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Will Kindle App Survive Apple's Deadline for iOS Content Purchasing Compliance?

Vizin said:
Actually, no. That's what they do now. They don't have a shopping app, the button launches amazon.com in Safari. The new rules state:

A. You use in-app purchases.
B. You don't provide users with any way of buying something in the app, not even a link to your web store.

Better than the original proposal, which was: You offer in-app purchases or you can't provide any way for users to access purchased digital goods or services.
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Amazon does have a shopping app. I have it and use it all the time! It even has a bar code scanner so when you are shopping in a store, you can easily compare prices. All they have to do is put the Kindle Store button in that app and avoid Safari altogether.
 
InfernoShade said:
Really? You're not going to open that crazy can of worms again are you?:)

As far as "their" device, lets just say the device they created that allows all the business access to a new revenue stream. Hope that covers it. :p
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With that logic, are you saying that Apple should get a cut from all records that were produced with Logic Pro? From all movies produced in FCP? Should Adobe get a cut from all sales boosted by marketing made in CS5? Should Linus Thorvalds get a cut from all e-comerce on sites powered by Linux servers?
It doesn't work like that, you get your license, then you're even with the sw maker until the license runs out.
 
Vizin said:
However it's pretty unprecedented for the creator of a software platform to get a cut of all transactions that take place on that platform.
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Unprecedented? Xbox. Kindle. Most mobile phones ever made?
 
Oletros said:
No, they can't according to Apple rules. Purchasing of physical goods is OK, purchasing digital goods is not OK
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Probably right....I was thinking that you are buying it for a different app from the one you are in...technically, safari is an app....
 
If I have to choose between my books or my iPhone and iPad, I'm going to keep my books.

In the short term I'll crack the DRM on my books so I can continue to access the ones I have. But I won't be buying any more content for my iOS devices and longer term I'll switch to Android, which I hear is pretty good.
 
charlituna said:
Nope. No more so than a brick and mortar getting a cut.
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No, the brick and mortar analogy is not correct.

If B&N distributes Ikea catalogs, it owes a cut from anything bought through this catalog?

If you have a public phone on your store, do you owe a cut from any thing bought through this phone?
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/9A5248d Safari/6533.18.5)

Definitely a bad move. I use my iPad almost exclusively for reading kindle books and web reading. Kindle more than web. If kindle's dead I'll be putting iPad for sell. Man this sucks.
 
EricNau said:
I think Apple is going to far, because this doesn't benefit the customer.

This isn't the first time, either. Apple's insistence that Random House comply with an agency model of pricing directly lead to an increase of prices in all ebook stores. Random House controls a huge percentage of the ebook market, and their ebook prices went up 30 to 50% the day they changed their pricing model for Apple.

What Apple did is bad for the customer and bad for education. It's one market I truly wish they would have kept their hands off of.
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How did Apple raise all the prices?

Way before iPad or iBooks came along RandomHouse and all the other publishing companies raised the prices of ebooks drastically.

I had the first Kindle. When it was first released, Jeff Bezos and Amazon promised all cheap ebooks. Most all of them were around $5 for about a year. Then, publishers started pushing, and they went up to around $10. Publishers continued to push and now you even have ebook at around $15 (though most have gone back to around $10). That's why you see that little chart on Amazon that says "Price set by publisher." This shows how the publishers decided to rip us off.
 
Shabach! said:
If Amazon does nothing, Apple would perhaps just remove the Kindle app from the App Store. Given the popularity of Kindle/Amazon in general, surely news of the removal will not be relegated to just the tech blogs. Thus, the media will report Apple removing the app, which could potentially be bad press for Apple, and good press for Amazon. Maybe it's not a bad strategy for Amazon to stand firm....
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That is true for the short run but it would be bad for Amazon in the long run (especially if B+N ends up cooperating with Apple).
 
KnightWRX said:
Every app in the eco-system is important. All iOS device commercials are based around what the 3rd party developers are doing. The devices themselves are only a small part of the reason people buy iOS stuff.

Apple needs to realise this and start treating the devs better. This is a symbiotic relationship.
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Good point. But on the other hand, those apps got tens of millions of dollars of free advertising. This is something people seem to forget - Apple is giving all the app from the TV commercials all the way down to the lists of the week, free marketing and advertising.
 
