Amazon's 'Kindle' App Updated to Remove Direct Kindle Store Links

[gkpm]

Maybe Apple should make some money when I use an app to purchase anything online. You know since they made OSX and the browser I use for these purchases, they shouldn't be left out in the cold when I use their application to buy something. Should they?

Well Apple also make iOS and Safari and don't charge anything for sales through those channels right?

They're different things.

 

[gkpm]

That is in reference to distributing other Android app stores within the market.

Amazon can have their Amazon mp3 store or Kindle store in the market. What thet can not do is distribute the Amazon Appstore within Android Market (which is why it isn't avaiable in the Market).

Read again the actual clause for the Android market: "Non-compete: You may not use the Market to distribute or make available Products whose primary purpose is to facilitate the distribution of Products outside of the Market."

Their definition of Products: "Software, content and digital materials created for Devices in accordance with the Android SDK and distributed via the Market."

Clearly more than just apps.

 

[Oletros]

Read again the actual clause for the Android market: "Non-compete: You may not use the Market to distribute or make available any Product whose primary purpose is to facilitate the distribution of Products outside of the Market."

Clearly more than just apps.

Well, if you can show how can I distribute a book or an mp3 from the market I will be very glad.

 

[ChazUK]

Read again the actual clause for the Android market: "Non-compete: You may not use the Market to distribute or make available any Product whose primary purpose is to facilitate the distribution of Products outside of the Market."

Clearly more than just apps.

Products: Software, content and digital materials created for Devices in accordance with the Android SDK and distributed via the Market.


EDIT:
Emphasis on the bold text.

Are people now writing/creating eBooks and music in accordance with the Android SDK?

 

[Lennholm]

A 30% cut on the sale is equivalent to a store buying a product at wholesale price and marking it up 30%.

Such a flawed analogy. The store you're talking about will have to cover expenses such as logistics, shelf space and in some cases even marketing. When it comes to in-app subscriptions, Apple does none of these things, all they do is process the payment.
Apple taking 30% is not equivalent to a real book store marking up 30%, it's equivalent to Visa or Mastercard demanding a 30% cut when you use your credit card to buy the book

 

[JAT]

Thanks for your concern.

I am an extremely voracious reader, and I read everywhere, including the bath (waiting for shower gizmo to support my iPhone and allow me to turn pages).

I download several samples at a time, and having to bookmark 'em all or leaving numerous browser windows open on the phone... it's just inconvenient, dammit!




It is a minor inconvenience, but a wonderful feature while it lasted. I probably will buy it for Kindle because choice (as far as I am aware), and the performance of the app on my aging 3G, is better than iBook. I have the Amazon app on my phone anyhow...

Well, first: http://www.amazon.com/Overboard-Waterproof-iPhone-Touch-Droid/dp/B004H68VCC/ref=pd_sbs_sg_3 (not the only one)

Next, unless I'm totally missing some page in the Kindle iPhone app (and I have not upgraded today), you already have to go to the web to get all these downloads, the app itself does not download. So your personal methodology will not change at all.

off the top of my head.
Google, MS, Cisco, HEB, sanuk

Lets see MS has a very strong university support system in place were they give away a lot of their software for cheap to even free. ...

**snip philanthropy discussion**

That is the most idiotic series of posts I have seen. A little philanthropy means a company isn't trying to maximize profits? Really? As others have said, you've picked some of the most money-conscious companies on the planet, as well. Why don't you just add Walmart next time? LOL!

Perhaps, before telling the others they don't know nothing, you can get the facts betters. Amazon wasn't selling NOTHING through the Kindle app.

Actually, Amazon has sold precisely NOTHING through the Kindle app. Ever. For all time. And apparently, they've chosen to continue that legacy. (on iOS, I'm not familiar with Kindle apps on other platforms, they may be different) You may have missed it, but the iOS Kindle app does not sell anything. It did maintain a link to the Kindle webstore, and that is gone.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

Read again the actual clause for the Android market: "Non-compete: You may not use the Market to distribute or make available Products whose primary purpose is to facilitate the distribution of Products outside of the Market."

