Apple E-Book Price Fixing Decision Could See Return of Direct Links from Kindle and Other Apps to Their Stores

[oddnendz]

Well it also opens Pandora's Box of Devs offering free apps then using their own IAP system to avoid paying their fair share to Apple.

That is assuming customers trust the app with their CC numbers.

I don't have a problem with buying ebooks in the Kindle app (and audiobooks thru Audible), because Amazon has my CC information. They have had it for a long time. And I am not going to give my CC to a third-party IAP just for in-app purchases. I will delete any app that won't allow me to purchase in-app through Apple.

 

[aerok]

but i dont want to see apple losing this lawsuit

Why not? Do you prefer higher ebook prices?

 

[ck2875]

Um, yeah, that's the way to get a lenient ruling - piss off the judge. Or better yet, force people who use iPad's (and especially iPad Minis) to read Kindle books, to buy Kindles instead of iPads. Great business strategy.

Not to mention this little legal principle called "contempt of court".

As an aside, I was simply stating that as a hypothetical rather than a serious suggestion. {Note to future self: Don't forget the /s tag.}

----------

Things didn't go so well last time Apple tried that sort of trick. The Judge had the last laugh (https://www.macrumors.com/2012/11/0...g-galaxy-tab-did-not-infringe-on-ipad-design/).

I'm very much aware-- That was the first thing I thought of when I read this article, and what inspired my post.

 

[ck2875]

Here is a question: If Apple force everyone selling their Apps at App Store then force everyone give 30% of their proceed to Apple, what do you think?

It is like government to build a highway then pass a law mandate everyone use this road and you cannot use any other road. Then government wants 5 dollars from you for using the road.

If a App created choose to use App Store, then sure Apple can charge 30%, if App creator doesn't want pay 30%, then they have no way to publish their App other than by some other way (i.e. Cydina).

Why should everyone forced to use App Store and pay 30% to Apple?

Perhaps we just having differing outlooks, but the government mandate analogy seems alright to me. Someone has to pay for the cost of building the road and if you want to get from point A to B bad enough, you'll pay— no one is forcing people to drive. Similarly, you aren't mandated to have your App on the AppStore, but if you want to use the infrastructure that has been built you need to pay the price to use it. Otherwise you can't go down the road. It's not Apple's problem that it's the only road available. If the developer doesn't like it they can always opt not to be on the iPad.

 

[alent1234]

Why not? Do you prefer higher ebook prices?

Amazon has cheaper prices now than iBooks
Who cares if apple loses

 

[SakuraSuki]

Perhaps we just having differing outlooks, but the government mandate analogy seems alright to me. Someone has to pay for the cost of building the road and if you want to get from point A to B bad enough, you'll pay— no one is forcing people to drive. Similarly, you aren't mandated to have your App on the AppStore, but if you want to use the infrastructure that has been built you need to pay the price to use it. Otherwise you can't go down the road. It's not Apple's problem that it's the only road available. If the developer doesn't like it they can always opt not to be on the iPad.

So that Microsoft is justified to suck up developer for developing software for Windows?

Developers develop app don't hurt Apple, instead it benefit Apple. More developers developing apps for iOS, the better for iOS. I agree developer should pay for tools available for developer to develop, but I think company should not charge developer for selling the App. In the end, developer contribute to iOS community, they should get all their proceed.

 

[Renzatic]

Snip

This. A thousand times this.

People here shouldn't act like developers owe Apple for the honor of allowing them to publish their apps on their platform. It's the other way around. Third party developer support makes Apple's platform worth using.

Apple could have the best mobile OS in the world on the thinnest tablet ever made. It's light as air, well designed, and smooth to the touch. But if you don't have any apps for it, what are you gonna use it for? Are you gonna stare at it, maybe play with the web browser while the guy three doors down is playing all kinds of games, watching movies on Netflix, and editing his photos on his thicker, slightly clunkier Android device?

If anyone needs a good example of this, all you need to do is look at Windows Phone. It's a great OS on some great hardware. But it doesn't even have a quarter of the apps Apple sports in their App Store. All the millions of people who use Instagram won't be rushing over to WP anytime soon, that's for sure.

 

[AdrianWerner]

This. A thousand times this.

People here shouldn't act like developers owe Apple for the honor of allowing them to publish their apps on their platform. It's the other way around. Third party developer support makes Apple's platform worth using.

Apple could have the best mobile OS in the world on the thinnest tablet ever made. It's light as air, well designed, and smooth to the touch. But if you don't have any apps for it, what are you gonna use it for? Are you gonna stare at it, maybe play with the web browser while the guy three doors down is playing all kinds of games, watching movies on Netflix, and editing his photos on his thicker, slightly clunkier Android device?

