I suspect that your analysis is completely wrong. IANAL, and all.
1. Apple disallows in-app purchases for physical goods; presumably this would include services that are provided in the physical world instead of wholly electronically.
2. Apps have to be (minimally) useful to people without requiring a for-pay subscription.
3. These new rules would only kick in if you offered content (or possibly services; this is the SaaS question still unanswered, but it probably only applies to content as delivered content—that is, it seems to me to not apply to rental content, e.g., Netflix or Hulu) to people that is dependent on a subscription fee or a one-time fee.
As an example, let's say your wife's app were to have two news feeds about her fitness bootcamps (regular and premium). If all of her fitness bootcamp clients (the people who pay $200) are given access codes to the premium feed subscription, she may be required to offer in-app purchase of access to the premium news feed to people who are not or cannot be her physical customer at a price equivalent to or less than what she charges for the physical customers to have access to that feed.
All you'd have to do to comply is provide access to the premium news feed as an in-app purchase for $200 or less and let Apple take 30% of that. They're not getting anything for her fitness bootcamp services.
In reality for the case study -- I'll likely just leave it as a web app. I'm more comfortable with the web anyway. Or if it did go IOS native -- It would just be a free service.
re: 3. I worked on the worst-case assumption of SaaS Issues..
Isn't that seperate pricing though?
If you have person A paying $200 for Bootcamp + App and person B paying $200 for App, isn't there a problem?
I'm wouldn't be concerned about new customers.. But if my existing customers have the app -- then they would have to have the ability to pay via iTunes for next month.. And that means a 30% cut to apple.
I'm not sure it's something they would enforce.. But I'm concerned regardless.
No; for some other posts on this, I did some checking in the agreement and IAP is explicitly disallowed for rental content or services or for goods or services for use outside of the app.
Let's play with your case study a little more, though (it's fun!):
Because IAP cannot be used for goods or services outside of the app, your IAP subscription would have to be clear that it's for access to the premium feed only and not contracting your wife for fitness bootcamp services. What would you do if someone who lives 3,000 km from you purchased the bootcamp service through the app? You'd never be able to fulfill it (which is one reason why IAP can't be used for non-app goods or services, I suspect).
So, in reality, you might offer the premium feed a lot like the Schlock Mercenary app does (and has since it was introduced)[1]: one month for $0.99, three months for $2.99, or six months for $4.99. There's also a way to enter a subscription token, although I've never had one so I don't know exactly how it works. I would presume that they could start offering these directly for sale on the Schlock Mercenary store if people wanted to give Howard more money directly, rather than letting Apple take 30% of his definitely-worth-it $4.99.
Anyway, you'd have a nominal fee for your premium feed, and then you'd give the people who have contracts with your wife for her non-app services access codes to get at the premium feed without having to pay an extra fee.
Everybody wins, especially you and your wife, because now you're making money that you wouldn't have gotten otherwise, just for writing extra premium content.
So as long as I convince Apple that the Bootcamp is $199 and the App is $1 then I don't have an issue (Unless non-IOS bootcampers catch wind and want a discount :P)
In terms of structure -- it will be more of a saas app -- Food/exercise diary with integration into the bootcamp client systems.. So all of your bootcamp workouts/measurements/results are already entered for you. That was my concern as the key feature of the app was to essentially see your bootcamp results and to give your trainer a look at your food diary. Which wont happen unless you're paying the $200 and actually there in meatspace....
// Of course -- I guess we could move into virtual coaching / training / etc... Getting workout and diet plans out of the app for a much higher monthly fee... that might be worth paying the 30% to Apple for as our clients wouldn't be ones we could reach elsewhere.. hmmm... this has potential.
1. Apple disallows in-app purchases for physical goods; presumably this would include services that are provided in the physical world instead of wholly electronically.
2. Apps have to be (minimally) useful to people without requiring a for-pay subscription.
3. These new rules would only kick in if you offered content (or possibly services; this is the SaaS question still unanswered, but it probably only applies to content as delivered content—that is, it seems to me to not apply to rental content, e.g., Netflix or Hulu) to people that is dependent on a subscription fee or a one-time fee.
As an example, let's say your wife's app were to have two news feeds about her fitness bootcamps (regular and premium). If all of her fitness bootcamp clients (the people who pay $200) are given access codes to the premium feed subscription, she may be required to offer in-app purchase of access to the premium news feed to people who are not or cannot be her physical customer at a price equivalent to or less than what she charges for the physical customers to have access to that feed.
All you'd have to do to comply is provide access to the premium news feed as an in-app purchase for $200 or less and let Apple take 30% of that. They're not getting anything for her fitness bootcamp services.