Their definition of Products: "Software, content and digital materials created for Devices in accordance with the Android SDK and distributed via the Market."

Clearly more than just apps.

You missed a key word of PRIMARY PURPOSE.

Amazon Kindles primary purpose is not to link to the kindle store but to read kindle books.

Amazon App store no one has an issue with that being blocked from the Android market.
If Apple allowed 3rd party app stores to be installed, or side loading apps then it would be a non issue as well. I am willing to bet Amazon would pull it app if it could just allow side loading.

 

[Oletros]

Actually, Amazon has sold precisely NOTHING through the Kindle app. Ever. For all time. And apparently, they've chosen to continue that legacy. (on iOS, I'm not familiar with Kindle apps on other platforms, they may be different) You may have missed it, but the iOS Kindle app does not sell anything. It did maintain a link to the Kindle webstore, and that is gone.

And that's what I have said, perhaps you quoted the wrong person

 

[Moyank24]

The only reason I bought an Ipad is because it had a Kindle app available.

Yes, I use the Ipad for other things, but I wouln't have purchased it to begin with if that feature set wasn't available.

Based upon that (admittedly small, wildly inaccurate, anecdotal) data set, I conclude that Amazon has increased Apple's revenue because a large number of Kindle users have been introduced to Apple's product line for the first time.

Now I own two ipads, an ipod, and a macair. All because of Amazon.

So Apple tryng to kill the golden goose is a big mistake. IMHO.

How is Apple trying to kill the golden goose?

And honestly, do you believe that the Amazon/Kindle App has brought more users to Apple or Vice Versa?

My mom originally purchased a Nook, but i talked her into an iPad. She's been using the Kindle App ever since. So not only did Apple give Amazon her business, their competition lost a customer as well.

Everyone has their own anecdote, but we have to look at the overall numbers. And as I said, if being in iOS wasn't profitable for Amazon they could have pulled the app without a second thought.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

How is Apple trying to kill the golden goose?

And honestly, do you believe that the Amazon/Kindle App has brought more users to Apple or Vice Versa?

My mom originally purchased a Nook, but i talked her into an iPad. She's been using the Kindle App ever since. So not only did Apple give Amazon her business, their competition lost a customer as well.

Everyone has their own anecdote, but we have to look at the overall numbers. And as I said, if being in iOS wasn't profitable for Amazon they could have pulled the app without a second thought.

Catch is Apple is more or less demanding a 30% cut for being a payment processor that is it. Credit card companies on the HIGH end charge 5%. For amazon I would not be surprised in the least to see that number down to under 2% for even the worse cards (discover and AMEX)
Also on the book Amazon sells they only are getting a 30% cut so now they would have to hand all that over to Apple plus house everything.

Apple demand is high no way around that argument.
Also I would say Amazon has brought more people to Apple than the other way around in terms of money. 500 bucks per person is going to be pretty hard to catch that up to Amazon in terms of the kindle.

Add to it Apple marketing talked about how it could get apps like the kindle in the pass.

 

[Moyank24]

Catch is Apple is more or less demanding a 30% cut for being a payment processor that is it. Credit card companies on the HIGH end charge 5%. For amazon I would not be surprised in the least to see that number down to under 2% for even the worse cards (discover and AMEX)
Also on the book Amazon sells they only are getting a 30% cut so now they would have to hand all that over to Apple plus house everything.

Apple demand is high no way around that argument.
Also I would say Amazon has brought more people to Apple than the other way around in terms of money. 500 bucks per person is going to be pretty hard to catch that up to Amazon in terms of the kindle.

Add to it Apple marketing talked about how it could get apps like the kindle in the pass.

Apple isn't demanding anything. They offered Amazon a choice, and Amazon chose which direction to go in. It wasn't an all or nothing proposition. And Amazon certainly had the right to refuse. After all, if Apple is bringing nothing to the table why stick around?

And the ability to purchase securely through an iTunes account is a bit more than being a credit card processor.

