If you love e-reading and the Kindle app for the iPad, you may have noticed the familiar “Kindle Store” button missing. Its absence is causing an uproar online and prompting questions whether Apple is unintentionally pushing consumers to buy iBook alternatives.
“As someone who has purchased and read several dozen books on the Kindle app in the past year, I have to say that this sucks,” a Fortune editor writes – and promptly offers readers a link to purchase the Kindle. Unwilling to give Apple a 30 percent cut of in-app sales, giant online bookseller Amazon, as well as the Barnes & Noble Nook and Google removed buttons to their individual stores.
The move follows Apple’s June 30 deadline forcing apps that link to sales outside the iTunes ecosphere to either pay up or remove the offensive (at least to Cupertino) buttons. Although Apple contends the rule is part of its subscription pricing model, CEO Steve Jobs perhaps noticed a 2010 author who blogged selling 60 Kindle versions for every 1 iBook.
This latest effort by Apple is seen was limiting consumer options. However, it is also not the best time, particularly for Amazon, which is on the verge of shipping an iPad alternative that is cheaper but with the same authority of a well-known brand.
We’ll have to wait to see what impact this change has on sales of iBooks. The Kindle for iPad app was one of the most popular ways for readers to buy e-books. Now that Apple has placed another step in what was a seamless process of purchasing and reading books, the question becomes will consumer adapt or simply buy a Kindle. In which case, has Apple shot itself in the foot for increased profit?
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
83 responses to “Is Apple Policy Pushing Readers to Kindles?”
The kindle is so cheap that I do think if consumers feel inconvenienced they will just buy the Kindle for reading books. Plus, once you read a book on the Kindle you’ll never want to read one on an iPad again. You can’t even read a book outside on the iPad because of the glare, but the reading experience on the kindle is almost exactly like reading a paper book, so most hard core book readers realize that after a while and go with an eReader, even if they already have an iPad.
There will be outrage for several weeks, much gnashing of teeth will be heard. Then everybody will forget about it and just add the Amazon mobile website to their homescreens. Because really, the inconvenience is not that big of deal. It’s certainly a dick move by Apple, but I doubt it will drive anybody straight into the Kindle’s arms.
Normally, I buy books on my desktop either from Barnes and Noble or Amazon.com. They just appear when I launch the apps. Not going to change my buying habits. If I am on my iPad and decide to buy a book, Safari is where I go first, not the Reader App.
I don’t buy books from iBooks. I find Apple’s stores difficult to use and find new quality stuff in them. I especially don’t like getting hit with foreign language stuff in my store all the time. Plus it has no recommendation as a decade of purchases from Amazon and Barnes and Noble do. I’ll continue to buy from the sources I prefer.
I don’t see why anyone is surprised or thinks this is some kind of improper activity on apple’s part. I can see why blog writers stir up enmity about it, but there isn’t really anything wrong with what Apple is doing here.
The real world example of the same thing would be having a store that sells all kinds of things as well as books. The Kindle store is like allowing one of the publishers you buy books for your store from, to have their own mini-store *within* your store complete with cash register and competing prices. It’s a no-brainer that this is not a good idea for the store owner (Apple). Why is anyone surprised at this?
That, plus the fact that any one of these book publishers can create an HTML app for their store that completely goes around all of Apple’s restrictions but can still sit on the home page and look and act *exactly* like the current Kindle app, makes the whole thing pretty much a moot point. All Amazon has to do is create that app. They can’t put it in the Apple store and get all the free advertising and promotion that entails, but these “restrictions” everyone talks about are all smoke and mirrors. They don’t actually exist.
Apples policies are pushing investors to buy more stock. Ask Borders what distribution model works the best.
Battery life is superior too.
Serious readers have a Kindle anyway. The iPad is a great portable Mac, but it’s a lousy e-reader.
