is simply not allowed.

All Hulu had to do was strip out the link that sent potential subscribers to its Web site, because Apple’s new rule will ban “apps that link to external mechanisms for purchases or subscriptions to be used in the app.”

With Apple’s June 30 deadline for developers to comply to its in-app subscription policies looming, other apps which feature subscriptions, such as Netflix and Rhapsody, are also expected to follow suit in the next few days.

However, as noted, it is so far unclear how apps such as Amazon’s popular Kindle Store will survive under Apple’s new subscription policies.

All Things Digital notes that the solution adopted by Hulu is likely to make its way to a number of other prominent services such as Netflix and Rhapsody, although it is unclear how others such as Amazon’s Kindle Store will be able to satisfactorily comply with the new rules going into effect next week without removing a significant convenience factor of being able to purchase individual e-books via link-outs from the app itself.