Been beating this drum for years – Apple is to closed minded about working with anyone if the choose not to go the normal way.
Personally think this is why they can’t build a base in emerging markets – they basically want a credit card based relationship and many users in emerging markets don’t have a card.
They were also way slow to carrier billing and still make non official alternative options too hard.
I hate using Android but Google is slightly easier to deal with in this regard.
Daring Fireball: On Netflix Pulling Out of iTunes Billing for New Users
Dreampipe's Blog 