Does Apple's new subscription pricing policy affect SaaS?

Hank Williams has a good blog post discussing this: http://whydoeseverythingsuck.com/2011/02/apple-is-actually-asking-for-100-of.html In short, yes, he believes it applies to SaaS.

Assuming the email is legit, Steve Jobs says the subscription policy is meant for publishing, not SaaS: http://www.macrumors.com/2011/02/21/steve-jobs-email-suggests-in-app-subscriptions-dont-apply-to-software-as-a-service/ Of course, there's nothing stopping Apple from changing how it applies this policy moving forward.

Ryan Carson assumes the subscription policy applies to SaaS: http://thinkvitamin.com/web-industry/why-you-should-fight-apples-subscription-extortion/ At present I have to consider Ryan and Hank Williams takes on the issue as speculation. They don't seem to be working from any additional information beyond the press release. The Apple press release specifically calls out 'content' applications which would seem to be distinct from service applications. But will Apple consider anything that requires an account to be a subscription? Has Apple provided clarification?

I really hope this only applies to 'content' publishers.  I can't see how this will work with apps that are utilities for more functional web based apps.  I have an app I was working on that makes no sense to purchase an in-app subscription, but does require a subscription from an online account.  It feels like they are trying to control too many things here.

Hope I'm wrong, but as I understood, subscriptions are only for content publishers like newspapers, music/video-services, etc.

Based on both the news release and the rejection of the Readability app this morning, it appears that ANY value of an economic nature delivered by an app must be purchasable through that app and Apple gets a 30% cut. This is a mere 10x more than any other payment system charges - like Visa, MasterCard or American Express. It's also a 90%+ gross margin on the cost Apple is incurring to provide the payment system service. I don't think this wouldn't be as big of a deal if there were other accepted methods of installing apps on an iPhone or iPad. Apple could certainly justify the requirement for promotion in their App Store. But because they have a monopoly on app stores, this is the equivalent of Microsoft selling you a copy of Windows, and then later blocking your web browser from surfing to http://Amazon.com, unless Amazon will pay them a 30% cut on all of your purchases. This is a basic principle of user freedom and if Apple tries to make this stick at this level, I believe we'll quickly see both regulators and competitors level the playing field. (This could potentially be the best news Google has had all year if they can get their act together and protect users from telecom carriers mucking up the Android user experience.)

It seems that the concern is that purveyors of software services who just want to bring some value added capability through an iPhone app may now have pay some subscription tax to apple. I don't think that there is an issue for providers who are solely adding value to an existing service. My understanding is that if you are not selling / upgrading / extending the service period of a service or access to content in the app outside of the In App Purchase system then you are OK. Amazon runs afoul w/ the Kindle app because it allows purchase of books in the app that redirect to the Amazon web site. The good gray area example is the Economist. I have a paper subscription. The Economist allows me to download E-copies of the weekly magazine. As I understand it, the Economist brought me as a customer to the iPad app, so they are OK, right? I hope so, I'd be pissed if I had to purchase a separate subscription.