FT returns to Apple’s app store after six years

financial-times-screensho-001 The Financial Times is launching a new mobile application for Apple iOS devices in the U.S. and the U.K., six years after it abandoned the platform following disagreements with Apple over revenue and data sharing.

Jack Marshall of The Wall Street Journal reports, “‘We know that an engaged reader results in a larger lifetime value,’ said Cait O’Riordan, the FT’s chief product and information officer. ‘We want to know if a native app can help drive that engagement number.’

“Since 2011, Apple device users have only been able to access the FT’s full range of content via its mobile website. The FT decided to invest in its web offering rather than a ‘native’ iOS app partly because of Apple’s requirement to be paid a 30% cut of any subscription revenue generated from apps in its App Store, according to people familiar with the matter.

“The new iOS app will therefore only be accessible to existing FT subscribers. New readers won’t be able to purchase subscriptions from within the app itself, but must instead do so from the FT’s website before logging in.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.