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Amazon removes link to Kindle store from iOS app

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Re: Amazon removes link to Kindle store from iOS app

#51

Post by sprovoost »

I'm curious to see how far they can and will push this. Apple is growing rapidly and for good reasons. This action is pure exploitation as far as I can tell, but they get away with it. Will this slow their growth? I doubt it. Will EU anti-trust step in? Probably not, because Apple's market share is tiny.

So they'll make a few hundred million bucks with this. Ten times more and they will face anti-trust issues. If I was CEO, I wouldn't consider a few percent extra revenue worth the karma damage. But greed can blind even the smartest people.

Anyway, I strongly believe different layers of "the stack" should not interfere with other layers and that companies should accept that they deliver commodities. Telco's should charge by the gigabyte and bandwidth, Apple should charge for their hardware, software and whatever it costs to maintain App Store infrastructure.

Otherwise, what's next? Should Amazon pay AT&T 40% of their internet revenue or risk getting blocked?

Re: Amazon removes link to Kindle store from iOS app

#53

Post by sprovoost »

Hyena wrote: post #47
matwood wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon pays Apple $100/year to host the Kindle app, and only the app. All of the books that someone may buy sit on Amazons servers that they host and distribute. Amazon also manages its own payment infrastructure and everything else that deals with getting a book into the Kindle app. Both companies benefit from having the Kindle app in the app store. Apple gets to brag about how many apps are for sale for iOS devices…

It will get hard for me to keep playing this game because, as I suggested, I disagree with Apple here. However, it's a fun exercise. Say that you go to a grocery store and reach an agreement: you'll be selling apples, you'll pay $100 in rent plus a 30% cut. When you actually begin working, you don't "sell" any apples there at all: you just show people how to order apples for delivery and giving them an apple bin for…

This is the heart of the problem: if I open a grocery, I pay the landlord a fixed rent, not a cut in my sales. That's because rent is generally seen as a commodity. Apple doesn't want to accept that their App Store infrastructure is a commodity (it's not cool to be a commodity), so they come up with this revenue sharing system. They see themselves as a publisher.

That's nice if you're a small developer, because the alternative is paying a high fixed fee. So what would that fee be? There's 50.000 iOs developers [0] and the app store generates about a billion in revenue (off the top of my hat). That means we're paying Apple about $300 million. That means the fixed price should be $6.000 per year for Apple to earn the same amount (there's probably no sustainable fixed-price point).

Obviously, if they did that, Android would become infinitely more attractive, since they could offer a much cheaper service (no expensive in-house review team).

So here's the dilemma for Apple: 1 - continue with their publisher business model (percentage), maximize for profit at the cost of karma and long term risk of anti-trust lawsuits

2 - dramatically reduce cost (less or more efficient quality control), introduce a fixed fee that developers can still afford ($500?) or subsidize the whole operation more.

3 - keep the current system, but don't force developers to pay you. Sort of an honor system / convenience. That seems to work well for DRM free iTunes music.

[0] http://bit.ly/pyNwCj

Re: Amazon removes link to Kindle store from iOS app

#54

Post by Terretta »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #52

This puts the Native vs. HTML5 debate in an interesting light. If Amazon releases a Kindle web app, Apple has no say.

And keep in mind, iOS was released with the capability and intent to run web apps.

It supported, and still supports, installable web apps that can run online or off.

Amazon can, as Google Voice did, make an installable HTML5 app that is free to browse and one-click buy books through Amazon's system.

Curiously, Amazon has the "Amazon Shopping" app and the "Amazon Price Check" app, showing they don't mind a proliferation of Amazon branded apps for slightly different tasks. Reading and shopping are more different than product browsing w/ search and product price lookup w/ search, so why not have an Kindle Reader and a Kindle Shop app?

There's no particular reason they couldn't offer a "Kindle Shop" HTML5 app, to have its icon right next to the Kindle Reader app. The book will get delivered to the reader anyway.

Re: Amazon removes link to Kindle store from iOS app

#55

Post by rryan »

Hyena wrote: post #48
tybris wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google invests in Chrome. People use Chrome to buy things from web shops. Should web shops pay Google for this privilege? Are web shops immoral? I thought I paid for an app platform. Not a secret Apple sales platform.

Let's assume that there was a clear-cut way for Google to do that. Would it be simply wrong of Google to try to make money that way? Would it be any more wrong than charging users directly or putting ads up?

Actually, Google just launched an in-app payments system for any web-app. It started in the Chrome Web App Store but now can be offered on any app in any browser.

They charge a 5% transaction fee.

Re: Amazon removes link to Kindle store from iOS app

#56

Post by fpgeek »

nivals wrote: post #49
matwood wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real standing up would be if Amazon had refused to remove the link and let Apple reject and/or pull the Kindle app. Exactly. I was hoping that Amazon and the other large content providers would simply call Apples bluff. Let Apple shoot itself in the foot and remove all the big content reasons that people buy iOS devices to start with.

