Amazon removes link to Kindle store from iOS app | Hacker News Reader

Amazon removes link to Kindle store from iOS app

itunes.apple.com

45 pointsquux61 comments

I'm waiting for Apple to require all things bought through Macs to use Apple's payment system. I mean right now, millions of dollars of products are being purchased on websites being viewed on Macs. Clearly Apple should get 30%.

I'm sure it'll be huge.

(and screw Karma with this one... Apple appears just greedy and downright anti-competitive doing this)

I 've heard toyota plans to take a 30% cut off petrol stations, too.

Please don't include passive grubbing for upvotes as a coda to your comments. If you have something to say, even if it's controversial, have the courage to say it plainly without projecting anxiety about karma (of all things).

It's insulting by implication to the community here that expressing a contrary but constructive and well-written opinion would become a crisis for your karma. For the most part, other readers can differentiate between constructive comments they disagree with and spammers, griefers, trolls, crapflooders, and trivial one-liners.

A contrary but constructive and well-written opinion isn't a crisis for your karma. But you better get ready to spend some of it if you bad mouth Apple...

Certainly not. All of the top-rated comments in this thread express a negative opinion of Apple's policies.

I think you just have to be more careful with your rhetoric if you're going to point out something negative that Apple has done. Most of my karma actually comes from comments that could be taken as anti-Apple.

If all karma were so hard-earned, the system would probably function closer to the intentions of those who created it.

Downvoted ONLY because of the sniveling caveat at the end.

People need to stop doing this.

The sad thing is that Apple is the kind of company that is deciding to be evil, rather than just doing it accidentally. I'm sure they calculated that they would make more money by enforcing these harmful rules than the good will they would lose, so they did it anyway.

I don't really think so. Whether they're right or not, the people making these decisions at Apple aren't doing them to make more money (or at least, not just that), but because they believe it's better for users.

In this particular case, that to encourage people as far as possible to use the in-app purchases system is more favourable to the users.

It seems much more likely than "deciding to be evil".

I can envision the board meeting now: "It's so much better for our users if we take 30% of the earnings on every sale".

No.

Breaking the user experience for competitive apps and not even allowing them to explain why goes far beyond encouraging people to use in-app purchase.

For that matter, using in-app purchase is only favorable to users who stay entirely within the Apple ecosystem. One serious objection Amazon et al had to in-app purchase is that it (by design for privacy reasons, IIRC) didn't allow them to connect the dots between an iTunes account and an Amazon account, so they wouldn't have been able to give you access to your iOS-purchased ebooks on non-Apple devices. For that matter, they wouldn't have been able to give you access to your ebooks on a Mac for the same reason, which is particularly hilarious because Apple doesn't provide iBooks for Mac either (IIRC, you can buy but not read on the desktop).

> the people making these decisions at Apple aren't doing them to make more money (or at least, not just that), but because they believe it's better for users.

"Our philosophy is simple—when Apple brings a new subscriber to the app, Apple earns a 30 percent share; when the publisher brings an existing or new subscriber to the app, the publisher keeps 100 percent and Apple earns nothing," -- Steve Jobs

When Steve thinks something is better for the users, he says so (e.g., not supporting flash). Steve said this is about money. I believe him.

Just to play devil's advocate: Apple pays for the infrastructure to host and distribute the Kindle app, which then proceeds to circumvent the payment system by offering the app for free and charging for the content from outside the Apple store.

While this set up is clever and 30% is a bit of a margin on in-app purchases, it's not as if Amazon has the moral high ground here. It's providing a paid service through Apple in a way that allows Amazon to collect on it but not Apple. That's all that's happening here.

Amazon pays Apple $100/year to host the Kindle app, and only the app. All of the books that someone may buy sit on Amazons servers that they host and distribute. Amazon also manages its own payment infrastructure and everything else that deals with getting a book into the Kindle app. Both companies benefit from having the Kindle app in the app store. Apple gets to brag about how many apps are for sale for iOS devices (thus sell more devices), and Amazon gets to sell books.

We could always look at it from Amazons POV. They are providing the content that makes iOS devices more desirable for consumers. Why isn't Apple giving them a cut of each device sold?

It will get hard for me to keep playing this game because, as I suggested, I disagree with Apple here. However, it's a fun exercise.

Say that you go to a grocery store and reach an agreement: you'll be selling apples, you'll pay $100 in rent plus a 30% cut. When you actually begin working, you don't "sell" any apples there at all: you just show people how to order apples for delivery and giving them an apple bin for the truck to unload into.

