7 ms·

Amazon removes link to Kindle store from iOS app

45 points by quux 15y ago

blipper 15y ago
That blows.
Yhippa 15y ago
On one hand I suppose nobody should get a free ride. Apple put a lot of hard work into building such cohesive and user-friendly ecosystem. If they have their own bookstore they're trying to run why should they enable a competitor's in their own home? On the other hand this stinks for consumers. Slightly. They can still go to the website on their own but Apple made it a bit more inconvenient. If you're already a Kindle or Kobo user this shouldn't be a stretch but if you're a startup you've probably alienated your early adopters.
- neuroelectronic 15y ago
  | If they have their own bookstore they're trying to run why should they enable a competitor's in their own home? If Microsoft spent so much on R&D for Windows 95 and IE, why shouldn't they build it into the OS? Why shouldn't they lock down their APIs to make it difficult to make competing products inside their OS? Really?
  - fpgeek 15y ago
    Forget IE, Microsoft put a lot of effort into Windows Media, Zune, ... Why should they make it easy for Apple to sell music on Windows?
    - neuroelectronic 15y ago
      Interesting approach, but the problem here is Apple doesn't sell books on iPhone (or rather 3rd parties do and they don't do a very good job of it). This is more like a retroactive, me-to I want that market move. The Kindle app product is far superior for reading as I understand. If you're going to release a platform, you shouldn't be doing this kind of stuff. It's a similar situation as net-neutrality.
  - pedalpete 15y ago
    I think your argument is flawed (though I also think you are making two somewhat related, yet different points). It isn't about building it into the OS, it's about allowing competitors to provide a service to 'your' users. Microsoft didn't prevent any browsers from being installed on Windows, they didn't require any special processes or try to prevent any competitors from offering competitive or superior services. Microsoft just figured if the baked in stuff was good enough, most people wouldn't bother to change, and they were right. I could would agree with Apple taking a cut of in-app purchases where billing is completed through Apple's infrastructure, but forcing application builders (your community builders) to hamstring their products or pay you a cut is anti-competitive in a sense that I think is worse than anything Microsoft has done. Microsoft helped foster innovation, and then stole it and made it difficult to compete, but you could compete. Apple is just hamstringing the competition so that they can't compete.
- fpgeek 15y ago
  Free ride? That's ridiculous. Developers and partners make or break a platform. How many iPads did Apple sell because of the Kindle app? While there aren't hard numbers, plenty of bloggers talked about deciding between getting an iPad or a Kindle. Based on ebook sales figures, we also know that iBooks is probably third on their own platform, which is another significant clue about what ebook readers would have chosen. Apple is making a big mistake here and given that these changes have been in the works (and protested) for months, it is not one they're likely to fix quickly, if ever.
  - NinaSeer 15y ago
    I totally agree with you. I haven't followed this story until my buy button disappeared in Kindle. I think most app users won't realize until they go to buy a book. I'm surprised there isn't more outrage. Apple deliberately reduced the functionality of an astounding number (has to be millions) of their own customers and we've barely complained...? (btw, Apple did not respond to my online complaint.). Now any android or blackberry user has a more functional reader experience than I do on my $900 iPad? Seriously? Maybe the typical eBook reader hasn't realized what happened. It's the only explanation for the lack of public ire.
- ristretto 15y ago
  My take: The kindle store is amazing for the books it contains and the community that helps you pick books. This "link removal" won't hurt amazon the least bit. I love reading books on the ipad, but if apple decides to get rid of them (doubtful, it would cause user outrage), i 'd follow amazon .
Aloisius 15y ago
I'm waiting for Apple to require all things bought through Macs to use Apple's payment system. I mean right now, millions of dollars of products are being purchased on websites being viewed on Macs. Clearly Apple should get 30%. I'm sure it'll be huge. (and screw Karma with this one... Apple appears just greedy and downright anti-competitive doing this)
- ristretto 15y ago
