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Old 06-10-2011, 02:06 PM   #34
tomsem
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Join Date: Apr 2009
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Quote:
Originally Posted by leebase View Post
I find it much easier to shop for Amazon books because I usually do so from my computer, not my iphone nor iPad. I doubt this rule will phaze Amazon one bit.

Now if you want to sell something on Apple's platform and you DON'T have your own customer base like Amazon has -- well, I find it hard to fault Apple in this scenario.

Take the Olive Tree bible app. I've bought several books via this app never even realizing that Olive Tree had a web book store. When I found out, I also found out that Olive Tree sells it's products cheaper via it's website. So I go through the extra hassle to buy from Olive Tree via their website and save money. That's basically how things are going to go for all apps.

People will learn that they can have one click instant access tied to their itunes accounts, and they will have paid more. Or they can go out to the vendor's website, go through the hassle of entering their credit card info and save money.

No one else has anything close to being as customer friendly as Apple's platform.

Lee
There's a difference between publishers like Olive Tree and resellers like Amazon or B&N. In the former case, OT can mark up their in-app prices to cover Apple's cut of the sales. In the latter case, the sales price is often set by the publisher and so in-app sales are not an option: they cannot mark up the price, so there's no margin for the resellers to share with Apple, so they cannot offer the option to pay with iTunes account. That's what this whole saga has been about.

My point is that Apple seems to be requiring something that is not customer friendly (by forcing customers to find a way to purchase content that is not as convenient as what has been the case). And it's really not clear how the restated policy is going to be interpreted.

For example, will Apple approve an app that does the following: lets you browse for and download and read ebook samples. Sure, why not? they don't represent sales, they are free. But at the end of the sample, there happens to be a link that launches 'buy this book' workflow in the browser. The sample is not part of the app. Does Apple expect the app to filter links in book content and prevent certain ones from launching? Or for the vendor to deliver samples without a buy link (and what would be the point of that?)? If so, that REALLY puts a crimp in established purchasing workflows.

It would be much better if Apple just spelled out exactly which scenarios are allowed and which aren't, and made a distinction between resellers and publishers. One size fits all policies will not lead to a happy conclusion for everyone.
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