Apple's App Store terms now include commitment subscriptions

The change

The Apple Media Services Terms and Conditions are the contract behind the App Store, Apple Music, Apple TV, Apple Arcade, Apple Books, Apple Podcasts, and Apple's other media services. On September 14, 2026, Apple published a new US version, replacing the one dated September 15, 2025. Venpo flagged the update on September 15, and the redline is on the public change page.

Most of the document is unchanged. The new lines cover how some subscriptions are paid, what you may do with Apple's content, and how trials combine with bundles.

What changed

• Commitment subscriptions. A new paragraph says: "Certain Subscriptions may require your commitment to a specified number of billing periods." It adds that these subscriptions "do not include any financing charges or credit costs" and that "you may not pay charges before they become due."

• Refunds for them. A new sentence in the payments section limits refunds for these subscriptions to "the period of access already paid for but not yet provided," and says "no refund is due in respect of any future monthly periods for which payment has not yet been collected."

• AI training ban. The existing ban on scraping now continues: "Additionally, you may not use the Services, Content, or any outputs from the Services or Content, to train, fine-tune, or improve any artificial intelligence model or other software."

• Trials and bundles. The old rule said free trials or free offers, "excluding iCloud," could not be combined with offers "of Apple One." The new rule drops the word "free" and the iCloud exception, and covers "any bundle including Apple Subscriptions (an 'Apple Bundle'), such as Apple One." A trial you start before joining a bundle keeps running and may expire while you are bundled, without reimbursement.

• Added services. Apple "may add a service to, or may add and/or expand features and functionalities of, an Apple Subscription at any time," and if you do not want them, "you may cancel your subscription in your account settings at any time without additional charge."

• Season Pass downloads. The sentence "Season Pass or Multi-Pass Content is available for download up to ninety (90) days after the last episode becomes available" was removed, and no replacement window was added.

What commitment subscriptions are

On April 27, 2026, Apple announced a new option for App Store developers: monthly subscriptions with a 12-month commitment. You pay month by month but commit to a full year of payments, and Apple says the rate "might be more affordable than the subscription cost without a commitment." Apple's support page explains that "canceling before your commitment ends doesn't end your payment commitment," so you keep paying and keep access until the year is complete.

At the time of publication, the same support page says these subscriptions "aren't available in the United States or Singapore." The US terms now include the language that governs them, but they do not say when or whether the option will reach US customers.

What stays the same

The rest of the subscription rules are unchanged. Subscriptions still renew automatically until cancelled, you are still charged no more than 24 hours before a new period starts, and Apple still says it will notify you of a price increase and ask for consent where required. The terms also still say that changes to the agreement take effect immediately and that continued use of the services counts as acceptance.

Why this matters

A monthly price that comes with a year of payments is a different purchase from a monthly plan you can stop at any time, even when both show up as a monthly charge. The new terms put that kind of subscription into the contract that US users already agree to, along with a refund rule that only covers access already paid for.

The AI clause points the other way: it limits what others may do with Apple's content, including App Store listings, podcasts, and music, rather than what Apple does with yours. A few days earlier, Apple added an exception to its promise not to train AI on user data, and on the same day it changed these terms, it gave itself the right to delete iCloud data over your storage limit. Updates like these land together and are easy to miss, which is why vendor contract monitoring matters even for services everyone uses.

Potential impact

For anyone who buys apps and subscriptions through Apple, and for teams that build software, the update raises four practical questions:

• When an app shows a cheaper monthly price, do you check whether it comes with a commitment?

• Are you in a free trial that would keep running out if you switched to Apple One or another Apple bundle?

• If your company builds AI tools, does any data pipeline use App Store listings, podcasts, or other Apple content?

• Do you rely on downloading Season Pass episodes long after a season ends?

Rules like these change without a banner in the app, which is why monitoring terms of service is part of keeping track of the tools and services you pay for.

How Venpo detected it

Venpo monitors Apple's legal pages as part of continuous vendor risk monitoring. On September 15, the day after the update, it flagged the new Media Services terms and marked each added and removed line, from the commitment subscriptions to the deleted Season Pass sentence. The redline is on the Apple change page, and every monitored Apple document is listed on the Apple vendor profile.

Business outcome

Anyone tracking Apple knew the day after the update that commitment subscriptions were now part of the US terms, with narrower refunds, and that AI training on Apple's content was expressly banned. That leaves time to review subscriptions and check data pipelines before either becomes a problem. The alternative is finding the new rules only after they apply to a purchase.

Key takeaway

Apple's US media terms now cover subscriptions you commit to for a set number of payments, ban AI training on Apple's content, and stop trials from stacking with any Apple bundle. When a single contract governs the App Store, Apple Music, and Apple TV at once, automated monitoring is the practical way to see each line that changes.