I saw on the news this morning that Consumer Reports recently rated ebook readers, and the only ones they listed as even being worth considering were the Kindle, the Nook Simple Touch and the Kobo Touch.
They’re making a big noise over a small thing. What’s the problem for one to add kindle store to their home screens and buy from there? I own both an iPad and a Kindle, and I do not miss the kindle store button: it didn’t refrain me to continue buying Kindle Editions over iBooks…
i have to say, i am disappointed and that apple needs to stop playing the jealous child. i love apple products and am patiently waiting for the iBooks store to grow-up like iTunes did once upon a time. the iBooks store simply doesn’t have the variety and amount of books that kindle/amazon has accumulated over time. iTunes was once a little guy software and store and had little selection but now look at it and i think the iBooks store will get to that point too – eventually (if the powers that be are as aggressive about accumulating titles and publishers with books as they were for songs/albums). and in the mean time, i will continue to look to amazon to balance the lack of titles and appreciate that apple recognizes this by letting kindle/amazon keep their buttons in their apps.
I am a serious reader and I can`t stand the Kindle reader.
They way the screen turns black with every page turn is more than jarring.
I don`t see how anyone can read an e-ink screen with any comfort
I use the Kindle app on an iPad/iPhone.
While the lack of in-app purchasing is a bit inconvenient I will simply go to Amazon to purchases books.
It still beats Apples e-pub format for access.I can live with this compromise.
I actually don’t really care in the slightest that this was removed. It arguably makes it a tiny bit less convenient to buy them, yet the ability remains all the same. If anyone is petty enough to ditch Apple products over this, I would suggest such people would not have stuck around long anyway and would have found another excuse before long.
Why is it so hard to bookmark amazon.com on Safari and just browse from there? People are so damn picky.
I use a nook anyway, but it’s not unheard of for me to use the app on my iPad or iPhone and just use Safari to buy something new. It’s not *that big of a deal,* people.
I find the bright screen 10x more jarring that a split-second black flash. That is no more upsetting than just turning the page of a physical book and takes about the same amount of time. I’ve gone from the original nook to the Kindle 3, to the nook simple touch. The latest nook is by far my favorite, and it makes my eyes start to hurt when I read on the iPad for a while.
As far as formats, I find epub to be the most superior method of buying and retaining ebooks. I put up with the Kindle format for long enough, and decided going back to the nook (when the new one came out) much more worth my while. It’s just not worth it to deal with the hassle of having a format that only one reader can view.
To each his own, however.
Consumer Reports is hardly a well-respected organisation though. They have shown several times recently that their reviews and recommendations are not only sometimes biased, but also technically incorrect.
They were relevant in 1975 perhaps and when talking about refrigerators or toasters, but no one in the tech world should take what they say seriously.
I’d use the iBooks store more often if they actually had books in it! The New Zealand store is full of old books and nothing written in the last 50 years at least, in it. As for the Kindle store button, I won’t update the app, so I’ll keep it!
I know that I have finally decided to ditch iBooks. Kindle has so much more selection and the reader is MUCH more stable. iBooks crashes a LOT for me…I’m on a jailbroken device, but with the lack of selection, stability and now Apple’s most recent move in attempting to monopolize the iOS market, iBooks is on my device only to attempt to access previous purchases. Future purchases will ALL be through Kindle.
“That is no more upsetting than just turning the page of a physical book and takes about the same amount of time.”
The point is, it isn’t a book. It’s a computer, and you shouldn’t have to see a split-second flash from a dedicated computer that does nothing BUT read books.
Surely not as petty (or greedy) as Apple for demanding 30% of the value of a book which Apple had no part in creating.
I mean does Apple give part of the cost of the iPad or iPhone to Amazon because many people bought Apple’s iDevice in part because they heard you could read kindle content on it? No? Hmm…
It’s the principle of the thing.
And you can give a real world example of this? I know of no store that does this.
