Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo bow to Apple sales edict
Wall Street Journal, Google knuckle under as well
Booksellers Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo have removed links to their web-based stores from their apps for the iPhone and iPad, and the Google Books app has vanished completely.
In February, Apple issued an edict that required all apps offering content for sale or subscription to do so through the App Store, and not through external links to the seller's web store. In addition, it required 30 per cent of the take from any sales made through an iOS app to be deposited in Cupertino's coffers.
The policy was to take effect by June 30, but the booksellers' apps continued to include links to their online stores. Until now.
Kindle's iPhone app yesterday (left) and today (right) – notice anything missing on the right?
Barnes & Noble's iPhone app's App Store listing was updated Monday, and now notes: "You can read any NOOK Book you have purchased on this updated NOOK for iPhone app, however the Shop link has been removed so to buy NOOK Books from your iPhone, open your Safari browser and go to nookbooks.com."
The new App listing for Kobo's app, updated on Saturday, is more concise: "We have removed the Kobo Store from within the application. You can continue to shop at our website." Amazon's Kindle listing, also updated on Monday, is brevity itself: "This update removes the Kindle Store button from the app."
Kobo CEO Mike Serbinis told The Wall Street Journal that he had been contacted by Apple on Saturday and told that the link had to go – and the Canadian bookseller quickly complied.
For its part, the WSJ is also preparing to remove subscription links from its iPad app – and they're not happy about it.
"We remain concerned that Apple's own subscription [rules] would create a poor experience for our readers, who would not be able to directly manage their WSJ account or to easily access our content across multiple platforms," their spokeswoman said.
Apple has backed down a bit from its February edicit. In June, for example, it dropped the requirement that items or subscriptions sold through the App Store must cost the same or less than the same content offered from the provider's own website.
It has also allowed some magazines – Sports Illustrated, Time, and Fortune, for starters – to provide digital copies of their rags to subscribers of their hard-copy versions. As wacky as it may sound, before that change, a mag subscriber had to pay separately for a digital copy.
But this weekend's events and Monday's app changes make it clear that Apple is not backing down on its "no online links" policy when it comes to booksellers. ®
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COMMENTS
/agree
Agreed, tnovelli. I often surmise the iPhone vs Everything Else (tm) debate for my non-nerd friends whom are in need of guidance like this -
Go for Apple if you want to:
1) Look like you are winning at life.
2) Have everything from configuration to what you're allowed to access/consume on your device decided for you.
3) Enjoy a generally very stable and well-supported product and ecosystem.
Go for Android if you:
1) Don't shit gold nuggets.
2) Know what you're doing & how YOU want to use YOUR device.
3) Don't mind constant bugs/random cockups that can go unfixed for months - on account of the myriad parties who could be responsible for said cockups, but who all play dumb & summarily ignore your cries for help.
Or more succinctly:
In the Jobstatorship, you sell your soul so that everything just works.
In the Android hippy commune, its smelly disorganised chaos... but you're gloriously free.
Sounds like ...
Jobs/Apple is becoming the Online version of the Murdoch Empire.
Analogy
Actually, now that Apple have dropped the anti-competitive price matching restriction, I have no problem with Apple demanding a cut. And I also have no problem with Amazon et al, saying "30%? No chance". (FYI no way are Amazon or B&N making 30% average margin on ebooks). But that's a perfectly reasonable business decision. Apple will eventually make the choice between revenue and the strategic content integration play; If iBooks doesn't take up the shortfall from Amazon and Nook (and I strongly suspect it won't), then Apple will quietly go back to Amazon and B&N and negotiate a bespoke commission deal (at probably closer to 5-10% affiliate rates rather than 30%), which is what grown-up businesses used to do before the likes of Apple (and Google and Facebook) decided take it or leave it models were a better business strategy. Apple thought it could bully Amazon based on its ereader market share on the iPad, and they've found that Amazon have as much clout, if not more, than they do.
This whole farce is a bigger problem for the likes of Spotify and Rdio etc. who also don't have 30 points to give away, but don't have Amazon's deep pockets or alternate channels; unfortunately Spotify really need iPhone distribution to make their model stack up.
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