[Piper_]

Originally Posted by Graham

We're still waiting for clarification.

Stripping away the media buzz and reading the Apple comments this is only definitely a 30% charge on subscription content paid for through an iOS app. There's no confirmation that this will apply to non-subscription content.

Per Apple's statement 3 days ago:

"In addition, publishers may no longer provide links in their apps (to a web site, for example) which allow the customer to purchase content or subscriptions outside of the app."

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/02/15appstore.html

On the off chance that they didn't mean books, even though they were responding to heated demands for clarity, I can't imagine that Apple wouldn't have come out in the last few days to stop the bleeding, if it were not true.

Bad PR has a price. Apple is gambling on the 30% cut they could get from their acolytes and people who aren't aware of the deal being worth the scorn and loss of sales from everyone else.

But surely even Apple knows it would be foolish to unnecessarily draw this much bad PR and would have cleared that up if it weren't true.