Apple Sticks it to Customers

Thursday, 28 July 2011 by Marcus Aquinas.

I received a couple of emails today notifying me of changes to the Nook and Kindle iPhone/iPad apps. It seems that Apple has made a policy change necessitating their removing the ability to make eBook purchases in-app and requiring customers to go through the device’s web browser to make purchases from their mobile devices (clarification: Apple mobile devices – Android stuff is unaffected as is, I suspect, Blackberry).

After a little checking, the root of the problem seems to be Apple’s desire for a cut of any eBooks purchased through their devices. ZDNet reported that Apple wants 30%, but I have no way of independently verifying that assertion. It sounds like Apple, but that could just be confirmation bias. Yes, I think they make decent-but-way-overpriced products, but their corporate dealings rank them just slightly higher than the Antichrist in my book. Here’s an analogy.

Let’s suppose I own a television and use a cable service for content delivery. Not unlike owning an iPod/iPad and using AT&T/Verizon as the service provider. Now imagine the television manufacturer demanded a percentage of each pay-per-view movie that I purchase using my TV remote. No cut if I pick up the phone and order manually or purchase online; just for stuff purchased with the remote.

About the only mitigating point is that reading on a handheld device of any kind is not the most pleasant experience, so it’s reserved for those times when I don’t have my eReader with me. Consequently, I would have little reason to be making purchases through a handheld. iPad’s reading experience is better and it can be a fully functional eReader, but that still takes me back the analogy. I’m not sure whether to chalk this up to greed or rank stupidity. If memory serves, authors only get somewhere between 10% and 15% of the book’s price unless they’re A-list. Where does Apple get off wanting any cut, much less 30%?

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