 

[dethmaShine]

Apple provide the user base - which means more hardware sales, which means more applications, which means more attractive platform for users. Goes around in a full circle. Success brings more users - more sales for Apple and developers.

I bought some stuff off Amazon using Firefox on OSX. Should Apple, or Mozilla get 30% of the sale price just by using their software?

Well, lets first get rid of the baseless arguments.

I can see how Apple is being ridiculous when charging 30% even though they don't process payments for Paypal, saying that Windows should charge Apple and Mozilla should charge XYZ for buying stuff on Mozilla is like missing the entire point.

Mozilla doesn't promote any application.
There's no Mozilla store which stores/advertises/sells those applications.

All I'm saying that instead of saying that a fricking ISP or Windows or Firefox or XYZ should charge the related company for product sales is totally not the point.

Apple doesn't charge anyone using Safari for any content. And iOS is not an open-application platform. You're only allowed to install Apple approved applications.

Here's the thing:

- For selling your stuff, you need to get the application approved by Apple. Why? Because there's no other way for a user to install this application. Why didn't Apple allow that? It's a different story relating to Apple monopoly, consumer experience, security, etc.

- Now why does Apple want a 30% cut and not less? For that the sellers shouldn't be discriminating against In-app-purchases and these subscriptions.
****

What I really think is that Apple set a higher limit on the In-app-purchases department. I am no one to say anything but Apple should've been charging less for those; somewhere on the lines of 10% I would say and everything would have been all right.

So, it all comes around where the consumers have to suffer just because Apple couldn't figure out the best way to sell content through their store.
For all I understand, Apple should charge 10% for all kinds of in-app-purchases and subscriptions. It should sort that all out.

 

[marksman]

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Apple has every right to do what it wants with its platform; it seems perfectly reasonable to me for them to want to get in on the action from apps that are taking advantage of the platform's userbase (meaning, apps like Kindle that direct the user to the Kindle Store, in which case Apple gets nothing, despite providing Amazon with the customer in the first place via the iOS device).

Honestly, the way some of you talk, if you don't like what Apple's doing with iOS in regards to content and 30% cuts, why not just ditch them entirely the next time around and spare yourselves the frustration?

This is an inconvenience, sure, but if you look at it from Apple's point of view, it's only fair. And if Amazon really was upset by this change, they could've pulled out of the App Store. But they didn't, because they're still going to be making mad money.

The App Store isn't a charity, folks.

/rant

i see it the complete other way, apple should be glad and appreciate that the developers even bother making apps and make the whole iOS experience what it is

Yes the shopping mall should be happy that the stores attract people. Lol. People are so naive and lack such fundamental understanding of business it us disheartening at times.

 

[Lennholm]

And the ability to purchase securely through an iTunes account is a bit more than being a credit card processor.

No it's not, it's pretty much the same thing as PayPal, and I'd much rather use my banks own secure payment system which uses an alternating security code which only I and my bank have access to than having my full cc details stored at Apples servers. There's no guarantee Apple's system will never get hacked liked PSN was.
Pretty much all e-commerce businesses support these proprietary secure payment methods in addition to regular cc payment so there's no reason why Apple could not.

Yes the shopping mall should be happy that the stores attract people. Lol. People are so naive and lack such fundamental understanding of business it us disheartening at times.

Um, yes, they ARE. Successful stores make the shopping mall attractive to other businesses¨which increases the value for the owner and opens the possibility for expansion. The shopping mall owner gets the agreed rent from the stores, not a cut from the sales.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

Apple isn't demanding anything. They offered Amazon a choice, and Amazon chose which direction to go in. It wasn't an all or nothing proposition. And Amazon certainly had the right to refuse. After all, if Apple is bringing nothing to the table why stick around?

And the ability to purchase securely through an iTunes account is a bit more than being a credit card processor.

How is it more than a credit card processor?

If you use the inApp billing threw Apple you the dev are required to have built into the App a way to unlock the stuff or you have to provide the servers to host the download for the update and other services from.
InApp billing if you read the agreement is nothing more than a payment collection system. Think of it like paypal. They take a small fee for handling the money transfer. Even Paypal does not take 30% cut. They are under a 5% cut. To use in App billing you are paying apple 30% gross to be a payment processor.