  I 've heard toyota plans to take a 30% cut off petrol stations, too.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- Perceval 15y ago
  Please don't include passive grubbing for upvotes as a coda to your comments. If you have something to say, even if it's controversial, have the courage to say it plainly without projecting anxiety about karma (of all things). It's insulting by implication to the community here that expressing a contrary but constructive and well-written opinion would become a crisis for your karma. For the most part, other readers can differentiate between constructive comments they disagree with and spammers, griefers, trolls, crapflooders, and trivial one-liners.
  - martythemaniak 15y ago
    A contrary but constructive and well-written opinion isn't a crisis for your karma. But you better get ready to spend some of it if you bad mouth Apple...
    - Perceval 15y ago
      Certainly not. All of the top-rated comments in this thread express a negative opinion of Apple's policies.
    - leviathant 15y ago
dchest 15y ago
Don't forget to read customer reviews. Depressing.
- bradshaw1965 15y ago
  That's my biggest beef about the whole thing. I guess you could argue it is Apple's prerogative to change rules, but Kobo and Amazon can't even communicate why things are changing to their customers. It really points out how much the App store is sharecropping. Making apps is not a viable business when so much about developing a business is the customer relationship.
  - hboon 15y ago
    It looks like a popular sentiment that developing apps for the App store is sharecropping. This pops up every time there is a negative wave of news about the App store. Consider Amazon's Kindle app. I buy books from Amazon and read them on my iPhone and iPad. I don't own a Kindle nor other dedicated e-readers. When I get a Kindle, I'll be able to read my Amazon ebooks on it. I'll be happy. And I can continue to read my books on my iOS devices. I can continue to purchase Kindle books through the website which I always did. I am and will remain a happy customer (except I found out last week that their iPhone app truncates text depending on my font setting). How is this sharecropping?
    - bradshaw1965 15y ago
      The part I consider sharecropping is the lack of communication with your customer. In Amazon's case they've been able to build a very strong brand with lot's of global mindshare, but they had to rely on a webpage in a Kindle blog to explain the changes in the iOS app. They couldn't even put a link in the release notes to explain the loss of a popular feature. In this case, it's sharecropping because you drop your high value branded crop in the Apple cotton gin and Apple decides what commodity that suites their needs comes out the other side.
- buro9 15y ago
  I can't see them... but then, I don't have iTunes on any of the computers I own (not even on the Mac). Are they within iTunes and the iStore? Or is there a web link I'm failing to spot that will let me read them? Alternatively, could you cut and paste a couple of examples here so we could see what's being said?
dean 15y ago
It makes me very happy to see someone stand up to Apple. I hope some of the other big publishers follow Amazon. Jeff Bezos is my new hero.
- bradshaw1965 15y ago
  There is no stand. Apple required it. Same thing happened to Kobo.
  - dean 15y ago
    I realize Apple required it. But Amazon still had a choice. They could have complied with Apple's rules and paid 30% of their revenue to Apple for ebooks sold from within the app. And passed the price increase on to consumers. I view it as standing up to Apple that Amazon did not do this. I think this will be better, if a little inconvenient, for consumers in the long run because it will ultimately keep ebook prices lower.
    - recoiledsnake 15y ago
      The real standing up would be if Amazon had refused to remove the link and let Apple reject and/or pull the Kindle app. Then the ire of people unable to read their Kindle books would be directed at Apple. This action by Amazon seems to be capitulation since there was no way that the in app purchasing system would support so many hundred thousands of books anyway.
      - MatthewPhillips 15y ago
        Agreed. Instead the ire will be directed at Amazon as users will be confused on how to buy books. I guess they figured it was a better move than allow the app to be pulled (implementing IAP was probably economically untenable).
      - dean 15y ago
        That's a fair point. It would have been nice to see something like that.
msh 15y ago
Depressing. This stuff makes me want to get a different tablet. The problems is that IMHO no other tablet is currently competitive with the ipad 2 I own. At least I am in the market for a phone, it will properly be a android phone this time...