If the grocer argues that you're violating the spirit of the agreement, is he wrong? Would he be wrong to say that he'd been misled?

This is the heart of the problem: if I open a grocery, I pay the landlord a fixed rent, not a cut in my sales. That's because rent is generally seen as a commodity. Apple doesn't want to accept that their App Store infrastructure is a commodity (it's not cool to be a commodity), so they come up with this revenue sharing system. They see themselves as a publisher.

That's nice if you're a small developer, because the alternative is paying a high fixed fee. So what would that fee be? There's 50.000 iOs developers [0] and the app store generates about a billion in revenue (off the top of my hat). That means we're paying Apple about $300 million. That means the fixed price should be $6.000 per year for Apple to earn the same amount (there's probably no sustainable fixed-price point).

Obviously, if they did that, Android would become infinitely more attractive, since they could offer a much cheaper service (no expensive in-house review team).

So here's the dilemma for Apple: 1 - continue with their publisher business model (percentage), maximize for profit at the cost of karma and long term risk of anti-trust lawsuits

2 - dramatically reduce cost (less or more efficient quality control), introduce a fixed fee that developers can still afford ($500?) or subsidize the whole operation more.

3 - keep the current system, but don't force developers to pay you. Sort of an honor system / convenience. That seems to work well for DRM free iTunes music.

[0] http://bit.ly/pyNwCj

The Apple Store, so far as I know, has some built in unsustainability because it supports update paths but doesn't have a way to charge for that service. In the long run, it will need either a new revenue source or a "trust" created by initial sales. In-app purchases probably provide this revenue source.

I think the end-game here is for Apple to create an "alternative minimum price" for apps that are free or already sold based on Apple's cost and a margin on the App Store generally. In-app purchase cuts will be charged until the total AMP has been reached.

That's probably a long way off, though. First Apple has to abandon an admittedly intuitive charging system. Second, there will probably need to be a point where the best apps are on Android and the App Store is bringing up the rear.

Google invests in Chrome. People use Chrome to buy things from web shops. Should web shops pay Google for this privilege? Are web shops immoral? I thought I paid for an app platform. Not a secret Apple sales platform.

Let's assume that there was a clear-cut way for Google to do that. Would it be simply wrong of Google to try to make money that way? Would it be any more wrong than charging users directly or putting ads up?

Actually, Google just launched an in-app payments system for any web-app. It started in the Chrome Web App Store but now can be offered on any app in any browser.

They charge a 5% transaction fee.

The problem with Apple's position is that they provide no easy method for the user to download applications outside of their delivery channel.

Sure they do: get another tablet. It's not necessarily Apple's responsibility to be an open platform, is it?

The availability of the Kindle app was a big factor in my decision to spend $500 on an iPad. If this goes away I'll be much less likely to upgrade later.

Amazon is not the only one. So have WSJ and Kobo. Here is the Ars article: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/07/with-pressure-from...

Edit: wrote "and Kindle" instead of "and Kobo"

Depressing. This stuff makes me want to get a different tablet. The problems is that IMHO no other tablet is currently competitive with the ipad 2 I own. At least I am in the market for a phone, it will properly be a android phone this time...

Not in the vein of the topic but I figured I'd throw in my two cents: I just bought the Asus Eee Pad Transformer and I'm really incredibly happy. I haven't used an iPad extensively but from a basic standpoint of having a useful tablet device I think I made a good decision.

I'd say the only major difference is in app universe but to be honest I think the form factor reduces the need for apps. Just some thoughts.

I'm curious to see how far they can and will push this. Apple is growing rapidly and for good reasons. This action is pure exploitation as far as I can tell, but they get away with it. Will this slow their growth? I doubt it. Will EU anti-trust step in? Probably not, because Apple's market share is tiny.

So they'll make a few hundred million bucks with this. Ten times more and they will face anti-trust issues. If I was CEO, I wouldn't consider a few percent extra revenue worth the karma damage. But greed can blind even the smartest people.

Anyway, I strongly believe different layers of "the stack" should not interfere with other layers and that companies should accept that they deliver commodities. Telco's should charge by the gigabyte and bandwidth, Apple should charge for their hardware, software and whatever it costs to maintain App Store infrastructure.

Otherwise, what's next? Should Amazon pay AT&T 40% of their internet revenue or risk getting blocked?

Don't forget to read customer reviews. Depressing.

That's my biggest beef about the whole thing. I guess you could argue it is Apple's prerogative to change rules, but Kobo and Amazon can't even communicate why things are changing to their customers. It really points out how much the App store is sharecropping. Making apps is not a viable business when so much about developing a business is the customer relationship.