 

[marksman]

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[url=http://cdn.macrumors.com/im/macrumorsthreadlogodarkd.png]Image[/url]


Following reports that The Wall Street Journal and eBook company Kobo have pulled direct content sales from their iOS apps in order to comply with Apple's new rules regarding in-app subscriptions and purchases, Amazon has followed suit with an update to its Kindle app for iOS.While the Kindle app has always redirected users to a Safari web app for purchasing, it has until now prominently featured a button to allow users to quickly navigate to the store from the app. Users will now have to manually load the store in Safari when they wish to purchase new content.

Image
Kindle app before (left) and after (right) update​

Amazon has attempted to soften the blow of the new inconvenience for getting to the Kindle Store by enhancing support for newspapers and magazines on the iOS app. Users can now read over 100 newspapers and magazines through the app after subscribing via the Kindle Store website. Kindle users who are already subscribed to newspapers and magazines can now quickly access the content on their iOS devices via the "Archived Items" section.

Given the number of apps that have been updated or removed to address Apple's in-app subscription and purchases policy, it certainly appears that Apple has finally closed the door and begun enforcing the new rules that were to have gone into effect on June 30th.

Article Link: Amazon's 'Kindle' App Updated to Remove Direct Kindle Store Links

This is stupid and anti-customer. Apple is asking a *large* cut for sales that have no reliance whatsoever on the Apple infrastructure.

I can see if Apple were providing payment processing services . . . but in this case, they are not. This was simply a button in the app that led to the *Amazon* web site to make purchases!

Sure, I can go directly to the Amazon web site to shop (and I will) but it was nice to have the button in the app. It's no longer there because Apple is being intransigent and greedy.

This is because apple spends 100s of millions of dollars to maintain the app store and someone Luke amazon gives away a free app and uses that to make money.

Why anyone with an iOS device thinks that is a good idea is dumbfounding. The net result would be all companies making their apps free circumventing the store to make billions of dollars and ultimately the app store would cease to exist. It is like people don't even think about the actual ramifications of the positions they support before the blindly label apple as greedy.

Amazon pays commissions to millions of affiliates every single day in every single item they sell. Yet some of you believe it makes sense for apple to get nothing for the products they sell on behalf of amazon. It is silly.

 

[Lennholm]

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This is because apple spends 100s of millions of dollars to maintain the app store and someone Luke amazon gives away a free app and uses that to make money.

Why anyone with an iOS device thinks that is a good idea is dumbfounding. The net result would be all companies making their apps free circumventing the store to make billions of dollars and ultimately the app store would cease to exist. It is like people don't even think about the actual ramifications of the positions they support before the blindly label apple as greedy.

Amazon pays commissions to millions of affiliates every single day in every single item they sell. Yet some of you believe it makes sense for apple to get nothing for the products they sell on behalf of amazon. It is silly.

Well you can't say that Apples policy is working out when content providers are circumventing the whole thing by not offering in-app subscriptions at all, they simply don't think it's worth 30% and now Apple gets nothing and things are becoming complicated for customers.
If Apple had settled on a reasonable fee, like 5%, I'm sure most content providers think it would be fair and worth it.

 

[The Phazer]

By that logic you can say the same about Android. So you don't think Android has created any users?

Nope. Unless technology has become capable of creating human life, they've not created any users at all.

That Android should charge 30% to sell apps, as it does?

Yeah. As I've said, I really don't care much what Apple do on their store. It's their store. Or Google do with Android market. The problem comes when customers are blocked from using other stores. Apple is blocking other stores, thus they either have to behave very well or stop, because they're acting to restrict competition because Apple's own product isn't good enough to stand on it's own two feet.

Google are not blocking that. I can install any alternative app store I want on an Android handset.

Or maybe look at Xbox or PS? They didn't bring any users to the gaming industry?

Nope. And their behaviour is absolutely just as bad, though neither of them have anywhere like the same market share as the iPad does.