- PetrolMan 15y ago
  Not in the vein of the topic but I figured I'd throw in my two cents: I just bought the Asus Eee Pad Transformer and I'm really incredibly happy. I haven't used an iPad extensively but from a basic standpoint of having a useful tablet device I think I made a good decision. I'd say the only major difference is in app universe but to be honest I think the form factor reduces the need for apps. Just some thoughts.
smackfu 15y ago
The sad thing is that Apple is the kind of company that is deciding to be evil, rather than just doing it accidentally. I'm sure they calculated that they would make more money by enforcing these harmful rules than the good will they would lose, so they did it anyway.
- paperpunk 15y ago
  I don't really think so. Whether they're right or not, the people making these decisions at Apple aren't doing them to make more money (or at least, not just that), but because they believe it's better for users. In this particular case, that to encourage people as far as possible to use the in-app purchases system is more favourable to the users. It seems much more likely than "deciding to be evil".
  - tybris 15y ago
    I can envision the board meeting now: "It's so much better for our users if we take 30% of the earnings on every sale". No.
  - fpgeek 15y ago
    Breaking the user experience for competitive apps and not even allowing them to explain why goes far beyond encouraging people to use in-app purchase. For that matter, using in-app purchase is only favorable to users who stay entirely within the Apple ecosystem. One serious objection Amazon et al had to in-app purchase is that it (by design for privacy reasons, IIRC) didn't allow them to connect the dots between an iTunes account and an Amazon account, so they wouldn't have been able to give you access to your iOS-purchased ebooks on non-Apple devices. For that matter, they wouldn't have been able to give you access to your ebooks on a Mac for the same reason, which is particularly hilarious because Apple doesn't provide iBooks for Mac either (IIRC, you can buy but not read on the desktop).
  - kbutler 15y ago
    > the people making these decisions at Apple aren't doing them to make more money (or at least, not just that), but because they believe it's better for users. "Our philosophy is simple—when Apple brings a new subscriber to the app, Apple earns a 30 percent share; when the publisher brings an existing or new subscriber to the app, the publisher keeps 100 percent and Apple earns nothing," -- Steve Jobs When Steve thinks something is better for the users, he says so (e.g., not supporting flash). Steve said this is about money. I believe him.
AzAngel 15y ago
Amazon is not the only one. So have WSJ and Kobo. Here is the Ars article: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/07/with-pressure-from-apple-reading-apps-begin-ditching-outside-store-links.ars http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/07/with-pressure-from... Edit: wrote "and Kindle" instead of "and Kobo"
Hyena 15y ago
Just to play devil's advocate: Apple pays for the infrastructure to host and distribute the Kindle app, which then proceeds to circumvent the payment system by offering the app for free and charging for the content from outside the Apple store. While this set up is clever and 30% is a bit of a margin on in-app purchases, it's not as if Amazon has the moral high ground here. It's providing a paid service through Apple in a way that allows Amazon to collect on it but not Apple. That's all that's happening here.
- matwood 15y ago
  Amazon pays Apple $100/year to host the Kindle app, and only the app. All of the books that someone may buy sit on Amazons servers that they host and distribute. Amazon also manages its own payment infrastructure and everything else that deals with getting a book into the Kindle app. Both companies benefit from having the Kindle app in the app store. Apple gets to brag about how many apps are for sale for iOS devices (thus sell more devices), and Amazon gets to sell books. We could always look at it from Amazons POV. They are providing the content that makes iOS devices more desirable for consumers. Why isn't Apple giving them a cut of each device sold?
  - Hyena 15y ago
    It will get hard for me to keep playing this game because, as I suggested, I disagree with Apple here. However, it's a fun exercise. Say that you go to a grocery store and reach an agreement: you'll be selling apples, you'll pay $100 in rent plus a 30% cut. When you actually begin working, you don't "sell" any apples there at all: you just show people how to order apples for delivery and giving them an apple bin for the truck to unload into. If the grocer argues that you're violating the spirit of the agreement, is he wrong? Would he be wrong to say that he'd been misled?