If anyone needs a good example of this, all you need to do is look at Windows Phone. It's a great OS on some great hardware. But it doesn't even have a quarter of the apps Apple sports in their App Store. All the millions of people who use Instagram won't be rushing over to WP anytime soon, that's for sure.

THis. Developers made iOS what it is. Without them iOS wouldn't be anywhere near as successful as it is these days. Apple owes it's position in mobile market mostly to developers.

 

[haravikk]

This is something that should be done regardless; it's staggering to think that Windows was forced to add a browser selection tool for anti-competitive reasons, yet Apple basically forces everyone to use their app store and nothing else, even though GateKeeper on OS X proves that they can easily just allow any correctly signed app. These are practices that are anti-competitive in the extreme.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Apple's app stores, and I don't mind using them at all, but denying direct links and closing the platform to other app stores rather than allowing healthy competition goes against the whole framework for modern business.


So yeah; while I don't know what to think about this eBook price fixing, denying links to competing services is something that should never have been allowed in the first place. It's one thing to tout the Apple app store as the easy and safe choice, but instead they're just removing choice entirely.

 

[SaxSmith]

1. Why it call fixed price when the publishers can lower their price or just give the book for free if they need?
2. Can Amazon or Apple do promotion program such as give 1 book for free when customer buy 2 or just give money back in agency model?
If they can why call it anti-competitive model?

 

[linuxcooldude]

THis. Developers made iOS what it is. Without them iOS wouldn't be anywhere near as successful as it is these days. Apple owes it's position in mobile market mostly to developers.

I think both Apple and the developer have a symbiotic relationship. While the developers are key in getting the app store populated its Apples smart business decisions that made store popular.

Saying one or the other was detrimental, when its really both are needed.

 

[mazz0]

But you like Apple driving the price of eBooks up higher than they should be?

I would accept higher prices as an alternative to a monopoly of power. I'm not saying this is the only way of avoiding it, I'm just saying I consider higher prices the lesser of two evils. Amazon has waaaaay too much influence in retail.

 

[Antares]

Are you saying that Microsoft deserves a cut from Apple when someone buys from iTunes?

Of course not. Why would Microsoft deserve a cut?

 

[asthamapheo]

hahaha....i'd love to see that. apple is gonna be so jealous of amazon. the pleasure would double if they're also forced to pay the "big fine".

 

[JAT]

What on earth are you talking about??? The author/publisher is still getting paid the same regardless of what the companies sell it for, so it's not like people would just stop writing books because of the lower sale prices. And even in the worst case scenario, if the cheaper price causes the more expensive company to go out of business, the first company is still in business. They may not need to sell the books at a cheaper price to undercut anyone anymore, and so the price may go back up to normal, but they are still selling books.

How does one company selling a book cheaper than another company equal the death of all books in your mind??

Where do you people come up with this stuff??

History. Doomed to repeat...

 

[Cartaphilus]

Apple owns eyeballs. Because it has sold millions of devices that come with its apps storefront indelibly attached, it can provide effective distribution of applications and what those applications can be used to sell, including everything from digitized books to virtual 7-irons to virtual cloaks of invisibility.

Just as a physical store, an auction house or a consignment shop earns a profit from exposing a seller's goods to the customers it has cultivated, Apple earns a profit from having assembled many millions of potential buyers. Without an intermediary, a distributor, it is rare that a software developer can offer his consumer programs to many potential buyers, or that an author can sell many books.

Apple does provide servers, payment processing, and other ancillary services, but what puts Apple in a profitable position is overwhelmingly its ability to bring a seller's product to a huge market. Just as a shopkeeper won't allow someone to peddle goods in his aisles, Apple should not have to permit the sellers it admits to its App Store to peddle to Apple's customers without compensating Apple.

 

[Renzatic]

Apple does provide servers, payment processing, and other ancillary services, but what puts Apple in a profitable position is overwhelmingly its ability to bring a seller's product to a huge market. Just as a shopkeeper won't allow someone to peddle goods in his aisles, Apple should not have to permit the sellers it admits to its App Store to peddle to Apple's customers without compensating Apple.

There's one problem with this when it comes to the Kindle equation. See, the books you buy from Amazon are hosted on Amazons servers, and served to you through Amazon's bandwidth. Once you get the app off the App Store, it should be set up so that Apple has nothing to do with the service that app provides.

If I buy a TV from Best Buy, should Best Buy get a 30% cut of HBO's subscription fees on that TV?

If I buy a Kindle from Wal-Mart, should Wal-Mart get 30% of the cut for every book I buy for it?

If I download a song off iTunes on my Windows PC, should Microsoft get a 30% cut from Apple?

