Apple's in-app purchase policy change closes integrated ebook stores
Summary: The new Apple policy on in-app purchases has now caused the Kindle, Kobo, and Nook ebook stores found in the applications to close down. You can still buy books outside the app though.
We have been receiving press releases for ebook apps that are getting updated to comply with Apple's in-app purchase policy and as James reported the Kobo and Nook apps were updated first. GottaBeMobile confirmed that the Kindle app was also updated so now you have to purchase ebooks outside of the applications. Apple was going to take 30% of the cost of each ebook sold through these ebook stores and with ebook margins already slim there was no way these ebook vendors could accept that.
I now wonder if people will find it better to just go with something like a dedicated Nook, Kobo eReader, or Amazon Kindle eInk device. Maybe this will spur more people to buy ebooks from the Apple iBooks store. It isn't that huge of a deal to use a web browser and purchase ebooks from these stores, but it does add another few steps to make ebook purchases. I moved to reading more books on these dedicated devices and really only read on my smartphone or tablet if I don't have an ebook reader with me. For times when I want to sit and read for a couple of hours though these eInk readers are what I go to since the experience is so much better than an application on a mobile platform.
Thanks to Jason Perlow for the screenshot below.
Will this Apple policy change have any effect on your iPad reading experiences?
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Talkback
Nope
RE: Apple's in-app purchase policy change closes integrated ebook stores
Granted, it does make more sense for Apple, as this will probably push some to iBooks.
RE: Apple's in-app purchase policy change closes integrated ebook stores
RE: Apple's in-app purchase policy change closes integrated ebook stores
So you mean Apple left iBooks as the ONLY integrated ebook store...
RE: Apple's in-app purchase policy change closes integrated ebook stores
Same question I'm asking. Would Amazon for instance allow Apple to sell iBooks on their Kindle devices and Kindle store, without charging Apple? Pulling Amazon customers away from Amazon books and towards iBooks?
RE: Apple's in-app purchase policy change closes integrated ebook stores
This isn't even close to the same thing. Amazon created an entirely proprietary device designed solely and specifically for reading their own books - that's the point of the device.
Apple designed a framework for other applications. Their real success with the iPad/iPhone comes from the fact that they encourage third parties to develop their own applications to extend the functionality of their devices.
In other words, Apple started by encouraging everyone to create anything they wanted for their device and make money at it. Now, their message has changed so that you can make whatever you want, but you'll be severely gimped if you attempt to write anything that competes with something Apple wants to do themselves.
Think about it this way - what would people say if Microsoft wanted to start taking a cut of advertising revenues generated by browsers other than IE? After all, IE points a lot more people to Bing, and anything else installed (like Chrome) competes directly with that. Why should Microsoft make it easy for them, right?
Except if it were Microsoft, there would be an outcry and talks of antitrust investigations.
RE: Apple's in-app purchase policy change closes integrated ebook stores
You are forgetting one important aspect to the App Store that's been there from the beginning and is no secrete to anyone, and that is the 30/70 split between Apple and third party. If your app is in the app store and is making a profit, Apple gets 30% split of the revenue while the developer take home 70%. It's that simple. Which btw that 30% is significantly lower after all is added up maintaining their store (bandwidth cost, transaction fees, server farm etc). The only difference now is Apple is applying the same policy to eBooks.
RE: Apple's in-app purchase policy change closes integrated ebook stores
Except in the case of ebooks, Apple is not contributing anything. No bandwidth, no transaction fees, no server farms, nothing. The application developers shoulder all of those costs, but Apple is forcing them to sell everything through their resources in order to turn a profit on their work.
Maybe, instead of the IE/Chrome comparison, a better example would be Azure/Amazon Cloud. What if Microsoft charged Windows/IE users an extra surcharge to access any stored content on any cloud services other than Azure?
That seems like a similar situation. Microsoft provides the computing platform and nothing else; Apple provides the phone platform and nothing else. Microsoft has their own solution which was introduced after competitors established the market; Apple has their own solution which was introduced after competitors established the market. Microsoft's surcharge would serve to encourage users to use their own service; same for Apple. Microsoft would allow users to do what they want without charges, it would just be more complex (install another browser/dual boot Linux/etc); same for Apple.
I know this parallel breaks down at some point; every example does. That doesn't change the fact that people are only accepting this because it's Apple. An identical move by Microsoft or any other corporation with a less-cultish following would have people screaming for blood.
RE: Apple's in-app purchase policy change closes integrated ebook stores
RE: Apple's in-app purchase policy change closes integrated ebook stores
How well did it work out for Apple when Microsoft swooped in with a windowing system of their own built on top of an already strong DOS platform that IBM made the mistake of licensing from them?
RE: Apple's in-app purchase policy change closes integrated ebook stores
This is just business and Apple is within its rights. If customers don't like it, there is always Android.
RE: Apple's in-app purchase policy change closes integrated ebook stores
There is zero logic in Apple charging 30% for a book I didn't buy from them, that they didn't host on their servers, and that didn't use any of their bandwidth for me to purchase. The book never touches Apple in any way, shape, or form, yet, they want to charge me 30% of the price (because it is always the customer that pays...). In fact, they want to charge me for every book I ever purchase using those applications. I downloaded a piece of third-party software to run on my Apple hardware and Apple thinks I should have to pay them for every book I ever purchase. That's a big W-T-F are they thinking?!?!
Apple is within its rights to screw consumers, yes. And we are within our rights to complain about the stupidity of Apple's decision. This is a big win for Kindle, Nook, Android, and WP7.
RE: Apple's in-app purchase policy change closes integrated ebook stores
It's not optimum in my opinion, but for those early adopters with a significant Nook or Kindle collection the reading option remains present and the previously sold apps still function. Going forward though there will be some push back by those who are great fans of Amazon and B&N than they are of Apple.
But let's be honest most of those heavy readers already bought a dedicated Nook or a Kindle.
No Problem
RE: Apple's in-app purchase policy change closes integrated ebook stores
And the only place you can READ them ALL...
RE: Apple's in-app purchase policy change closes integrated ebook stores
RE: Apple's in-app purchase policy change closes integrated ebook stores
RE: Apple's in-app purchase policy change closes integrated ebook stores
If Apple decided that the only books you should read are the ones that THEY sell you through the app store, then they would be just like Amazon and B&N with their devices.
If they charged per read, people would either circumvent the official process or purchase a dedicated ereader from another vendor without such restrictions.
As it stands now, I can read titles from several different stores without having to convert or sideload any of the titles. Though not all do, I prefer my iPad for reading as most of my reading happens at night. I read news, magazines, ebooks, pdfs, web sites, RSS Feeds in mag-like apps like Zite and Flipboard.
If I were reading only ebooks outdoors in daylight frequently, I would own a B&N Nook touch. If I could not afford an iPad I would buy a Nook Color and put some sweat into converting it to run a vanilla Android so both Nook and Kindle titles could be read on it.
I voted with my wallet and my small collection of eBooks is almost entirely from the iBookstore.
Others will prefer to have that one store be Amazon and read their titles on many platforms. For me this has little to no value. I never read books on my computer screen other than some PDF manuals for work and some scanned Google copies of old print titles. I never do that at home.
Again, the other stores were NEVER integrated. They were ALWAYS web experiences and remain so. The only functionality removed was the use of the in-app webkit APIs that open an instance of Safari in the app.
Would I have changed the previous policy? No. But then I would never have welcomed middleman business models for businesses I was planning on entering.