    - sprovoost 15y ago
      This is the heart of the problem: if I open a grocery, I pay the landlord a fixed rent, not a cut in my sales. That's because rent is generally seen as a commodity. Apple doesn't want to accept that their App Store infrastructure is a commodity (it's not cool to be a commodity), so they come up with this revenue sharing system. They see themselves as a publisher. That's nice if you're a small developer, because the alternative is paying a high fixed fee. So what would that fee be? There's 50.000 iOs developers [0] and the app store generates about a billion in revenue (off the top of my hat). That means we're paying Apple about $300 million. That means the fixed price should be $6.000 per year for Apple to earn the same amount (there's probably no sustainable fixed-price point). Obviously, if they did that, Android would become infinitely more attractive, since they could offer a much cheaper service (no expensive in-house review team). So here's the dilemma for Apple: 1 - continue with their publisher business model (percentage), maximize for profit at the cost of karma and long term risk of anti-trust lawsuits 2 - dramatically reduce cost (less or more efficient quality control), introduce a fixed fee that developers can still afford ($500?) or subsidize the whole operation more. 3 - keep the current system, but don't force developers to pay you. Sort of an honor system / convenience. That seems to work well for DRM free iTunes music. [0] http://bit.ly/pyNwCj http://bit.ly/pyNwCj
brianb722 15y ago
It's Apple's platform, they can do what they want with it. The market (including consumers, developers, and entrepreneurs) will decide whether their rules are good things or bad things. Long term, if Apple doesn't continue to foster development on its platform the developers will leave and then (eventually) the customers will follow.
- cageface 15y ago
  As long as Apple doesn't have a monopoly I agree with you. It should be left up to the consumer marketplace to punish or reward this behavior. Thanks to Android there are options.
highfreq 15y ago
Amazon should add an embedded safari, and allow the user to set a home page. Then I could just home page the online store, and have in-app-esqe purchasing.
easyfrag 15y ago
I don't think I've ever read an explanation of why Apple requires this. Is it the 30%? or is it a user experience thing? has Apple written up why this policy exists?
sprovoost 15y ago
I'm curious to see how far they can and will push this. Apple is growing rapidly and for good reasons. This action is pure exploitation as far as I can tell, but they get away with it. Will this slow their growth? I doubt it. Will EU anti-trust step in? Probably not, because Apple's market share is tiny. So they'll make a few hundred million bucks with this. Ten times more and they will face anti-trust issues. If I was CEO, I wouldn't consider a few percent extra revenue worth the karma damage. But greed can blind even the smartest people. Anyway, I strongly believe different layers of "the stack" should not interfere with other layers and that companies should accept that they deliver commodities. Telco's should charge by the gigabyte and bandwidth, Apple should charge for their hardware, software and whatever it costs to maintain App Store infrastructure. Otherwise, what's next? Should Amazon pay AT&T 40% of their internet revenue or risk getting blocked?
erikpukinskis 15y ago
This puts the Native vs. HTML5 debate in an interesting light. If Amazon releases a Kindle web app, Apple has no say.
- Terretta 15y ago
  And keep in mind, iOS was released with the capability and intent to run web apps. It supported, and still supports, installable web apps that can run online or off. Amazon can, as Google Voice did, make an installable HTML5 app that is free to browse and one-click buy books through Amazon's system. Curiously, Amazon has the "Amazon Shopping" app and the "Amazon Price Check" app, showing they don't mind a proliferation of Amazon branded apps for slightly different tasks. Reading and shopping are more different than product browsing w/ search and product price lookup w/ search, so why not have an Kindle Reader and a Kindle Shop app? There's no particular reason they couldn't offer a "Kindle Shop" HTML5 app, to have its icon right next to the Kindle Reader app. The book will get delivered to the reader anyway.