Here’s a better analogy:
Apple owns the mall (iOS). Inside Apple’s mall, Apple also owns a store selling music and movies (iTunes). Apple also rents space to other people to sell their wares. They rented space to Amazon to sell books. Amazon ended up making a ton of money doing this. So Apple decided they would get into the book business and opened up their own store (iBooks). Unfortunately, Amazon had a better inventory and better mindshare when it comes to books. Apple couldn’t successfully compete. So they figured they’d tell Amazon that if you try to sell books in our mall, you need to give us 30%. If you don’t, we’ll kick you out of our mall. So Amazon closed their store and opened a nice little place for you to sit and read their books.
Seems like a better analogy to me.
The reason it’s a big deal is that Apple is requiring that these companies no longer link to stores–essentially removing functionality and requiring the user to do this by hand. And the only only reason this is so is to make the act of purchasing a book more inconvenient for Apple’s competitors.
Who cares if it’s from the Kindle app or the iBooks app? Most of the time, they’re the same price point. It just takes a second to open the other app, and it’s not like your Kindle books got deleted.
I’d like to buy iBooks but I will continue to buy kindle or nook books because oddly enough I can read them easily on my MacBook, my iPod Touch and my iPad. With iBooks I can only read the books on my iPod Touch and my iPad, it seems strange given all that I read about the Apple ecosystem. Perhaps iBooks is just a “hobby” like Apple TV. Or perhaps the accountants have ran the numbers and it is simply not a profitable venture.
I’m simply happy that the Kindle App (and Nook app) remain on the iPad. Not having a store button in the app is very minor. I often buy Kindle books while browsing on my laptop anyway.
Apple is not a charity.
Apple does not owe Amazon free access to their store.
If this makes Apple “greedy” in your eyes, I’ll send you a PO box where you can forward me your paychecks.
You’re either very dense or very young.
Honestly…when most people think “ebooks” they think Kindle. It’s a huge brand, like HULU or Netflix, so removal of “buy” button won’t change much. Most customers already know they can buy Kindle books through the website, without needing a button to tell them such.
And this whole “pushing towards Kindle” is also silly. Heavy readers already have Kindle or are planning to buy one. As great as iPad is, it’s not the best way to read ebooks. Bassicaly this dick move by Apple won’t change anything, if somebody wants to buy Kindle he will do it whether there’s a button or not. The idea that the avaibility of such button could stop people from buying Kindle is silly
I’m just not going to update my Kindle app for the time being, wazo, the Amazon store button doesn’t go away. I’ll probably accidentally update it in the future, but for now I don’t see why I should bother.
It is a minor inconvenience either way though. I have the bookmark in safari so it’s easy enough to get to.
Judging by what you had wrote you have no idea what an iPad is and can do.
What a daft comment.
The iPad’s a great tool, and has a great e-readers (kindle and iBook especially). But for long periods of reading, it’s pretty heavy to hold and this is – for reading – a massive disadvantage. Although the kindle has ridiculously lower tech specs, for me it excels as an e-reader because it’s so light. I can comfortably use the kindle on my commute to work, whereas my hands always used to ache if I spent the commute reading on my iPad.
For anything else, of course, the kindle is rubbish. But I don’t use it for anything else.
I’ve got both, love them both. Because I use each to its strengths.
Anyone wanting to open a shop in a mall will pay rent to the mall’s owner.
For most non-US buyers, iBooks is not really an option since it only offers OOC classics. Amazon also has some copyright issues and an inconvenient format, and no non-English content. As someone reading English, German and Dutch books, Kobo Reader really is the only viable option and it supports ePub as well. I use the Kobo Touch on a daily basis and I love it, not in the last place because I can be casual with a 90-euro device (unlike the 580-euro iPad). The page flicker never bothered me, but both the Kobo Touch and new Nook have eliminated that to only every seven page turns or so. The iPad is my main device for reading scientific literature (Sente is a lifeaaver) but for relaxation, nothing beats using my Kobo on a sun-covered terrace. With a good glass of red to go along with it.