Why would a serious book buyer move from Kindle books to iBooks books? And I'm not talking about the the Kindle reader vs the iPad. I'm talking about the fact that you can't read iBooks books on anything else than iOS devices. Why would anyone restrict themselves like that? You would be forced to always buy iOS devices.
Buying from iTunes doesn't have that problem.
And a book buyer will never spend as much money on apps as on books.

(Not saying that Amazon isn't going to decide in the future to restrict accessing Kindle books to Amazon devices. That might happen.)
 
InfernoShade said:
Good point. But on the other hand, those apps got tens of millions of dollars of free advertising. This is something people seem to forget - Apple is giving all the app from the TV commercials all the way down to the lists of the week, free marketing and advertising.
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Can you imagine the whining of Developers if they had to shell out for a 30 sec spot on a Sat eve. ;)
 
I'm not sure about the suggestion this is anti-trust/anti-competative. What is Apple's share of the e-reader market (things like Kindles, iPad, iPhones, iPods etc)? For this to be a similar situation to Microsoft's they'd have to have a virtual monopoly, which with competition from Kindle (on which, as far as I know, all purchases go through Amazon) and Android I don't think they do, but I don't know the figures so I may be wrong.

I do think Apple are being very greedy though. How long before they DO start demanding a cut when you order your groceries through an iPhone app?
 
mazz0 said:
I'm not sure about the suggestion this is anti-trust/anti-competative. What is Apple's share of the e-reader market (things like Kindles, iPad, iPhones, iPods etc)? For this to be a similar situation to Microsoft's they'd have to have a virtual monopoly, which with competition from Kindle (on which, as far as I know, all purchases go through Amazon) and Android I don't think they do, but I don't know the figures so I may be wrong.

I do think Apple are being very greedy though. How long before they DO start demanding a cut when you order your groceries through an iPhone app?
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You don't need to be a monopoly to have a anti competitive trial, at least here in Europe
 
InfernoShade said:
Good point. But on the other hand, those apps got tens of millions of dollars of free advertising. This is something people seem to forget - Apple is giving all the app from the TV commercials all the way down to the lists of the week, free marketing and advertising.
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Apple should just have made commercials showing the iPad and not any of the third party apps available? That really would have sold lots of iPads... Apple isn't stupid...

Apple wasn't gracious and giving them free commercials.
 
Vizin said:
Yes, their motivation is understandable. However it's pretty unprecedented for the creator of a software platform to get a cut of all transactions that take place on that platform.

Apple doesn't expect 30% of Kindle books sold through the Kindle app for OSX. I really don't see why there's such a difference. OSX and iOS are made by the same company, and both run on only proprietary hardware. I'm not sure why iOS being an OS for phones and tablets means Apple is reasonable to expect 30% of all transactions.

The real issue here is that Apple controls what apps can and can't run on iOS. They can't tell Amazon not to make Kindle for OSX, because users can install whatever apps they want on OSX without the App Store. They can ban apps from the Mac App Store, but that's it.

Without Apple's monopoly on iOS app distribution, they couldn't get away with this. Had they stuck with their original plan of taking 30% regardless of whether there was a link to the store, Kindle, Hulu, etc. would have pulled their apps from the store and distributed them via their web site - if they were *able* to distribute apps themselves.

There's a flawed idea out there that developers owe Apple for giving them this great platform to work on. In reality, it's a two-way street. Developers need a platform, a platform needs developers. iOS wouldn't be nearly as popular without third-party apps. It's not just mobile platforms - can you imagine Windows or OSX without third-party software?
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How can you install apps on you iPhone without the app store? Other than jailbreaking?

Sure there's a symbiotic relationship between Apple and the devs. Apple knows that, has stated it, and has treated them well. This is not a case of treating devs badly.

You're trying to argue the chicken and the egg - which came first. Well I can see that. Though Apple clearly created this new revenue stream for devs first. But relationship will always be evolving as new scenarios develop. Apple has changed it's stance before. They might change again.

And your word "monopoly" is misplaced. A company really doesn't have a monopoly over their own products. And Apple doesn't have an monopoly on anything. Maybe you meant control. And it's expected that a company should have control over their own products.
 
Let the user decide!

if user user wants the convenience of in app-purchase they can pay 30%( which the provider will add on, to cover the Apple 30% charge ) extra.

However, if they wish to save 30% then let them click out to the provider's website and buy them from there!
 
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