Mobile News: Apple Data Centers; Readability; ShopSavvy/Groupon

—Apple: At the company’s shareholder meeting today, Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) said that it is getting ready to open a new data center in North Carolina this spring. The facility will be 500,000 square feet, nearly five times as big as Apple’s sole existing data center in New Jersey, and there are reports that size could be doubled. The data center will be used to for Apple’s iTunes and MobileMe products—and that fact is now fuelling speculation that Apple might be preparing for long-anticipated (but never confirmed) cloud-based services for these products, creating options for streamed content (from iTunes) and a digital locker service (from MobileMe). (via AppleInsider)

—Readability: More on the reading app that got rejected from Apple’s app store, prompting a cross open letter from the founder complaining about Apple’s in-app payment terms. Readability has now re-submitted the app to Apple with an “appeal/explanation”, according to a tweet from the company. Techcrunch points out that Readability hopes it can persuade Apple that it is does not sell content, but rather software-as-a-service. This is key because Steve Jobs reportedly penned a letter of his own, in response to a query from a developer, implying that SaaS would be exempt from IAP: “We created subscriptions for publishing apps, not SaaS apps.” (via Twitter, MacRumors)

—ShopSavvy: Another shopping app is using Groupon APIs to add deals to its location-based service. ShopSavvy, which lets users scan in barcodes for products and then comparison shop for the same product from nearby or online retailers, has now incorporated a deals tab into the app, which also provides local information on discounts and offers via Groupon. Over time, ShopSavvy, which has 10 million users, says the deals will change based on a user’s own buying / scanning information. Shopping apps incorporating local deals seem to be the flavor of the month: a loyalty card aggregating app, CardStar, also integrated Groupon into its service a couple of weeks ago.

Readability Adding Its Voice To The Apple Subscription Outcry

One more app publisher is adding its voice to those decidedly against Apple’s new subscription rules for App Store apps: Readability—which creates apps and web services that let users have pared-down, text-based versions of online articles to make reading them easier—has written an open letter to Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) today, attacking the company for a “new policy [that] smacks of greed.”

The letter, written by Readability’s founder Rich Ziade, says that his iPhone and iPad apps are based on a 30/70 split with original content publishers, the same revenue split that Apple would be applying to transactions now made mandatory through its in-app purchasing system. Like other publishers before him, he says such a split would make the business model impracticable.

“If we implemented In App purchasing, your 30 percent cut drastically undermines a key premise of how Readability works,” notes Ziade in the letter.

The rejection of the Readability app is particularly ironic, since last year Apple incorporated the company’s technology into its own Safari Reader button, which appears alongside URLs in the latest version of the web browser and gives users the option to view the page in a pared-down, ad-free format.

Readability only started to introduce its subscription at thebeginning of February: $5 per month, $3.50 of which would go to the original content publishers. It announced its iPad and iPhone apps at the same time that it had launched subscriptions; those apps link up with what a user is reading online.

And that online activity is where Readability will focus its energies in the near term. While Readability’s iOS apps may have been put on ice for now, Ziade says the company will now focus its mobile efforts on developing its services for the mobile web:

“Since we re-launched [with subscriptions] we’ve already seen a significant amount of usage across a wide range of browsers, operating systems and devices via the Readability web interface – for both mobile and desktop,” he writes. “Looking ahead, we plan to redouble our efforts to deliver the best possible reading app using the latest best-of-breed web technology.”

We have contacted Zaide to ask if he has heard any more from Apple since the rejection last Friday, and publishing the letter today; how many subscribers the company currently has; and whether the company has plans to publish apps for other app stores, such as Android (which also has imposed a subscription service, but at what appears to be a more favorable rate for publishers, of 10 percent.) We will update as we hear more.