After reading articles from real business analysts

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority#Fallacious_appeals_to_authority

There's no such thing as a uniform business analyst consensus. I know because I've worked as one. You keep citing this, because you have no good logical arguments.

Phazer

 

[gkpm]

Products: Software, content and digital materials created for Devices in accordance with the Android SDK and distributed via the Market.
EDIT:
Emphasis on the bold text.

Are people now writing/creating eBooks and music in accordance with the Android SDK?

Absolutely. The eBook reader and music players are applications written using the SDK and thus any content they carry is in accordance with the SDK.

Plus it's debatable if that discussion even matters, since it would be impossible to distribute apps outside the Market via the market. The non-compete clause would be irrelevant. IMHO the definition of products rests only on "Software, content and digital materials created for Devices"

You missed a key word of PRIMARY
PURPOSE. Amazon Kindles primary purpose is not to link to the kindle store but to read kindle books.

Read again the non-compete clause: "whose primary purpose is to facilitate the distribution of Products outside of the Market."

This is exactly what the Kindle app does so IMHO the Kindle app is not complying with Android Market rules. It may just be a matter of time until Google pulls that plug.

Amazon App store no one has an issue with that being blocked from the Android market.

If Apple allowed 3rd party app stores to be installed, or side loading apps then it would be a non issue as well. I am willing to bet Amazon would pull it app if it could just allow side loading.

Well they don't have an issue now. Apple also didn't appear to have an issue since the Kindle app came out in March 2009 until January 2011.

You must be joking if you think the typical Kindle reader will know how to sideload apps on Android, especially the tablets that are available.

You could also say Amazon will pull the app because they'll do fine with just jailbroken iOS devices. Clearly that's not the case.

 

[Oletros]

Yet some of you believe it makes sense for apple to get nothing for the products they sell on behalf of amazon. It is silly.

And what has been sold in behalf of Amazon? Nothing.

 

[Oletros]

If Apple had settled on a reasonable fee, like 5%, I'm sure most content providers think it would be fair and worth it.

It's not only the amount of cut, IAP system has serious limitations for business like Amazon or B&N in the number of items and in the way they are introduced in the system.

And how can they link Amazon accounts with iTunes accounts? How can they sync content purchased through iTunes to other devices or viceversa?

 

[Oletros]

Absolutely. The eBook reader and music players are applications written using the SDK and thus any content they carry is in accordance with the SDK.

Nop, because this content can't be distributed by the Market.

 

[marksman]

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Because you have it backwards. I don't go to Amazon to buy a kindle book because of Apple. I go to Amazon to buy a kindle book because of Amazon. If i want to support Apple, I'll buy an iBook which it seems not many are doing, thus the real root of this policy. After all I paid Apple for the "rent" when I paid them for my devices. All of them.

Many more people are now buying from Amazon because of the Kindle iOS app, people who didn't necessarily buy from Amazon before, but now they are because they want to read on their iOS devices.

Whether or not they choose to buy from Apple is irrelevant. The point is that Amazon is in all likelihood making more money in the year 2011 than they were in 2007, and you could definitely attribute some of that (of course, not all of it, that would be ridiculous) to their evergrowing presence on devices like the iPhone and iPad.

Undoubtedly way more kindle book pages are read on iOS devices than kindle devices.

 

[Oletros]

Undoubtedly way more kindle book pages are read on iOS devices than kindle devices.

Any source for this afirmation?

 

[heisetax]

Kindle rules over iBooks

his is one of the reasons I do not like all of my app purchases to go through the Apple anything store. What I purchase & put on my purchased equipment is none of their business.

I'll start erasing any of the free iBooks I have as soon as I can download it straight from Kindle. I would never want to download a Kindle Book through Apple. Apple has only made it harder for me to use my iToys. And to think they're starting to do the same thing with my Macs. Kindle Books an be read on my Android Phone from Sprint, my iToys (iPod Touch & iPad) & my many Macs. I can even read them through Fushion & Parallel's DeskTop for the Mac & Steve Jobs & Apple's now recommended Windows OS.

Give me Kindle or give me death.