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Apple did the same thing to Kindle for iPhone back when it launched. We submitted the original version to Apple with a fully functioning store built into it—an
by nevir 8y ago
Apple did the same thing to Kindle for iPhone back when it launched.
We submitted the original version to Apple with a fully functioning store built into it—and were then stuck in submission limbo. Two weeks later, Apple announces their intent to build in-app purchasing.
The kicker: Apple wanted a 30% cut of every book sold on the store …and at the same time, had negotiated with book publishers that the publishers MUST sell all books at a 30% margin on ALL stores if they want to sell their books via Apple's own ebook store.
Aka we couldn't sell books at an increased cost, even if we wanted to. We would have had to take a loss on every purchase.
In the end, we had to remove all of the store functionality from the app, and weren't even allowed to link people directly to the web store for purchasing (or even instructions for purchasing).
- elagost 8y agoMy dad has had iPads since the first one, and it is still jarring for him to not be able to just click a "store" button in the Kindle app. (I believe it used to have a webview for the store built-in; I do not use the Kindle app) He was very confused when it disappeared. I imagine most users feel this way. I had to coach my mom to sign up for Pandora on the website so she saved a couple bucks a month, and it was baffling to her why it costed more in the app.
- nevir 8y agoYeah, it was supremely frustrating for us. The original store experience was fully native, and still a far better experience than what the app has today :(
- giovannibajo1 8y agoAgreed. I am very aware of Apple policies on this regard and anything discussed in this thread, but still two weeks ago I wandered around in the Amazon app looking for 10 minutes on how to buy a book in Kindle version... then I realized I had to switch to Safari for that. This is confusing for users.
- sinnoh 8y agoboy, that kind of "deep regulation" into UX design from a single arbitrary company should be illegal regardless. people bought apple hardware and the operating system, not voted them the unilateral governing body on consumer choice in that platform. one should not be taken to imply the other.
- ehaliewicz2 8y agoI've never actually owned one, but did the iphone ever allow users to install arbitrary apps (without jailbreaking, of course)?
- skohan 8y agoNo it did not.
- skohan 8y agoIMO this is a problem with the shareholder-driven corporate structure. Corporations have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize value to their shareholders, and they have to show continual growth in order to see share prices continue to increase, which often leads to ant-consumer practices once organic growth becomes difficult. Apple's a perfect example of this: they have a long history of making high-quality hardware products loved by consumers at an immense scale with high margins. In a more rational world, that would be "enough", and even if their revenue fluctuated somewhat from year to year, they could still easily support their activities and pay out generous dividends while focusing only on their core competency. Instead we live in a world where a small drop in demand for a single product based on extrinsic market forces leads to a slew of articles heralding an "end of Apple". So they prioritize service revenue, and continue to squeeze more and more value out of every revenue stream which flows through their products. It's insane that this is seen as necessary for a company which basically prints money, and sits inside a massive moat of wealth greater than the GDP of many nations.
- zymhan 8y agoI miss this feature from Pandora. It used to let you buy an album on iTunes or Amazon, but they eventually removed that feature.
- gremlinsinc 8y agoCould they put: Apple Users: Upgrade. Then on the payment page: - Spotify fee: $9.99. - Apple's cut: $3.33. (When purchased through the app, save online). - Total: $13.32 > [Purchase Button]
- zerocrates 8y agoProbably would be deemed to violate the Guidline that "You must not directly or indirectly target iOS users to use a purchasing method other than in-app purchase, and your general communications about other purchasing methods must not discourage use of in-app purchase."