45 points by quux 15y ago

That blows.

On one hand I suppose nobody should get a free ride. Apple put a lot of hard work into building such cohesive and user-friendly ecosystem. If they have their own bookstore they're trying to run why should they enable a competitor's in their own home? On the other hand this stinks for consumers. Slightly. They can still go to the website on their own but Apple made it a bit more inconvenient. If you're already a Kindle or Kobo user this shouldn't be a stretch but if you're a startup you've probably alienated your early adopters.

neuroelectronic 15y ago
| If they have their own bookstore they're trying to run why should they enable a competitor's in their own home? If Microsoft spent so much on R&D for Windows 95 and IE, why shouldn't they build it into the OS? Why shouldn't they lock down their APIs to make it difficult to make competing products inside their OS? Really?
- fpgeek 15y ago
  Forget IE, Microsoft put a lot of effort into Windows Media, Zune, ... Why should they make it easy for Apple to sell music on Windows?
  - neuroelectronic 15y ago
    Interesting approach, but the problem here is Apple doesn't sell books on iPhone (or rather 3rd parties do and they don't do a very good job of it). This is more like a retroactive, me-to I want that market move. The Kindle app product is far superior for reading as I understand. If you're going to release a platform, you shouldn't be doing this kind of stuff. It's a similar situation as net-neutrality.
- pedalpete 15y ago
  I think your argument is flawed (though I also think you are making two somewhat related, yet different points). It isn't about building it into the OS, it's about allowing competitors to provide a service to 'your' users. Microsoft didn't prevent any browsers from being installed on Windows, they didn't require any special processes or try to prevent any competitors from offering competitive or superior services. Microsoft just figured if the baked in stuff was good enough, most people wouldn't bother to change, and they were right. I could would agree with Apple taking a cut of in-app purchases where billing is completed through Apple's infrastructure, but forcing application builders (your community builders) to hamstring their products or pay you a cut is anti-competitive in a sense that I think is worse than anything Microsoft has done. Microsoft helped foster innovation, and then stole it and made it difficult to compete, but you could compete. Apple is just hamstringing the competition so that they can't compete.
fpgeek 15y ago
Free ride? That's ridiculous. Developers and partners make or break a platform. How many iPads did Apple sell because of the Kindle app? While there aren't hard numbers, plenty of bloggers talked about deciding between getting an iPad or a Kindle. Based on ebook sales figures, we also know that iBooks is probably third on their own platform, which is another significant clue about what ebook readers would have chosen. Apple is making a big mistake here and given that these changes have been in the works (and protested) for months, it is not one they're likely to fix quickly, if ever.
- NinaSeer 15y ago
  I totally agree with you. I haven't followed this story until my buy button disappeared in Kindle. I think most app users won't realize until they go to buy a book. I'm surprised there isn't more outrage. Apple deliberately reduced the functionality of an astounding number (has to be millions) of their own customers and we've barely complained...? (btw, Apple did not respond to my online complaint.). Now any android or blackberry user has a more functional reader experience than I do on my $900 iPad? Seriously? Maybe the typical eBook reader hasn't realized what happened. It's the only explanation for the lack of public ire.
ristretto 15y ago
My take: The kindle store is amazing for the books it contains and the community that helps you pick books. This "link removal" won't hurt amazon the least bit. I love reading books on the ipad, but if apple decides to get rid of them (doubtful, it would cause user outrage), i 'd follow amazon .

