So in this article he states:

Traditional chain: author -> publisher -> wholesaler -> bookstore -> consumer

Then he says that Amazon is acting as wholesaler to the publishers and bookstore to consumers. That would give us this:

Amazon's chain: author -> publisher -> Amazon -> consumer

What I don't really get is what's so different between that and what apple is proposing:

Apple's proposal: author -> publisher -> fixed-price distributor -> reader

The only difference I see is that apple hasn't started going after the publisher's profits (yet).

What am I missing here?