I have no problem with Apple processing payments through apps so long as it's opt-in. But as much as it costs Apple money to give you those apps, it also costs the various 3rd party services money to provide content for their apps. Netflix for instance costs tons of money to run. Apple doesn't provide a dime to their upkeep or bandwidth. So why do they deserve a 30% cut every month for any subscriber who happened to sign up to their service through an iDevice?

...and even worse, if someone sells their iPad, yet continue using the service on that same account, Apple gets their 30% cut until they cancel and resubscribe. It's ridiculous.

 

[BaldiMac]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAXkinZs4Mk

What is that setting that is shown on minute 1:04 then?

Doh! I confused sideloading with adding a third-party app store. My bad.

I guess he meant that if the court agrees with the DoJ's requests, Apple would not be able to reject the app based on the "no links" clause in its guidelines because these links would be specifically allowed by the sentence.

So, if they reject the app, they would have to go with "because we want to" rather than "no links".

 

[kmichalec]

History. Doomed to repeat...

You believe history is where this thought comes from? Can you provide an example from "history" where one seller of a product undercutting another seller of a product led to the non existence of that product in it's entirety? I'm curious.

 

[Cartaphilus]

There's one problem with this when it comes to the Kindle equation. See, the books you buy from Amazon are hosted on Amazons servers, and served to you through Amazon's bandwidth. Once you get the app off the App Store, it should be set up so that Apple has nothing to do with the service that app provides.

If I buy a TV from Best Buy, should Best Buy get a 30% cut of HBO's subscription fees on that TV?

If I buy a Kindle from Wal-Mart, should Wal-Mart get 30% of the cut for every book I buy for it?

If I download a song off iTunes on my Windows PC, should Microsoft get a 30% cut from Apple?

I have no problem with Apple processing payments through apps so long as it's opt-in. But as much as it costs Apple money to give you those apps, it also costs the various 3rd party services money to provide content for their apps. Netflix for instance costs tons of money to run. Apple doesn't provide a dime to their upkeep or bandwidth. So why do they deserve a 30% cut every month for any subscriber who happened to sign up to their service through an iDevice?

...and even worse, if someone sells their iPad, yet continue using the service on that same account, Apple gets their 30% cut until they cancel and resubscribe. It's ridiculous.

The difference is that, unlike a television, an app costs very little, if anything, and were Apple's revenue restricted to a portion of the sale price of the app while the developer raked it in by using the app to sell books, magic potions, and anything else to Apple's customers, it would hardly be fair to Apple.

Apple is entitled to be paid for access to its customers, and what is a fair amount is a function of the value of access to Apple's customers to the seller. A developer who builds an app he sells for 99 cents derives less value than a wholesaler who gives away an app he uses to provide his entire catalog to those who download the app. Apple has no obligation to introduce to its customer base a Trojan Horse filled with peddlers who refuse to compensate Apple.

Any seller who believes Apple charges more than it deserves is free to find its end users elsewhere. We live in a competitive world, and prices and terms that are onerous are soon enough undercut by competitors.

 

[AdrianWerner]

Apple has moved the game along sufficiently. It will be difficult to go back. eBooks will soon be left in the wake of iBooks.

At this point it would take a miracle for Apple to beat Amazon in ebook market.

 

[rjohnstone]

The difference is that, unlike a television, an app costs very little, if anything, and were Apple's revenue restricted to a portion of the sale price of the app while the developer raked it in by using the app to sell books, magic potions, and anything else to Apple's customers, it would hardly be fair to Apple.

Apple is entitled to be paid for access to its customers, and what is a fair amount is a function of the value of access to Apple's customers to the seller. A developer who builds an app he sells for 99 cents derives less value than a wholesaler who gives away an app he uses to provide his entire catalog to those who download the app. Apple has no obligation to introduce to its customer base a Trojan Horse filled with peddlers who refuse to compensate Apple.

Any seller who believes Apple charges more than it deserves is free to find its end users elsewhere. We live in a competitive world, and prices and terms that are onerous are soon enough undercut by competitors.

It works both ways.
Without developers, Apple would have no customers.
Apple gets compensated for making the app available in the App store via the developer fees and collects 30% of the sale price of any App sold in the App store.
The developer does all the work to provide the actual value within the app itself.
If Apple wants to prove value, allow other App store's on their "i" devices and let the stores compete.
But that will never happen as Apple knows they will see a large migration of devs away from their store if the other offers better terms.

To say Apple is "entitled" to a cut beyond that is arrogant at the least.

 

[theheadguy]

Amazon will be required to have a monopoly. Not to worry. Apple has moved the game along sufficiently. It will be difficult to go back. eBooks will soon be left in the wake of iBooks.

lol. funny to look back on utterly failed predictions.