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Conjecture: End users can be confident everything that they purchase in an app is tied to their iTunes account. Purchasing an Amazon e-book using the Kindle app
by ceol 13y ago
Conjecture: End users can be confident everything that they purchase in an app is tied to their iTunes account. Purchasing an Amazon e-book using the Kindle app means the end user — who is not the most tech-savvy — needs to have an Amazon account and they need to be aware that anything purchased in the Kindle app (and only the Kindle app) doesn't get associated with their iTunes account, which is a different behavior than every other app on the App Store.
Of course, the 30% cut that Apple wanted to take most likely had something to do with it, but there is a good reason to forbid developers from implementing their own in-app purchases.
- fpgeek 13y agoIf Apple didn't have this restriction, it wouldn't just the Kindle app, of course. It would also be Nook, Kobo, Google Books, Amazon Cloud Player, Google Music, HMV, ... Superficially, this sounds even worse, but this is exactly the situation on Android. I've never heard of an Android user being confused by it, so I suspect this behavior far more intuitive than you think. On the other side of the ledger, I've heard of more than a few users (including tech-savvy ones who were previously familiar with the relevant history) being confused about not being able to buy books in the iOS Kindle app. Separately, you didn't address Apple's prohibition of links to the relevant web store / website through which the store can be reached. At that point the purchase isn't even in-app (and the relevant purchase flow is exactly the same except that the user has to remember how to get to the website on their own), so...