On 23/02/2012 14:40, Russell Brown wrote:
All to do with Amazon not wishing to pay Apple 30% commission (standard terms
for app store), so Amazon removed the functionality. One now has to go to the
Amazon store via app or safari and buy there, then gets synced to the Kindle
app next time its opened.
Not to defend the evil Amazon*, but that could be read as Amazon just being
too greedy (which may not be what Russell meant) and it's not quite that simple.
When Apple launched the App Store, they set a commission of 30% on apps sold
through it - most people thought that was fair enough. Apple produce and
manage the distribution mechanism and maintain the storefront, deliver the
app, manage payment, have the relationship with the customer, etc.
When they introduced in-app purchase as an option for apps, and applied the
same commission, the concept was still reasonable, although the level of the
commission was harder to justify: on in-app purchases, the only thing Apple
doing is providing the payment processing; 3-6% might have seemed more reasonable.
But at that point, the Kindle app that you could get for iOS still allowed you
to buy new books within the app. I don't recall if it was actually a native
feature, or whether it opened an encapsulated browser pane to the web store;
but the point was that you could look at a book, press buy, that bought it as
an Amazon 1-click purchase and added it to your Kindle account, then the app
synced it down.
For an independent developer who wanted to use IAP, it was a bonus; an easy
way to sell additional features to the user, and if Apple got a generous
commission, so what. If a developer didn't want to use IAP, and was prepared
to put the work in to build their own payment mechanism - or more to the
point, already had such a system - they didn't have to use it.
But then Apple announced that in future apps could not allow users to purchase
content or services, unless that was offered through in-app purchase - so the
mechanism that the Kindle app was using was forbidden. The only way you could
be in the Kindle app, and press a button to add a new book to it, was if that
operated through in-app purchase (and gave Apple 30%).
There are a number of technical issues with that for something like Kindle:
IAP only allows about 1500 separate items - rather less than the number of
e-books Amazon offers for Kindle - but doubtless that could have been
negotiated. Amazon also has a problem with the standard deal it has with
publishers in the 'agency model' (which is most of the major publishers);
Amazon is contracted to give them 70% of the sale price - the price the user
pays. Even if all Amazon got was 70% of the sale price, it would still be
obliged to pass the whole amount on. Maybe that too could have been
negotiated. (Nor can a supplier allow in-app purchase as an option, but at a
higher price that covers the extra commission - I don't imagine that would fly
commercially anyway, but just in case Apple forbade that too.)
So Amazon pulled the feature.
IIUC, Kindle isn't even allowed to put a button in the app that tells Safari
to a page on the Amazon website where you can buy the book. You can press the
home button, switch to Safari, and navigate there yourself - but the Kindle
app can't make that link for you.
As well as Kindle, this affects lots of apps that link to service already
being provided outside the app - since this ruling, those apps have all had to
reduce their functionality. If a service is purely 'virtual', some companies
can live with it - for example Evernote offer a premium service, and at least
initially you could buy it through their app or their website at the same
price - receiving 30% less in the former case - and since supplying the
premium service costs them close to nothing, presumably Evernote were prepared
to take less, if you chose to buy through that route. But I notice that
they've now dropped the ability to upgrade through the app (by contrast
Dropbox still offers this in app). But few companies where the service costs
them a real amount to deliver have the kind of margins that can survive an
extra 30% cut.
Sometimes, Apple acts a greedy monopolist, just because it can, and their
users, as well as competitors, suffer. This is one of those of times.
Ben
*Talking of evil Amazon, my daughter sent me a link the other day to the
Amazon page for a book she wanted for her birthday. I rang the lovely City
Books in Hove on Friday afternoon and they said they'd get it in for me. I
got a call the next morning to say they had it. Faster than Amazon, and
cheaper (although Amazon were selling for a pound off list, that would have
been more than offset by postage - I'd left it too late for super-saver).
Nicer people, nicer experience. It was a good reminder to me to stop using
Amazon by reflex, and support the shops that I want to see survive.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sussex
Mac User Group" group.
To post to this group, send an email to [email protected].
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected].
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/smug?hl=en-GB.
