Frequent iPad Weekly readers will remember well back in July when reports surfaced that Apple was at an impasse with magazine publishers about how their publications were treated on the iPad. The magazines wanted to be able to utilize a subscription model via the iTunes store, as well as providing a year’s worth of free issues to subscribers of their print edition. Apple simply pointed to their stated policy of no subscriptions, perhaps wondering why the people at the magazines were in such a huff about a clearly stated company policy.

Fortune Tech reports that the two parties have finally come to an agreement. Time Inc. magazines like People, Time, Sports Illustrated, and Fortune will now be able to offer free digital editions for their print subscribers within the next 30 days.

What a great day for the spirit of compromise! It’s so great to see multinational corporations with such intelligent people coming together to… but wait, what is this? According to Philip Elmer-Dewitt of Fortune, “The publishers still can’t sell subscriptions through the App Store, which is how they would prefer to do it.”

If Apple hasn’t bent on their subscription policy, how exactly did they “make it possible” for magazine subscriptions on the iPad, in Dewitt’s words?

After downloading their free new app from iTunes, it becomes apparent. People decided to heed our call to simply replicate the magazine ecosystem set up by the far more prescient Zinio Magazine Newsstand & Reader. Instead of releasing each new issue as an app, Time Inc. realized they could just release the app once, and then charge for each individual issue within the app. Or, as was the company’s preference, allow existed subscribers to log in and get it for free.

With plans to roll out similar apps later this month for Time, Sports Illustrated, and Fortune, it seems clear that the company still doesn’t quite get it. The most customer-friendly approach would be simply to release a Time Inc. app that allowed people to purchase or subscribe to their magazines all in one place, much like Zinio does. Whoever is making the decisions over there seems to be stuck on their presence in iTunes, however, so that may take some time.

Figuring out new platforms is always a touch and go process, but in Time’s case, the company seems to want to make it more difficult than it needs to be.