NYT: Apple Moves to Tighten Control of App Store

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Please give us the full non-hidden link. There are some of us that will not click on these hide the link links.

Jon, if you right-click on a link, you can select "copy link location" from any browser and paste it into a text file to view the entire link. That way, if you have any questions about its safety, you can examine it before you follow it. I do it all the time.

It's often the MR site software, not the posters, that truncates the appearance of long links.

[rdfry]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Do not blame Sony for B&N deciding to go with different DRM for ePub. That is totally B&N's fault. Sony did not do anything wrong here. You are basically saying it's Sony's fault. It's B&N's fault. Why not blame Sony for not being able to handle ePub from Apple too while you are at it.

It is Adobe and Sony's fault. Adobe was supposed to update ADE last year to work with the B&N DRM but they haven't.

[BuddyBoy]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

Jon, if you right-click on a link, you can select "copy link location" from any browser and paste it into a text file to view the entire link. That way, if you have any questions about its safety, you can examine it before you follow it. I do it all the time.

It's often the MR site software, not the posters, that truncates the appearance of long links.

Actually, the link he was concerned about was one of the new York times shorter links (nyti.ms/gobbledegook) like bit.ly or some such, and those do often hide the ultimate URL until they've been clicked and followed. There's no truncation for those, just mystery.

[taming]

Jim Dovey, the Apple Platforms Team Lead at Kobo, has written about this on his Tumblr page: http://quatermain.tumblr.com/post/30...re-vs-the-rest

Earlier he wrote (on Twitter) that the way Kobo does its application (catalog on APP, purchase via the website and Safari) had been suggested to him by Apple. Things change in Apple world, I guess.

[Graham]

Another interesting point was made in the linked article (my emphasis):

It is highly unlikely that Amazon, Sony or others will be willing to share e-book revenue or customer information with its competitor, Apple, which sells its own e-books in its iBookstore.

That list of customers (and their buying patterns, not just that they downloaded the app) is in many ways even more important than the 30% cut of the sales. It would enable Apple to target customers for sales through iBooks.

Graham

[drofgnal]

Well, I'm still confused. If apple is only requiring the option for in app purchases and the option still exists for external app purchases without the 30% extortion fee, then I'm probably ok. I rarely purchase anything from my ipad, I purchase almost exclusively from my imac desktop.

If the converse is true and this is an attempt to ban the app unless it coughs up the 30% extortion fee for all purchases, then the ipad goes away. I'll go back to my Kindle. I've been an apple fanboy for many years, my first computer being a small plastic box with a nine inch black and white screen. But if apple tests my allegiance with this possible extortion attempt, I'll choose amazon over apple!! (Do I have to learn MS-DOS??)

Yesterday for example I was looking for a particular translation of War and Peace that used to be in the Kindle store. It says no longer available in the US. I wrote customer service at Amazon and asked about it. They responded that because of my disappointment I should order the still available paperback edition, select one day shipping, and they would refund the entire purchase, book plus shipping, which they did. With service like this, I'll gladly continue all purchases directly through amazon.

SO GO AHEAD APPLE, TEST ME!!! I DARE YOU!!!!!!!!!!

[drofgnal]

Originally Posted by BuddyBoy

Well I may have gone a little over the top, but I wrote to Apple to express my displeasure:





Too much? I was kind of building up steam by the end, and it had to go somewhere.

BuddyBoy, my only wish is that we could have posted this as a petition on mobileread and sent it with concurrence signatures from all of us!!

[John F]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

Jon, if you right-click on a link, you can select "copy link location" from any browser and paste it into a text file to view the entire link. That way, if you have any questions about its safety, you can examine it before you follow it. I do it all the time.

...

Or maybe just hover the mouse over it and the link shows up in the status bar.

And I'm sure Jon is aware of that.

[jocampo]

No doubt Apple is a successful company but I mostly "blame" that to very innovative ideas plus a strong and really smart marketing campaign. Regardless, they are certainly close and very restricted products.