It looks like a popular sentiment that developing apps for the App store is sharecropping. This pops up every time there is a negative wave of news about the App store.

Consider Amazon's Kindle app. I buy books from Amazon and read them on my iPhone and iPad. I don't own a Kindle nor other dedicated e-readers. When I get a Kindle, I'll be able to read my Amazon ebooks on it. I'll be happy. And I can continue to read my books on my iOS devices. I can continue to purchase Kindle books through the website which I always did. I am and will remain a happy customer (except I found out last week that their iPhone app truncates text depending on my font setting).

How is this sharecropping?

The part I consider sharecropping is the lack of communication with your customer. In Amazon's case they've been able to build a very strong brand with lot's of global mindshare, but they had to rely on a webpage in a Kindle blog to explain the changes in the iOS app. They couldn't even put a link in the release notes to explain the loss of a popular feature. In this case, it's sharecropping because you drop your high value branded crop in the Apple cotton gin and Apple decides what commodity that suites their needs comes out the other side.

I can't see them... but then, I don't have iTunes on any of the computers I own (not even on the Mac).

Are they within iTunes and the iStore? Or is there a web link I'm failing to spot that will let me read them?

Alternatively, could you cut and paste a couple of examples here so we could see what's being said?

Strange, I was able to read them in the main link just a bit earlier but now cannot.

Anyway the reviews were all asking and complaining about Amazon removing the link. The reviewers don't seem know that Apple threatened to pull the Kindle app if the links to the Kindle web store weren't removed.

Looks like Amazon is taking the blame on this one.

Interesting, seems the preview pages suddenly aren't showing reviews for any of the afflicted apps (Kindle, Nook, Kobo).

This puts the Native vs. HTML5 debate in an interesting light. If Amazon releases a Kindle web app, Apple has no say.

And keep in mind, iOS was released with the capability and intent to run web apps.

It supported, and still supports, installable web apps that can run online or off.

Amazon can, as Google Voice did, make an installable HTML5 app that is free to browse and one-click buy books through Amazon's system.

Curiously, Amazon has the "Amazon Shopping" app and the "Amazon Price Check" app, showing they don't mind a proliferation of Amazon branded apps for slightly different tasks. Reading and shopping are more different than product browsing w/ search and product price lookup w/ search, so why not have an Kindle Reader and a Kindle Shop app?

There's no particular reason they couldn't offer a "Kindle Shop" HTML5 app, to have its icon right next to the Kindle Reader app. The book will get delivered to the reader anyway.

I don't think I've ever read an explanation of why Apple requires this. Is it the 30%? or is it a user experience thing? has Apple written up why this policy exists?

Amazon should add an embedded safari, and allow the user to set a home page. Then I could just home page the online store, and have in-app-esqe purchasing.

It makes me very happy to see someone stand up to Apple. I hope some of the other big publishers follow Amazon. Jeff Bezos is my new hero.

There is no stand. Apple required it. Same thing happened to Kobo.

I realize Apple required it. But Amazon still had a choice. They could have complied with Apple's rules and paid 30% of their revenue to Apple for ebooks sold from within the app. And passed the price increase on to consumers.

I view it as standing up to Apple that Amazon did not do this. I think this will be better, if a little inconvenient, for consumers in the long run because it will ultimately keep ebook prices lower.

The real standing up would be if Amazon had refused to remove the link and let Apple reject and/or pull the Kindle app. Then the ire of people unable to read their Kindle books would be directed at Apple.

This action by Amazon seems to be capitulation since there was no way that the in app purchasing system would support so many hundred thousands of books anyway.

Agreed. Instead the ire will be directed at Amazon as users will be confused on how to buy books. I guess they figured it was a better move than allow the app to be pulled (implementing IAP was probably economically untenable).

That's a fair point. It would have been nice to see something like that.

The real standing up would be if Amazon had refused to remove the link and let Apple reject and/or pull the Kindle app.

Exactly. I was hoping that Amazon and the other large content providers would simply call Apples bluff. Let Apple shoot itself in the foot and remove all the big content reasons that people buy iOS devices to start with.

Make no mistake the bluff was called. Apple themselves removed the app (of at least one of the impacted few) and then required that the alternate version be posted for sale.

The choice was either have no app available for your customers or have the neutered version up.

FYI, most folks were smart enough to have their own 'no store link' neutered version ready and waiting so that the app approval process delay wouldn't stop customers from downloading and Apple forced their hand.

