3 ms·

I think Gruber is ignoring the competitive disadvantage Apple is putting themselves in by shutting out the "middle man" apps. Kindle, Spotify and Netflix are d

I think Gruber is ignoring the competitive disadvantage Apple is putting themselves in by shutting out the "middle man" apps. Kindle, Spotify and Netflix are deeply entrenched, best-of-breed services - consumers have deep investment with their Kindle devices, Netflix accounts, etc. These are not minor points. People will give up their Kindles and use iBooks the day they uninstall iTunes and start using a Zune. So Android, which is already very feature competitive and may have a bigger install base, could have no competitor in distributing a range of very popular, rapidly growing services. Vic Gundotra must be grinning ear to ear.

alanh 16y ago
No, Gruber has stated that he does not believe Apple is ignorant of the consequences of taking 30% of Kindle sales or Netflix subscriptions via iOS — after all, Apple built Netflix support directly into AppleTV. He believes the company has probably been in talks with Amazon, Netflix, and similar companies for some time.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  There's a lesson here. Build your brand inside of iOS and you're screwed. Apple can choke you. Build it outside of iOS and you have a chance to have reasonable terms. As nice as iOS is, w/o middlemen, established outside of iOS, like Kindle and Netflix -- it probably gets killed by Android.
  - shaggyfrog 16y ago
    That lesson is not limited to "iOS" and "Apple". If you place the financial future of your company solely to $PLATFORM, then $PLATFORM_OWNER will always present a risk. That's why the smart companies also get their services running on $PLATFORM_B, $PLATFORM_C and $PLATFORM_D.