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That's interesting. But I don't understand exactly why it would violate their TOS by accessing a library of books. Is it because they could be bought through t

That's interesting. But I don't understand exactly why it would violate their TOS by accessing a library of books. Is it because they could be bought through the Kindle app on Android and then accessed on an iPhone? Thus bypassing the apple payment option? If that is the case it seems like a bit of a stretch.

Hamuko 5y ago
As far as I understand it, it was possible to buy ebooks in the Kindle app around 2010 and they decided that it was no longer going to fly. I don't actually understand what their intention was beyond a show of strength. If you pull the Kindle app, iPhones and iPads are now a worse platform for ebooks, and if you remove the ability to buy ebooks in the app, it just gives iPhone and iPad users a worse user experience. And obviously, as they stated themselves, Amazon was never going to actually adopt the 30% cut payment system.
- mattnewton 5y ago
  Pure conjecture on my part, but iBooks was probably thought to be competitive with the kindle and they thought that ebook customers could be served by their own platforms just as well, no large loss and lots of potential upside for apple.
paxys 5y ago
The violation was being able to buy books from the Kindle iPhone app without using IAP. From what I can gather from that exchange, Apple originally approved the IAP exception for Kindle under the assumption that buying eBooks on iPhone would be a very rare use case. After that Apple launched the iPad and their own books app, making Kindle a much more direct competitor. So they made Amazon follow the standard rules, which led to them removing the ability to buy books from the Kindle app altogether.
- dkonofalski 5y ago
  This was before the iPad launched and right around the time that iPhone sales began to dwarf Kindle sales so you're close but not entirely correct.
jasode 5y ago
>Is it because they could be bought through the Kindle app on Android and then accessed on an iPhone? No, you got that backwards. According the email screenshots, the above scenario you wrote was actually "ok" with Apple and they allowed an exception for not using Apple payments: mostly buy a bunch of books on a non-Apple device and then later read them on the iPhone. But Phil and Steve are complaining because Amazon commercials are showing how to do the opposite: buy books first on the iPhone to read elsewhere. Apple wants a cut of that because that bypasses the Apple Payments exception they had in mind.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  + Minor point Per the emails, that exception was originally granted because Amazon wanted users to be able to purchase books (into their Kindle account) on Kindles, but still be able to read them in Kindle-on-iOS. At the time, this apparently seemed reasonable to Apple. In the time between that and the email, Apple sold a ton of iPhones and iPads. Amazon did not sell an equal ton of Kindles. Consequently, Apple looked at the deal as "You're getting value, based on a device count parity that no longer exists. So when you spit in our eye in an advertisement, we're going to alter the terms of our deal."
vishnugupta 5y ago
> Is it because they could be bought through the Kindle app on Android and then accessed on an iPhone? It's the other way round. Back then one could purchase books on Kindle iOS app going through Amazon's payment processor bypassing Apple's payment option. There was quite a big furore around this. After a few back and forth they reached a compromise of sorts where Amazon removed the book purchase flow from Kindle iOS app and Apple was OK with letting customers download and read books purchased outside of Apple ecosystem (through Android for example). At one point, Apple took an extreme position of only allowing books purchased through their payment option to be read on Kindle iOS app. This was obvious not acceptable to Amazon.
deleted 5y ago
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Hamuko 5y ago

As far as I understand it, it was possible to buy ebooks in the Kindle app around 2010 and they decided that it was no longer going to fly. I don't actually understand what their intention was beyond a show of strength. If you pull the Kindle app, iPhones and iPads are now a worse platform for ebooks, and if you remove the ability to buy ebooks in the app, it just gives iPhone and iPad users a worse user experience. And obviously, as they stated themselves, Amazon was never going to actually adopt the 30% cut payment system.

mattnewton 5y ago
Pure conjecture on my part, but iBooks was probably thought to be competitive with the kindle and they thought that ebook customers could be served by their own platforms just as well, no large loss and lots of potential upside for apple.

paxys 5y ago

The violation was being able to buy books from the Kindle iPhone app without using IAP. From what I can gather from that exchange, Apple originally approved the IAP exception for Kindle under the assumption that buying eBooks on iPhone would be a very rare use case. After that Apple launched the iPad and their own books app, making Kindle a much more direct competitor. So they made Amazon follow the standard rules, which led to them removing the ability to buy books from the Kindle app altogether.

dkonofalski 5y ago
This was before the iPad launched and right around the time that iPhone sales began to dwarf Kindle sales so you're close but not entirely correct.

jasode 5y ago

>Is it because they could be bought through the Kindle app on Android and then accessed on an iPhone? No, you got that backwards. According the email screenshots, the above scenario you wrote was actually "ok" with Apple and they allowed an exception for not using Apple payments: mostly buy a bunch of books on a non-Apple device and then later read them on the iPhone. But Phil and Steve are complaining because Amazon commercials are showing how to do the opposite: buy books first on the iPhone to read elsewhere. Apple wants a cut of that because that bypasses the Apple Payments exception they had in mind.

ethbr0 5y ago
+ Minor point Per the emails, that exception was originally granted because Amazon wanted users to be able to purchase books (into their Kindle account) on Kindles, but still be able to read them in Kindle-on-iOS. At the time, this apparently seemed reasonable to Apple. In the time between that and the email, Apple sold a ton of iPhones and iPads. Amazon did not sell an equal ton of Kindles. Consequently, Apple looked at the deal as "You're getting value, based on a device count parity that no longer exists. So when you spit in our eye in an advertisement, we're going to alter the terms of our deal."

vishnugupta 5y ago

> Is it because they could be bought through the Kindle app on Android and then accessed on an iPhone? It's the other way round. Back then one could purchase books on Kindle iOS app going through Amazon's payment processor bypassing Apple's payment option. There was quite a big furore around this. After a few back and forth they reached a compromise of sorts where Amazon removed the book purchase flow from Kindle iOS app and Apple was OK with letting customers download and read books purchased outside of Apple ecosystem (through Android for example). At one point, Apple took an extreme position of only allowing books purchased through their payment option to be read on Kindle iOS app. This was obvious not acceptable to Amazon.

deleted 5y ago

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