App Store Rule 11.9
Since people could keep using this app indefinitely, I could be on the hook to MapQuest for service fees indefinitely. So I set the app up under a subscription model: the purchase price gets you three months, and then a year’s service is $5. That way, while my liabilities to MapQuest scaled with usage, so did my ability to pay them.
Unfortunately, since the app’s release, this kind of model has been explicitly forbidden by Apple’s App Store Guidelines:
11.9 Apps containing “rental” content or services that expire after a limited time will be rejected
But how would this be any different than an Instapaper subscription or subscription to The Magazine or any magazine in Newsstand? Is it because it ends, while those get charged every month?
Trying to remember now if my Wired subscription auto-renews...