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Will Kindle App Survive Apple's Deadline for iOS Content Purchasing Compliance?
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If the technology is so good, people won't be stolen away. I think Apple has proven that with the Mac for over ten years.
This is the start of using leverage so your products don't have to be the best anymore. This is just what Microsoft did and it's the "jump the shark" moment for Apple.
Apple refused to sell RandomHouse titles unless RandomHouse switched to agency pricing. Prior to March 1st, RandomHouse distributed book titles to resellers (like Amazon) for a set price and allowed the reseller to sell the ebook for whatever price they chose. Amazon was able to sell Kindle books at little to no profit. Books have been sold this way for decades. This was good for the customer in that ebook prices were MUCH cheaper, and this was better for Amazon because they sold more Kindles (and more books).
The agency model which Apple insisted upon requires the publisher to set the final price and the distributor (Apple, Amazon) always get a standard percentage of the sale, regardless of the title.
When RandomHouse signed with the iBook Store and changed their pricing model, Amazon's prices practically doubled. Titles that were $5 (and there were a lot of them still) went up to $10, and those that were $10 raised to $13 or $15.
It's bad for readers everywhere. Apple apparently wasn't bothered by the fact that they were stabbing their own customers in the back in exchange for marginally higher revenues from book sales.
I can't really find fault with RandomHouse. Their ebook prices are "reasonable" given the suggested retail price of any corresponding print version. Problem is, Amazon has never sold the print versions at the suggested retail price. Now paperback copies are cheaper than ebooks because Apple insisted that ebooks be sold under a different pricing model than print books. It makes no sense.
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Preventing the sale of content "in the way it currently does" and preventing the sale of content in browser are two completely different things.
Here is what you said if you forgot.
Your statement is not true. "Discourage" would apply. "Prevent" does not.
Nobody, although if Apple does things that are unduly harmful to other businesses or consumers then ultimately Apple is going to pay one way or another.
They aren't, but that isn't what is being discussed in this thread.
AGAIN, in the context of the thread it's entirely true.
Within the domain that Apple controls (the App Store) they do not allow sales through the web browser.
Taking what people say incredibly literally and replying with a reply to your interpretation doesn't progress the thread.
How could they argue that? The Kindle app is available on all iOS devices. How is "tablet" market meaningful to ebooks and software other than Tablets being an easier form factor? I should point out that Amazon has their own first party tablet that pre-dates the iPad and Apple can in no way prevent it's usage!
That's what the whole argument of Anti-trust is based on. If Apple isn't obligated to do business with Amazon for an App, than what possible way is Apple preventing Amazon from selling books or from allowing customers in general from consuming them?
You are just talking in circles. Apple absolutely allows sales through the web browser.
You just want the words that you are using to mean something that they don't.
You could say the same thing with Microsoft/Windows/Internet Explorer and Netscape.
Not if Amazon is bringing in their own customers familiar with the Kindle ecosystem. From day one the only way to actually buy kindle books was through Amazons website.
Apple's POV is that if you have your own customers that you brought in to the platform they have to depend entirely on you (g) to get your content. The minute you want to use our gateways though you pay a toll.
It has no choice.
It is doing everything within its power to prevent such sales using its new terms.
Right back at you. However you write it, Apple is not doing a good thing.
Or, in a more unbiased interpretation, Apple is leveraging their assets in one market to promote sales in another market. Don't confuse a competitive advantage with being anti-competitive.
Except (as I pointed out before) that was a totally different scenario - that the courts said that MS had an artificial monopoly that discouraged competetion. Please read the actual court decision. It's totally different.
It's less "want to use" and more "are forced to use".
Amazon has no alternative if it wants to be part of the iOS platform.
Everything within its power? Apple could ban all e-book apps on a whim.
Again, I'd agree with your sentiments if you said Apple's terms discouraged in browser sales of in app content. But you didn't. You said it prevented them. That is not true.
I agree with that statement completely.
Apple built a legal monopoly on apps and tablets, and now they are using that legal monopoly to illegally force consumers to buy books on iBooks, music on iTunes and movies on iTunes.
If you define the market as apps or tablets, Apple holds a monopoly. Now Apple is using said monopoly to force consumers to buy iBooks and iTunes music/movies (by forcing competition off out of the app and tablet market.)
This is what got Microsoft in trouble. Microsoft used their legal monopoly (OS) to force consumers to use IE and Office. It's not illegal to have a monopoly, it illegal to use a monopoly unfairly.
The In-app purchase gateway. Safari can be a gateway if of itself - in fact it's one that Apple has no direct control over.