Aloisius 15y ago

I'm waiting for Apple to require all things bought through Macs to use Apple's payment system. I mean right now, millions of dollars of products are being purchased on websites being viewed on Macs. Clearly Apple should get 30%. I'm sure it'll be huge. (and screw Karma with this one... Apple appears just greedy and downright anti-competitive doing this)

ristretto 15y ago
I 've heard toyota plans to take a 30% cut off petrol stations, too.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
Perceval 15y ago
Please don't include passive grubbing for upvotes as a coda to your comments. If you have something to say, even if it's controversial, have the courage to say it plainly without projecting anxiety about karma (of all things). It's insulting by implication to the community here that expressing a contrary but constructive and well-written opinion would become a crisis for your karma. For the most part, other readers can differentiate between constructive comments they disagree with and spammers, griefers, trolls, crapflooders, and trivial one-liners.
- martythemaniak 15y ago
  A contrary but constructive and well-written opinion isn't a crisis for your karma. But you better get ready to spend some of it if you bad mouth Apple...
  - Perceval 15y ago
    Certainly not. All of the top-rated comments in this thread express a negative opinion of Apple's policies.
  - leviathant 15y ago

dchest 15y ago

Don't forget to read customer reviews. Depressing.

bradshaw1965 15y ago
That's my biggest beef about the whole thing. I guess you could argue it is Apple's prerogative to change rules, but Kobo and Amazon can't even communicate why things are changing to their customers. It really points out how much the App store is sharecropping. Making apps is not a viable business when so much about developing a business is the customer relationship.
- hboon 15y ago
  It looks like a popular sentiment that developing apps for the App store is sharecropping. This pops up every time there is a negative wave of news about the App store. Consider Amazon's Kindle app. I buy books from Amazon and read them on my iPhone and iPad. I don't own a Kindle nor other dedicated e-readers. When I get a Kindle, I'll be able to read my Amazon ebooks on it. I'll be happy. And I can continue to read my books on my iOS devices. I can continue to purchase Kindle books through the website which I always did. I am and will remain a happy customer (except I found out last week that their iPhone app truncates text depending on my font setting). How is this sharecropping?
  - bradshaw1965 15y ago
    The part I consider sharecropping is the lack of communication with your customer. In Amazon's case they've been able to build a very strong brand with lot's of global mindshare, but they had to rely on a webpage in a Kindle blog to explain the changes in the iOS app. They couldn't even put a link in the release notes to explain the loss of a popular feature. In this case, it's sharecropping because you drop your high value branded crop in the Apple cotton gin and Apple decides what commodity that suites their needs comes out the other side.
buro9 15y ago
I can't see them... but then, I don't have iTunes on any of the computers I own (not even on the Mac). Are they within iTunes and the iStore? Or is there a web link I'm failing to spot that will let me read them? Alternatively, could you cut and paste a couple of examples here so we could see what's being said?

dean 15y ago

It makes me very happy to see someone stand up to Apple. I hope some of the other big publishers follow Amazon. Jeff Bezos is my new hero.

bradshaw1965 15y ago
There is no stand. Apple required it. Same thing happened to Kobo.
- dean 15y ago
  I realize Apple required it. But Amazon still had a choice. They could have complied with Apple's rules and paid 30% of their revenue to Apple for ebooks sold from within the app. And passed the price increase on to consumers. I view it as standing up to Apple that Amazon did not do this. I think this will be better, if a little inconvenient, for consumers in the long run because it will ultimately keep ebook prices lower.
  - recoiledsnake 15y ago
    The real standing up would be if Amazon had refused to remove the link and let Apple reject and/or pull the Kindle app. Then the ire of people unable to read their Kindle books would be directed at Apple. This action by Amazon seems to be capitulation since there was no way that the in app purchasing system would support so many hundred thousands of books anyway.
    - MatthewPhillips 15y ago
      Agreed. Instead the ire will be directed at Amazon as users will be confused on how to buy books. I guess they figured it was a better move than allow the app to be pulled (implementing IAP was probably economically untenable).
    - dean 15y ago
      That's a fair point. It would have been nice to see something like that.

msh 15y ago

Depressing. This stuff makes me want to get a different tablet. The problems is that IMHO no other tablet is currently competitive with the ipad 2 I own. At least I am in the market for a phone, it will properly be a android phone this time...

