Could you link to the reports you have been reading? I am willing to consider the idea, but all the discussion I have seen, here and elsewhere, has dealth with Amazon and Macmillan, and who is at fault and what their goals are for the pricing schemes they propose. I have never seen the blame laid at Apple's feet, not even in the iPad threads in this forum.
I don't find the your rationale overly convincing, for the following reasons:
- "nobody reads" doesn't really mean anything - Jobs always talks down markets Apple is about to enter (Music, phone, etc.)
- "Apple doesn't understand publishing" doesn't mean they don't have billions of dollars to hire people who do know the business. They didn't know cell phones or music players either. They may make mistakes, but they don't bring half-baked ideas to the market.
- Why get into such a dangerous game, where they risk destroying Amazon's market and alienating lots of people without having much control over what the publishers will do next, and for a minor role in a market without a lot of money in it. Far too risky, far too likely to make them look bad, far too little to gain.
- I remain unconvinced.