Having a 'no store link' version ready-to-go isn't calling Apple's bluff. Calling Apple's bluff would have been not submitting a replacement version and directly telling your customers why the app was gone.

Here is a post from a Kobo developer outlining their experience with their store. It doesn't sound like there was any room for taking a stand in their case and that they got boxed into not being able to communicate anything about their product. It does sound like there may be a different set of rules for different apps enforced capriciously but I doubt it had much about Amazon taking a stand.

http://quatermain.tumblr.com/post/8045895465/my-review-of-th...

I remember at one point, Apple forbid pricing things higher on iOS' App Store to compensate for the 30% cut. Is that still the case? If so, then Amazon's choices are a lot narrower: kill the link or kill the app.

Don't forget that Amazon has already worked out their margins for books and spent a long time convincing publishers to list most books under ten dollars. Along comes Apple and demands 30% off the gross. I don't know if Amazon had any choice but to remove the store.

That blows.

It's Apple's platform, they can do what they want with it. The market (including consumers, developers, and entrepreneurs) will decide whether their rules are good things or bad things. Long term, if Apple doesn't continue to foster development on its platform the developers will leave and then (eventually) the customers will follow.

As long as Apple doesn't have a monopoly I agree with you. It should be left up to the consumer marketplace to punish or reward this behavior. Thanks to Android there are options.

On one hand I suppose nobody should get a free ride. Apple put a lot of hard work into building such cohesive and user-friendly ecosystem. If they have their own bookstore they're trying to run why should they enable a competitor's in their own home?

On the other hand this stinks for consumers. Slightly. They can still go to the website on their own but Apple made it a bit more inconvenient. If you're already a Kindle or Kobo user this shouldn't be a stretch but if you're a startup you've probably alienated your early adopters.

| If they have their own bookstore they're trying to run why should they enable a competitor's in their own home?

If Microsoft spent so much on R&D for Windows 95 and IE, why shouldn't they build it into the OS? Why shouldn't they lock down their APIs to make it difficult to make competing products inside their OS?

Really?

Forget IE, Microsoft put a lot of effort into Windows Media, Zune, ... Why should they make it easy for Apple to sell music on Windows?

Interesting approach, but the problem here is Apple doesn't sell books on iPhone (or rather 3rd parties do and they don't do a very good job of it). This is more like a retroactive, me-to I want that market move. The Kindle app product is far superior for reading as I understand. If you're going to release a platform, you shouldn't be doing this kind of stuff. It's a similar situation as net-neutrality.

I think your argument is flawed (though I also think you are making two somewhat related, yet different points). It isn't about building it into the OS, it's about allowing competitors to provide a service to 'your' users.

Microsoft didn't prevent any browsers from being installed on Windows, they didn't require any special processes or try to prevent any competitors from offering competitive or superior services. Microsoft just figured if the baked in stuff was good enough, most people wouldn't bother to change, and they were right.

I could would agree with Apple taking a cut of in-app purchases where billing is completed through Apple's infrastructure, but forcing application builders (your community builders) to hamstring their products or pay you a cut is anti-competitive in a sense that I think is worse than anything Microsoft has done.

Microsoft helped foster innovation, and then stole it and made it difficult to compete, but you could compete. Apple is just hamstringing the competition so that they can't compete.

Free ride? That's ridiculous. Developers and partners make or break a platform. How many iPads did Apple sell because of the Kindle app? While there aren't hard numbers, plenty of bloggers talked about deciding between getting an iPad or a Kindle. Based on ebook sales figures, we also know that iBooks is probably third on their own platform, which is another significant clue about what ebook readers would have chosen. Apple is making a big mistake here and given that these changes have been in the works (and protested) for months, it is not one they're likely to fix quickly, if ever.

I totally agree with you. I haven't followed this story until my buy button disappeared in Kindle. I think most app users won't realize until they go to buy a book. I'm surprised there isn't more outrage. Apple deliberately reduced the functionality of an astounding number (has to be millions) of their own customers and we've barely complained...? (btw, Apple did not respond to my online complaint.). Now any android or blackberry user has a more functional reader experience than I do on my $900 iPad? Seriously? Maybe the typical eBook reader hasn't realized what happened. It's the only explanation for the lack of public ire.

My take: The kindle store is amazing for the books it contains and the community that helps you pick books. This "link removal" won't hurt amazon the least bit. I love reading books on the ipad, but if apple decides to get rid of them (doubtful, it would cause user outrage), i 'd follow amazon .

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