PetrolMan 15y ago
Not in the vein of the topic but I figured I'd throw in my two cents: I just bought the Asus Eee Pad Transformer and I'm really incredibly happy. I haven't used an iPad extensively but from a basic standpoint of having a useful tablet device I think I made a good decision. I'd say the only major difference is in app universe but to be honest I think the form factor reduces the need for apps. Just some thoughts.

smackfu 15y ago

The sad thing is that Apple is the kind of company that is deciding to be evil, rather than just doing it accidentally. I'm sure they calculated that they would make more money by enforcing these harmful rules than the good will they would lose, so they did it anyway.

paperpunk 15y ago
I don't really think so. Whether they're right or not, the people making these decisions at Apple aren't doing them to make more money (or at least, not just that), but because they believe it's better for users. In this particular case, that to encourage people as far as possible to use the in-app purchases system is more favourable to the users. It seems much more likely than "deciding to be evil".
- tybris 15y ago
  I can envision the board meeting now: "It's so much better for our users if we take 30% of the earnings on every sale". No.
- fpgeek 15y ago
  Breaking the user experience for competitive apps and not even allowing them to explain why goes far beyond encouraging people to use in-app purchase. For that matter, using in-app purchase is only favorable to users who stay entirely within the Apple ecosystem. One serious objection Amazon et al had to in-app purchase is that it (by design for privacy reasons, IIRC) didn't allow them to connect the dots between an iTunes account and an Amazon account, so they wouldn't have been able to give you access to your iOS-purchased ebooks on non-Apple devices. For that matter, they wouldn't have been able to give you access to your ebooks on a Mac for the same reason, which is particularly hilarious because Apple doesn't provide iBooks for Mac either (IIRC, you can buy but not read on the desktop).
- kbutler 15y ago
  > the people making these decisions at Apple aren't doing them to make more money (or at least, not just that), but because they believe it's better for users. "Our philosophy is simple—when Apple brings a new subscriber to the app, Apple earns a 30 percent share; when the publisher brings an existing or new subscriber to the app, the publisher keeps 100 percent and Apple earns nothing," -- Steve Jobs When Steve thinks something is better for the users, he says so (e.g., not supporting flash). Steve said this is about money. I believe him.

AzAngel 15y ago

Amazon is not the only one. So have WSJ and Kobo. Here is the Ars article: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/07/with-pressure-from-apple-reading-apps-begin-ditching-outside-store-links.ars http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/07/with-pressure-from... Edit: wrote "and Kindle" instead of "and Kobo"

Hyena 15y ago

Just to play devil's advocate: Apple pays for the infrastructure to host and distribute the Kindle app, which then proceeds to circumvent the payment system by offering the app for free and charging for the content from outside the Apple store. While this set up is clever and 30% is a bit of a margin on in-app purchases, it's not as if Amazon has the moral high ground here. It's providing a paid service through Apple in a way that allows Amazon to collect on it but not Apple. That's all that's happening here.