I personally like and enjoy the freedom of Linux and one of the reasons I like Android so much. Besides, Linux is one of the most stable and secure operating systems in the world (no companies rely on Windows, Apple Os or something different on their warehouse servers, they use Linux or Unix). But of course, is Open Source and there are no millions dollars on marketing campaigns in favor of Linux...

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by Graham

One way forward would be for Amazon to charge another 43% in app to cover the 30% Apple commission, making it clear that the book was cheaper if bought via the browser option, but then they'd presumably fall foul of the Agency Pricing agreement.

No, they wouldn't fall afoul of agency pricing. There is a consistent misunderstanding of the agency pricing scheme.

An agency price is the MINIMUM price at which the ebook can be sold, not the MAXIMUM price. That is why there are price variations among the ebooktailers.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by drofgnal

Well, I'm still confused. If apple is only requiring the option for in app purchases and the option still exists for external app purchases without the 30% extortion fee, then I'm probably ok. I rarely purchase anything from my ipad, I purchase almost exclusively from my imac desktop.

That's you. How many others do the same? Once inside the app, it's a lot easier to purchase a book right there, than it is to exit the app, fire up Safari, then the bookstore's website, then the purchase. Apple knows this and that's what they're counting on.

[kenschunk]

Here's what the actual license agreement from Apple says about this...

1 - if you're going to enable in-app purchases they HAVE to use the In App Purchase (IAP) API. This is where Apple gets their 30% cut - sounds like Sony ignored that.
2 - if you use the IAP API, you CAN NOT offer anything that can be used outside of the app on the iOS device. That's probably another reason Sony didn't use the IAP API, since any books purchased would be usable outside of the iPhone/iPad app.
3 - I can't find anything, anywhere, in the license agreement (downloaded on 2/2/2011 from Apple's developer web site) that states if it's available outside of the app (say, as Amazon or B&N does it from a web site) that it has to be available thru the Apple store. There is a section (3.3.3) that states you can't add additional features or functionality without going thru the IAP API, but I would be surprised if documents, such as books, would fall into this category.

The real problem is that Sony didn't play by the rules and got caught and rejected. If Sony had a web based bookstore, like virtually everyone else, they could have done what every other eReader app does and link to that web site.

Of course the really amusing part of this is that one "lock down proprietary" company (Sony) is complaining about another "lock down proprietary" company (Apple).

[Caltsar]

Kenschunk, in my first post here, I would have agreed with you, and the main issue with Sony's app being rejected seems to be that they made their own in-app purchasing system (with the issues I outlined before that go with it).

However, a statement made by Apple later that day about the issue brings to light the issues with content purchased for applications that we are all enraged over. This isn't in the agreement (yet), and it is basically blindsiding the users and developers.

[Maggie Leung]

The Sony app isn't the issue, IMO. That brings up a side argument and company baggage that isn't central to my concerns as an iDevice buyer.

Why I will no longer buy Apple devices now:

There's no immediate effect on my access to books even with Apple now enforcing the requirement for app developers to offer buying both inside and outside an app. But I wonder what happens the next time a business dispute crops up between a content provider and Apple. If Apple later decides it wants 31 percent and X company says no, what happens to my access to that company's books? Such possible ripple effects are endless, though my risk is uncertain. But as a consumer, there's no reason I have to risk my access to books over loyalty to Apple. I'm not loyal as a consumer. I look out for myself, so I'll buy another platform.

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by Maggie Leung

The Sony app isn't the issue, IMO. That brings up a side argument and company baggage that isn't central to my concerns as an iDevice buyer.

Why I will no longer buy Apple devices now:

There's no immediate effect on my access to books even with Apple now enforcing the requirement for app developers to offer buying both inside and outside an app. But I wonder what happens the next time a business dispute crops up between a content provider and Apple. If Apple later decides it wants 31 percent and X company says no, what happens to my access to that company's books? Such possible ripple effects are endless, though my risk is uncertain. But as a consumer, there's no reason I have to risk my access to books over loyalty to Apple. I'm not loyal as a consumer. I look out for myself, so I'll buy another platform.

I used to be a big Apple fan. I have owned more than 1 iPhone and I have made hubby go stand in line to buy them on the first day they were released.

Notice I said used to be.