The latest version of iOS makes it a lot easier to manage your subscriptions on iPhone and iPad.

The small change puts “Manage Subscriptions” front and center within the profile section of the App Store – a big improvement on the labyrinthine selection of menus and submenus you had to navigate to find it before. The change brings it in line with Google Play, where subscriptions is a side panel in its top-level navigation.

Compare and contrast to the old route you needed to take. First, you’d need to head to iOS Settings, then hunt down “iTunes & App Store”, tap “Apple ID”, then “View Apple ID” and then scroll all the way to the bottom of the page to find it.

It was a bit easier in the App Store, where the route was tapping your profile icon, then “Apple ID” and scrolling to the bottom of the page, but you still needed to know exactly what you were looking for, and that shouldn’t be taken as a given.

Yes, it may sound like a minor change – and in many ways it is – but it’s one that could save both Apple and its users a lot of headaches. The subscription model is becoming increasingly popular with developers, and if you’re not familiar with the rules, it can be tricky to know how you go about cancelling. Logically, many users believe their contract is with the app developer, so they should contact them. Others may just assume that when they delete the app, they stop being charged. Yet more may not even realize they have any active subscriptions until they get a bill from Apple.

With a more straightforward way of monitoring subscriptions, users should have a better understanding of what they’re on the hook for and, in turn, developers should have considerably fewer support emails to deal with. That feels like a win-win situation.

By Navneet Singh,
Manager – Mobile Applications,
Apolis