Glu Mobile's games will be using Android in-app subscriptions from launch
Google introduced in-app purchases on its Android Market store in March 2011, but that feature has now been expanded to include auto-renewing subscriptions as well as one-off payments.
Android developers distributing their apps through what's now the Google Play store can sell monthly or annual subscriptions, with Google handling the transactions. Android users can view and cancel subscriptions from within the Google Play Store app on their devices.
In a blog post announcing the news, Google Play product manager Ibrahim Elbouchikhi stresses that this isn't just about magazine and newspaper apps.
"Developers can use them to monetize premium dynamic content such as journals and magazines, but they can also use them to sell access to bundled products, game levels, music and video content, value-added services, or any other digital content."
Indeed, the sole launch developer mentioned in the blog post is a games company, Glu Mobile, which will be using Google's subscription billing to sell "custom VIP currency packages" for some of its freemium Android games.
The subscription billing isn't just for digital publications, then, but that's the area where it could have the biggest impact. The ability to charge for six or 12 months at a time rather than just single purchases removes one of the barriers that has stopped more publishers porting their digital editions from iOS to Android.
Note: one of the barriers. A number of print publishers remain spooked by Android fragmentation (device screen size, OS version, etc – these concerns are well known, and Google has been working on the problem ).
The sheer size of the addressable Android smartphone market – 89.8m handsets shipped in Q1 2012 alone for a 59% market share according toIDC's latest stats – is what's persuading publishers of other kinds of apps to stop complaining about Android fragmentation and start the necessary investment to deal with it.
Is that true of magazine and newspaper companies? I'm not so sure: even for those who offer smartphone and tablet versions of their digital editions, it's the tablet that is foremost in their minds when planning strategy. It's good that Android tablet owners can now pay with subscriptions, but it's a case of when there will be enough of them to make this a valuable business.
Which is not to say that magazine and newspaper publishers aren't keen on Android. It's more accurate to say they're keen on specific Android devices.
Numerous times recently when I've talked to currently-iOS-only publishers and asked them about Android plans, the conversation has rapidly become one about Amazon's Kindle Fire and (for US publishers) Barnes & Noble's Nook Tablet.
And, of course, both of these are tied into those companies' billing systems rather than the Google Play store. Where Google's new billing will have an impact is when other Android tablets – Samsung's Galaxy Tab for example – have wide enough install bases to make tempting targets.
In other words, don't expect an immediate rush of digital magazines and newspapers onto the Google Play store. Still, in-app subscriptions are one of the key building blocks required for Android to rise up print publishers' priorities lists.
Note: as an external freelancer, I don't have inside information on The Guardian's Android tablet plans; nor does this blog post represent the newspaper's thinking on the matter.
