Well I
may have gone a
little over the top, but I wrote to Apple to express my displeasure:
Quote:
I'm writing to comment about your newly announced external content restriction - to wit if an app accesses externally purchased content, the same content must be available for in-app purchase through Apple.
On my current system, that would impact the Kindle app, the Zinio app and the Kobo app. Because of the 30% cut taken by Apple, it would immediately entail up to a 43% price hike if retailers are to maintain profitability - and considering that a number of $9.99 ebooks are sold at thin to negative margins, such a price jump would almost be a necessity.
I can't protest highly enough against this move. If your goal is to turn your products into completely locked down platforms, with no flexibility, not to mention your ridiculous censorship (remember banning Oscar WIlde from iBooks because of a male-male kiss for gosh sakes!) then I will have no choice but to cease using and buying your equipment from this day forward. I will also suspend my firms development of iOs apps (we are registered, paid developers, not that we've submitted anything for sale yet), and, of course, cease all buying through your iTunes store.
I'm sure you're not quivering in your boots, but collectively my business partner and I have purchased six iphones, two ipads, one mac mini, a handful of iPods, countless accessories, easily several thousand dollars in iTunes content and a developers license. I'm a member of the thriving Mobileread community, and I can assure you there are many others like me there who are also reacting with angry dismay over this announced policy, knowing full well what the implications are for reading and other external content applications.
Seriously, does your greed know no bounds? You want to winnow down your users' rights, bringing nothing additional to the table, just to try to squeeze and extort every last dime from your users and vendors. You have finally totally become that which you mocked in your 1984 ad.
I think this may be the final, inevitable push that gets the anti-trust lawyers involved, and my friends, you truly deserve it now.
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Too much?
I was kind of building up steam by the end, and it had to go somewhere.