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Comment by 9999 | Hacker News Reader

Correct me if I'm wrong, but couldn't they do what Amazon does and just redirect the user to Safari for purchasing books? I suppose that's a very small inconvenience compared to iBooks' direct purchase, but I find it worth the tradeoff to have my purchases available on more devices.

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This "loophole" was closed by Apple during the last round if App Store approval rule changes back in December of last year. The Kindle app seemingly gets a pass, but a number of other applications have been rejected since then.

Ah, that stinks. That kind of inconsistency is very annoying. So you can't even have a link to your web based store (that's all that the kindle app really has now) in the application any more?

You can, but if you do you have to offer the same stuff at the same price via in-app purchase.

No, you can't have a link to the web store.

However, Apple does require that if a publisher chooses to sell a digital subscription separately outside of the app, that same subscription offer must be made available, at the same price or less, to customers who wish to subscribe from within the app.

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

Also: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2535773

You can sell stuff outside of your app, but you can't link to it from within the app.

Ahhh, I see now. Thank you!

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.

>> Kindle app seemingly gets a pass

Where can I read more about this?

I believe existing apps have until June to comply with the new rules. We'll see how Apple plays this though. It's not in their best interests to reject the Kindle app.

It's troubling that they seem to be willing to apply one rule to the big, established players and another to everyone else. In the long run I don't think this nurtures a healthy market.

I think that was another commenter's speculation. All we know is that Apple says existing apps have until June 30. It remains to be seen of they make exceptions or not.

The inconsistencies in enforcement that appear, time and again, to give a free pass to heavyweight competitors have to be breaking a law somewhere.

Isn't this what racketeering and monopoly laws are supposed to prevent? If any lawyers are on this thread, it would be great to hear their input on this.

I'm not sure what they'd be violating. Stores obviously have a right to decide what products they will sell, and to forge different deals with different vendors.

Should Wal-Mart be forced to carry my self-published book because they carry some Random House best sellers?

enforcement of this rule isn't set to kick in until June 30th.

And yet bugfixes to my app has been rejected a few times in the past months because of this.

And has Kindle been updated in that time? I think they meant that any new app (including new releases to existing apps) would have to obey the rule, but they wouldn't start kicking apps out of the store until June 30.

Yes it has been updated. http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/15/apple-kindle-netflix-in-app...

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