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Is Apple killing third party bookstores that don't use in-app purchases?

Here’s scary if you are a Kindle user…Apple just clarified yesterday’s NYTimes piece in a way that most users weren’t anticipating.  The NYTimes said that Apple rejected the Sony Reader because it tried to skirt the in app purchases (which Kindle also does by making purchases online).  Well, that wasn’t the whole picture. The problem was that Sony didn’t ALSO offer in app purchases.  Apple said:

Apple’s made no change to its App Store Guidlines, it’s simply enforcing a rule that’s been in them all along: apps that offer purchases elsewhere must support in-app purchases as well. “We have not changed our developer terms or guidelines,” company spokesperson Trudy Miller told me. “We are now requiring that if an app offers customers the ability to purchase books outside of the app, that the same option is also available to customers from within the app with in-app purchase.”

That means Amazon will have to offer their books via in-app purchases as well as online…which means Apple takes 30% of sales.  Yikes, that sounds like something they might not be willing to do.  Hope Amazon’s been working on their web app.

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Avatar for Seth Weintraub Seth Weintraub

Publisher and Editorial Director of the 9to5/Electrek sites.


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