- gremlinsinc 8y agoThis is why I'll never 'purposefully' own an apple product. I made a client buy me an iphone to test out their ios builds from (I'm the api/backend dev), I'll probably someday do react native stuff/cross platform and might cringefully get a cheap old mac just to build the ios app, but I'll do it begrudging the whole way to the app store..lol
- throwaway198389 8y agoYour post makes the case for itself, 30% of $13.32 is not $3.33. As Spotify raised their price to counter the apple fee, the also had to give 30% of that raise. To get $9.99 (for the first year at the 30% rate) it'd be Spotify fee: $9.99 Apple fee: $4.28 Total: $14.27 When they were charging $12.99 on iOS Spotify was only taking home $9.09 and Apple getting $3.87. Really goes to show the insanity. Apple probably made more from a Spotify user than an Apple music user. (Of course, they're happy to have an Apple music user for the increased lock in.) (But as others point out, Spotify showing this almost certainly wouldn't be permitted by Apple).
- nevir 8y agoAlso: there were multiple ebook readers on the store at the time that were already selling books in-app. Several stopped development, others removed their in-app store. I suspect we (Kindle) we're either the trigger for the in-app purchasing store, or really accelerated plans around it.
- RandallBrown 8y agoThe Kindle iPhone app still doesn't even link you to the website so you can buy books does it? It only looks like I can add it to a "list" that I assume I can view in the browser and then purchase.
- tokyodude 8y agoApps are not allowed to link the website for purchasing. That's one of Apple's rules. https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#in-app-purchase https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#in-... > Apps and their metadata may not include buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms other than in-app purchase.
- CraneWorm 8y agoNow I have this wild supposition that every time I see an <add it to your wish list!> button it is so that Apple won't fall on you like a ton of bricks for suggesting I can buy things outside their store.
- username3 8y agoApple doesn’t always get 30%. You can buy iTunes gift cards 20% off. Amazon can take 90% by selling iTunes gift cards used to buy through App Store.
- debt 8y agoI don't get this. Can you elaborate? So you're saying because I bought an iTunes gift card that was $100 for $80, Apple will only ever get $10 of my actual dollars if I spend all $100? This is an interesting hack.
- Splendor 8y agoI'll feel sorry for Kindle when their devices support EPUB files.
- g2e 8y agohttps://calibre-ebook.com/ https://calibre-ebook.com/
- CraneWorm 8y ago> Kindle for iPhone You put a walled garden... in another walled garden. On a more serious note: I get it; among Apple users are the most happily paying people that you can find on this planet and if you have a product you want to make it available to them. No wonder they think it their right to take a massive 30% cut.
- dysfunction 8y agoAt least the Kindle and Kindle app can read books from other sources, they don't force you to buy from Amazon.
- d35007 8y agoCan you clarify what you mean by "At least"? It looks like you might be implying that Apple's Books app forces you to buy books from Apple book store.
- caf 8y agoOr in other words: Apple users are the product that Apple sells to publishers, for 30%?
- Dylan16807 8y agoAn important thing is that the Kindle walled garden is an abstract free program that can be installed into most devices. It doesn't try to push the customer around. There are very different types of garden out there.
- scarface74 8y agoAmazon very much tries to push publishers around. How is what Amazon does to publishers any different than Apple?
- Dylan16807 8y agoPublishers being bullied by Amazon can go somewhere else and reach the same consumers, for the most part. It's intertwined with how much the consumers are being bullied. In the case of e-ink kindles it's sort of the same problem, but the kindle app is available on many platforms so it reduces the harm by a lot.
- jarjoura 8y agoIt wasn't just Kindle. There were dozens of really high quality book reading apps that either sold old or hard to find books, comics, or even mangas. All of them evaporated over night once Apple forced the 30% cut. I'm still very bitter about that move. Apple even went as far as making some Steve Jobsian rule that you had to sell your book for the same price on the web as you did in-app. So you couldn't make up for the 30% cut. That was a pure bad-faith move and Apple only recently rescinded that requirement.
- vsl 8y agoFor others reading this comment: “recently” as in “several years ago”, i.e. not do recently, that rule was rather short-lived.
- baby 8y agoI wasted so much time trying to figure out how to get books in the iOS kindle app. When I finally figured out that I had to use my laptop, I was still confused at so why the iOS app was not saying anything about anything.
