Kitcatt Nohr Digitas

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Yesterday, Steve Jobs announced that Apple would charge a cut of 30 per cent of all subscriptions purchased through the App Store.

Today, Google countered that it would only charge publishers ten per cent, and that it would also give them access to their customers' data.

Chief Executive Eric Schmidt commented that 'We don't prevent you from knowing, if you're a publisher, who your subscribers are, like some other people.'

He also explained that the ten per cent fee 'roughly covers our costs', whereas Steve Jobs justified his premium on the grounds that the App store was bringing publishers more new customers.

This is another extension of Google's tradition of offering innovations for free (or nearly free), while Apple always likes to charge.

Either way, publishers are likely to back both horses in this race, at the very least in the hope that competition might make the marketplace more efficient.

Popular Science magazine was the first publication to sign up for the App Store, and announced it would be available through One Pass for the same price.

This one could run and run.