matwood 15y ago
Amazon pays Apple $100/year to host the Kindle app, and only the app. All of the books that someone may buy sit on Amazons servers that they host and distribute. Amazon also manages its own payment infrastructure and everything else that deals with getting a book into the Kindle app. Both companies benefit from having the Kindle app in the app store. Apple gets to brag about how many apps are for sale for iOS devices (thus sell more devices), and Amazon gets to sell books. We could always look at it from Amazons POV. They are providing the content that makes iOS devices more desirable for consumers. Why isn't Apple giving them a cut of each device sold?
- Hyena 15y ago
  It will get hard for me to keep playing this game because, as I suggested, I disagree with Apple here. However, it's a fun exercise. Say that you go to a grocery store and reach an agreement: you'll be selling apples, you'll pay $100 in rent plus a 30% cut. When you actually begin working, you don't "sell" any apples there at all: you just show people how to order apples for delivery and giving them an apple bin for the truck to unload into. If the grocer argues that you're violating the spirit of the agreement, is he wrong? Would he be wrong to say that he'd been misled?
  - sprovoost 15y ago
    This is the heart of the problem: if I open a grocery, I pay the landlord a fixed rent, not a cut in my sales. That's because rent is generally seen as a commodity. Apple doesn't want to accept that their App Store infrastructure is a commodity (it's not cool to be a commodity), so they come up with this revenue sharing system. They see themselves as a publisher. That's nice if you're a small developer, because the alternative is paying a high fixed fee. So what would that fee be? There's 50.000 iOs developers [0] and the app store generates about a billion in revenue (off the top of my hat). That means we're paying Apple about $300 million. That means the fixed price should be $6.000 per year for Apple to earn the same amount (there's probably no sustainable fixed-price point). Obviously, if they did that, Android would become infinitely more attractive, since they could offer a much cheaper service (no expensive in-house review team). So here's the dilemma for Apple: 1 - continue with their publisher business model (percentage), maximize for profit at the cost of karma and long term risk of anti-trust lawsuits 2 - dramatically reduce cost (less or more efficient quality control), introduce a fixed fee that developers can still afford ($500?) or subsidize the whole operation more. 3 - keep the current system, but don't force developers to pay you. Sort of an honor system / convenience. That seems to work well for DRM free iTunes music. [0] http://bit.ly/pyNwCj http://bit.ly/pyNwCj

brianb722 15y ago

It's Apple's platform, they can do what they want with it. The market (including consumers, developers, and entrepreneurs) will decide whether their rules are good things or bad things. Long term, if Apple doesn't continue to foster development on its platform the developers will leave and then (eventually) the customers will follow.

cageface 15y ago
As long as Apple doesn't have a monopoly I agree with you. It should be left up to the consumer marketplace to punish or reward this behavior. Thanks to Android there are options.

highfreq 15y ago

Amazon should add an embedded safari, and allow the user to set a home page. Then I could just home page the online store, and have in-app-esqe purchasing.

easyfrag 15y ago

I don't think I've ever read an explanation of why Apple requires this. Is it the 30%? or is it a user experience thing? has Apple written up why this policy exists?

sprovoost 15y ago

I'm curious to see how far they can and will push this. Apple is growing rapidly and for good reasons. This action is pure exploitation as far as I can tell, but they get away with it. Will this slow their growth? I doubt it. Will EU anti-trust step in? Probably not, because Apple's market share is tiny. So they'll make a few hundred million bucks with this. Ten times more and they will face anti-trust issues. If I was CEO, I wouldn't consider a few percent extra revenue worth the karma damage. But greed can blind even the smartest people. Anyway, I strongly believe different layers of "the stack" should not interfere with other layers and that companies should accept that they deliver commodities. Telco's should charge by the gigabyte and bandwidth, Apple should charge for their hardware, software and whatever it costs to maintain App Store infrastructure. Otherwise, what's next? Should Amazon pay AT&T 40% of their internet revenue or risk getting blocked?

erikpukinskis 15y ago

This puts the Native vs. HTML5 debate in an interesting light. If Amazon releases a Kindle web app, Apple has no say.

Terretta 15y ago
And keep in mind, iOS was released with the capability and intent to run web apps. It supported, and still supports, installable web apps that can run online or off. Amazon can, as Google Voice did, make an installable HTML5 app that is free to browse and one-click buy books through Amazon's system. Curiously, Amazon has the "Amazon Shopping" app and the "Amazon Price Check" app, showing they don't mind a proliferation of Amazon branded apps for slightly different tasks. Reading and shopping are more different than product browsing w/ search and product price lookup w/ search, so why not have an Kindle Reader and a Kindle Shop app? There's no particular reason they couldn't offer a "Kindle Shop" HTML5 app, to have its icon right next to the Kindle Reader app. The book will get delivered to the reader anyway.