The Financial Times shuns the App Store, but not the iPad

NiemannJournalismLab reporting:
The Financial Times has launched a new, subscription-based iPad app, but you won’t find it in Apple’s App Store. The app is a touch-optimized, HTML5-powered newspaper that runs in the browser.
And it’s slick. Open app.ft.com in Mobile Safari and you’re prompted to add a bookmark to your home screen, which unlocks the site’s full potential. The app launches full-screen, unencumbered by browser chrome. It’s fast and smooth. Stories are downloaded, which allows for offline reading.
In other words, the FT’s web app is practically indistinguishable from a native app.
That’s important, as Peter Kafka notes, because it allows the FT to deliver a “native” experience without having to play by Apple’s subscription rules. But it will become much more important, and interesting, if the newspaper pulls its existing apps out of the App Store next month, when Apple’s policy will become a Hobson’s choice for all publishers. At that point, Apple will demand a share of the publishers’ proceeds and keep valuable subscriber data to itself.
The FT’s promotional video opens thusly: “The FT app is moving.” And it seems to promote the web app’s advantages over its predecessor, the native app. “The app is quicker. You can now read more content and watch our award-winning video on iPhone as well as iPad,” the narrator says. The web app, in other words, could well be a test case for paid content that does its thing outside the confines of Apple’s walled garden. Though the FT says it has “no plans to pull out of any apps store,” Kafka notes, he continues: “That’s not the same as saying it plans to stick around, either.”
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