The Apple ebook apocalypse draws nigh | Hacker News Reader

The Apple ebook apocalypse draws nigh

theorangeview.net

36 pointsapress23 comments

Is it possible for 3rd party ebook readers to display books bought through the iBook store? If the answer is "no" then this seems like a great way to ensure bad ebook software on your platform.

Case in point: no one seems to really like the iBook app very much.

What Apple is doing here is not new. They want to eliminate the middleman of any type, and thus become the only middleman.

Apple is saying: you may not innovate on our ridiculously innovative platform. We will hold the tantalizing promise of this star trek device just beyond your reach.

No, Apple is saying that if you want to make money off our platform then we want to make a cut. Boo fricking hoo.

In this case, the whole cut :)

iFlow's plan was to be a middleman buying zero marginal cost goods from a wholesalers (WTF) selling in another middleman's store.

Please don't lose sleep shedding tears for the failure of this great innovation to catch fire.

My business plan was to insert myself as a middle-middle-middleman between iFlow and the wholesalers.

Then I was gonna complain that they didn't leave me any profit margin.

Huh, they made an innovative(in their eyes) e-reader, why is that not innovation?

If it's truly innovative and worth something maybe their business model should have been to sell/license the e-reader instead of being a third middleman in the ebook market.

In business, innovation without a sustainable business model is called "research." If the intersection of Apple's policies, publisher's policies, and customer behaviour is barren of opportunities to make money, it's up to businesses to find a business model that keeps everyone happy or move to another market.

Or to put it more kindly, Apple is an 800 pound Gorilla and the publishers are lumbering Elephants. Where do the ebook distributors plan to pitch their tent?

In some industries being a middleman could be innovative. I don't see how ebook publishing is one of them.

Maybe the App could be unique? iFlow eschews the paradigm of pages and provides autoscrolling. This will kill innovation in any new UI for ebook reading.

Then sell the app.

The only value iFlow-as-a-company added to the world was their apparently awesome app. Being an unnecessary middle-man in the ebook retail market didn't bring any new value to the world.

They should've just charged for their app, and allowed people to add epubs to it in the same way as Stanza.

Apple seems to be doing all right as a middleman.

So as far as I can tell the kindle app is a big reason why a lot of people use the ipad - kicking it off is going to hurt Apple in terms of publicity and users.

Apple tend to be quite good at acting in their own interests.

What worries me more is that if I was Amazon I would be aiming to get my kindle app kicked off the store (by doing something that pissed Apple but not my customers off) about the time I launched my shiny new kindle tablet.....

Does Apple have its own ebook store yet? If not, I'm amazed and assume it's coming soon. If it does, you can hardly expect 'em to be kind to direct competitors running on their own platform.

It does, it's called iBooks. Being kind is very different from pushing out outright.

Well, they're not pushing it out, just demanding a 30% share. The fact that most of the publishers want a 70% share is the icing on the cake, but no reason you couldn't still deal with a minor publisher, or be your own publisher.

do you really think its a co-incidence apple is demanding exactly the same amount that publishers designate as "allowed margin"?

No idea. But here's another question: do you think Apple has an obligation to help your bottom line at the expense of their own bottom line?

When it comes to competitors, I'm indifferent. When it comes to being a user, I get a little aggrivated that my options are limited because Apple has decided they need to compete not just in the consumer electronics market, but in the eBook reseller market as well.

I fear the same fate awaits services like Netflix and Pandora as well. Two apps that I flatly will not trade for Apple offerings. I will cease to be a customer if either of these two companies are pushed off the platform, and I'm an aboslute die-hard iOS fan.

how exactly is that "not pushing it out" at you claim then.

It's neither coincidence nor nefarious. It's the same agency model in both cases.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com