- gnicholas 8y agoTechnically you can use your iPad/iPhone, but you have to use a web browser instead of the Kindle app. A funny thing happens when you do — the website redirects you to the Amazon app, which then redirects you back to the website. Honestly, I don't know how Amazon does purchasing through the Amazon app without giving 30% to Apple, but it seems that they don't let you purchase books this way.
- nevir 8y agoThe 30% fee only applies to digital goods, not physical ones. It's part of why there's all the awkward hoops that the main amazon app goes through when you run into digital goods, but everything else is mostly sane
- yellowapple 8y agoIf that's the case, could Spotify work around this by mailing something to the customer every month (like a "Certificate of Subscription")? That way it'd technically be a physical good.
- gnicholas 8y agoI imagine that would be insufficient to transform the purchase into that of a physical good. Might have a chance if it were a physical widget (USB key?) that you plug into your computer or phone to validate your subscription. Even that is walking the line, since you're arguably still buying a digital good, albeit one that is activated/confirmed via a hardware key.
- 8y ago
- gnicholas 8y agoEven crazier, Apple in some cases forces apps that use webviews to block out links to the Kindle Store that would normally appear. My iOS app [1] has speed reading and accessibility features that we overlay on websites, including the Kindle Cloud Reader. Apple wouldn't approve our app until we blocked the Kindle Store button from loading on the Kindle Cloud Reader website. It never occurred to me that Apple would try to exercise control over how third-party websites are rendered inside webviews, but it turns out they do. 1: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/beeline-reader/id938026867?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/beeline-reader/id938026867?m...
- mthoms 8y ago> It never occurred to me that Apple would try to exercise control over how third-party websites are rendered inside webviews, but it turns out they do Wow. I'm not sure why this isn't all over the tech press. Apple forcing developers to modify third party websites is way, way over the line of what I would call ethical. I'm generally an Apple fan, but this is nothing more than unrestrained corporate greed. Disgusting.
- gnicholas 8y agoYeah I generally try not to make waves that could cause us issues for App Store review, for obvious reasons. And I didn't really mind taking out the button since it wouldn't have generated revenue for us (we don't have an Amazon affiliate account). It just struck me as weird that Apple was trying to edit the web, so to speak.
- NyxWulf 8y agoI've used the Kindle app ever since it launched, and have followed this fiasco. The trouble for someone like me is I would rather purchase my content from Amazon since I can read it on any device, not just an apple device. p.s. Do you know how I would go about recommending someone add the ability to have green or amber text on the black background?
- nevir 8y ago> p.s. Do you know how I would go about recommending someone add the ability to have green or amber text on the black background? If you're on Android: 1. go to Settings -> Info -> About 2. Draw a lowercase h on the screen (anywhere), and you'll see a "special color mode enabled", and should get amber on black. another letter gives you green on black, but I forget which :( . There's a bunch of hidden color combinations there :) I'm not sure that exists on iOS, though --- For requesting it: help & feedback -> contact us -> give feedback is your best bet. I'm out of touch w/ the Kindle team, but at least several years ago many of the devs would obsessively read customer feedback (that wasn't deemed sensitive/PII)
- bmsleight_ 8y agoWow - could not find any other details about this (my google skills are poor?) Great tip. Any idea some where to to find the other hidden combinations ?
- gnicholas 8y ago
- streblo 8y agoWhich is especially unfortunate, since most Kindle users want this feature and (probably) frequently request it, not knowing that Amazon's hand is forced.
- scarface74 8y agoAmazon played the victim here but book publishers preferred Apple’s model to Amazon selling their books at a loss to keep competitors out and to boost sales of the Kindle.
- baby 8y agoAs a user this is infuriating, I remember spending a good chunk of time trying to figure out how to get book on the Kindle app :/
- therealdrag0 8y agoSame with Audible. I was sitting in an airport, after finishing my last book, spending so much time trying to figure out how to buy a book through the app on my phone. Was so confused.