Make no mistake the bluff was called. Apple themselves removed the app (of at least one of the impacted few) and then required that the alternate version be posted for sale. The choice was either have no app available for your customers or have the neutered version up. FYI, most folks were smart enough to have their own 'no store link' neutered version ready and waiting so that the app approval process delay wouldn't…

Having a 'no store link' version ready-to-go isn't calling Apple's bluff. Calling Apple's bluff would have been not submitting a replacement version and directly telling your customers why the app was gone.

Re: Amazon removes link to Kindle store from iOS app

#57

Post by Hyena »

sprovoost wrote: post #53
Hyena wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will get hard for me to keep playing this game because, as I suggested, I disagree with Apple here. However, it's a fun exercise. Say that you go to a grocery store and reach an agreement: you'll be selling apples, you'll pay $100 in rent plus a 30% cut. When you actually begin working, you don't "sell" any apples there at all: you just show people how to order apples for delivery and giving them an apple bin for…

This is the heart of the problem: if I open a grocery, I pay the landlord a fixed rent, not a cut in my sales. That's because rent is generally seen as a commodity. Apple doesn't want to accept that their App Store infrastructure is a commodity (it's not cool to be a commodity), so they come up with this revenue sharing system. They see themselves as a publisher. That's nice if you're a small developer, because the a…

The Apple Store, so far as I know, has some built in unsustainability because it supports update paths but doesn't have a way to charge for that service. In the long run, it will need either a new revenue source or a "trust" created by initial sales. In-app purchases probably provide this revenue source.

I think the end-game here is for Apple to create an "alternative minimum price" for apps that are free or already sold based on Apple's cost and a margin on the App Store generally. In-app purchase cuts will be charged until the total AMP has been reached.

That's probably a long way off, though. First Apple has to abandon an admittedly intuitive charging system. Second, there will probably need to be a point where the best apps are on Android and the App Store is bringing up the rear.

Re: Amazon removes link to Kindle store from iOS app

#58

Post by kbutler »

paperpunk wrote: post #26
smackfu wrote: post #19

The sad thing is that Apple is the kind of company that is deciding to be evil, rather than just doing it accidentally. I'm sure they calculated that they would make more money by enforcing these harmful rules than the good will they would lose, so they did it anyway.

I don't really think so. Whether they're right or not, the people making these decisions at Apple aren't doing them to make more money (or at least, not just that), but because they believe it's better for users. In this particular case, that to encourage people as far as possible to use the in-app purchases system is more favourable to the users. It seems much more likely than "deciding to be evil".

> the people making these decisions at Apple aren't doing them to make more money (or at least, not just that), but because they believe it's better for users.

"Our philosophy is simple—when Apple brings a new subscriber to the app, Apple earns a 30 percent share; when the publisher brings an existing or new subscriber to the app, the publisher keeps 100 percent and Apple earns nothing," -- Steve Jobs

When Steve thinks something is better for the users, he says so (e.g., not supporting flash). Steve said this is about money. I believe him.

Re: Amazon removes link to Kindle store from iOS app

#59

Post by hboon »

bradshaw1965 wrote: post #17
dchest wrote: post #10

Don't forget to read customer reviews. Depressing.

That's my biggest beef about the whole thing. I guess you could argue it is Apple's prerogative to change rules, but Kobo and Amazon can't even communicate why things are changing to their customers. It really points out how much the App store is sharecropping. Making apps is not a viable business when so much about developing a business is the customer relationship.

It looks like a popular sentiment that developing apps for the App store is sharecropping. This pops up every time there is a negative wave of news about the App store.

Consider Amazon's Kindle app. I buy books from Amazon and read them on my iPhone and iPad. I don't own a Kindle nor other dedicated e-readers. When I get a Kindle, I'll be able to read my Amazon ebooks on it. I'll be happy. And I can continue to read my books on my iOS devices. I can continue to purchase Kindle books through the website which I always did. I am and will remain a happy customer (except I found out last week that their iPhone app truncates text depending on my font setting).

How is this sharecropping?

Re: Amazon removes link to Kindle store from iOS app

#60

Post by cageface »

Hyena wrote: post #27

Just to play devil's advocate: Apple pays for the infrastructure to host and distribute the Kindle app, which then proceeds to circumvent the payment system by offering the app for free and charging for the content from outside the Apple store. While this set up is clever and 30% is a bit of a margin on in-app purchases, it's not as if Amazon has the moral high ground here. It's providing a paid service through Apple…

The availability of the Kindle app was a big factor in my decision to spend $500 on an iPad. If this goes away I'll be much less likely to upgrade later.
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