It was only a few weeks ago that Apple announced its decision to reject the Readability app from its App Store. This was also especially painful news for the developer as the reason cited by Apple for removing their app was that Readability was offering a subscription service for the users without making use of Apple’s new in app subscription feature. Obviously, this enraged the developers as they were caught completely unaware and the move did not make any sense at all to them. However, they didn’t dwell on this misfortune for much long and moved back to the drawing board.
This renewed inspiration to look for other avenues along with two weeks of hard work from the developers has led them to releasing a full on HTML 5 version of the popular app which is being released to the users today. The design of the web app has been overhauled specifically keeping in mind tablet and mobile platforms and it utilizes some of HTML 5’s most advanced aspects which include offline storage. The HTML 5 integration is also meant to add a lot more diversity to the platforms supported by the app along with giving it newer features. Also, because of the fact that it has been alienated by Apple, Android is moving closer to being the preference. According to co-founder Richard Ziade, the update is also a statement of sorts after the Apple incident.
However, Readability doesn’t seem to be giving up hopes to be a part of the App Store just yet. Rumors suggest that they have submitted their app once again for another trial after they heard from Steve Jobs that only publishers were subject to the in app subscription rules and not SaaS apps, which is what Readability says it is.