Both analogies are correct from a certain perspective, which is why this is a complex argument. Apple can argue that Amazon is doing the same thing with the Kindle device, on which you can’t buy from the iBook store (or even read content from iBooks). Why should Apple allow Amazon (a major competitor) the freedom which it doesn’t allow on its own hardware in return? Is the Kindle a mall or a store? If it’s a store, how is it different from the iPad? Both are hardware devices; the iPad’s extra functionality doesn’t change the fact that it’s a hardware device manufactured by a company which also sells books, just as the Kindle is. (Amazon already allows 3rd party developers to write ‘apps’ for the Kindle, and will certainly continue to do so if they launch a competing tablet). If you can force Apple to let Amazon sell books directly inside the iPad, why can’t you force Amazon to sell books from Barnes & Noble directly within the Kindle? Will Amazon be forced to have a Barnes & Noble store on its tablet?
I love my Kindle, and use the Kindle apps on iPhone/iPad regularly (the Kindle bookstore is 100 times better than the iBooks store); but I don’t really see why Amazon has a right to sell its content on a competitor’s platform and not pay a sales commission.
the new version lets you read newspapers and magazines on your Kindle app, and actually works pretty well – reading a newspaper in the Kindle app is a better experience than newspaper ‘apps’ I’ve tried – no ads, for one thing
the point is that it’s a replacement for a book, not a replacement for a computer
why doesn’t this principle also apply to Amazon? they don’t allow Barnes & Noble (or anyone else) to sell books on (or for) the Kindle device? the iPad is a hardware device, just like the Kindle. yes, the iPad does more than e-books, but so what? should Apple also be forced to let Amazon (or Google or Microsoft) put its own app store on the iPad, or bypass the app store in some other way for downloading applications?
plus the lack of book selection in iBooks also suggests that this is a hobby rather than a business they are taking seriously. if they were taking it seriously, maybe they wouldn’t let Amazon have an app at all (just as Amazon doesn’t allow 3rd party book apps on its device). I think their policy is just an attempt to collect sales commissions rather than a real attempt to corner the e-book market. Ultimately they want Amazon to cave in and pay the 30% fees, which Amazon would likely do if they started losing market share to bookstores on iOS devices which allowed in-app purchasing.
Apple is not the customer friendly company that they used to be. They still design the best products, but they put too many hurdles in the way for true ease of use. If you have ever tried to move your itunes songs to a new PC, your have seen this in action. I will not but another Apple product.
I think I figured that out when I paid $800+ bucks for the iPad, $200+ bucks for the iphone, $1600 bucks for my iMac, plus the hundreds of dollars I’ve spent on apps.
So don’t get all high and mighty and act like I shit in your wheaties. I know damn well that they aren’t a charity. They don’t however have anything to do with writing the magazines and books that they want a big cut out of. Amazon makes their money with books, Apple makes their money with iDevices, Apps, and music. Not books.
So spare me your “you must be dense of young” condescending ass attitude fan-puke.
I DEFINATELY know they aren’t a charity when I see all the cool features you get when you jailbreak your iDevice and then I see that Apple doesn’t give us those features legally and with the quality they put behind the few features they do let through every few years.
And if they AREN’T a charity, why is the kindle app free? Why are any apps in the app store free? Hmmmmmmm?
Not really, I just won’t update the kindle app. If they make me update it, I’ll do the web browser link or just buy through my desktop. But it’s a damn pain that they make it more difficult because they are greedy.
The point is, different readers prefer different things. I read a lot, have a Kindle and an iPad, and prefer the iPad as a reader :).
What you were willing to pay for your stuff has nothing to do with how Apple operates its business.
If Amazon does not want to pay Apple, they don’t have to sell their products in their store.
As I said before, your just inexperienced or myopic.
Anyway, try to widen your gaze and enjoy your Apple products.