For the first time ever, Amazon Kindle users on iOS can tap a button to buy books
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As a long-time android user, it surprised me when I first saw that Kindle purchases couldn't be made in their iOS apps. That's been a core feature of the Amazon's Kindle apps for android since they started offering these apps.
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It looks like Tim Cook and his henchman made a poor strategic decision to try and skate around the first lost lawsuit, by playing games with fees and essentially negating any ill monetary effects of that judgment.
Now those ill-advised chickens are coming home to roost.
Apple's lawyers probably (I assume) advised Apple to play it honestly - or at least they should have - but Tim thought he could bluff and finesse.
Too bad for Apple. When you play high stakes games, you occasionally lose.
Now those ill-advised chickens are coming home to roost.
Apple's lawyers probably (I assume) advised Apple to play it honestly - or at least they should have - but Tim thought he could bluff and finesse.
Too bad for Apple. When you play high stakes games, you occasionally lose.
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I find it interesting that the change seems to apply only to the US, considering that Apple is facing regulatory challenges in the EU and other places too.
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Yeah, I still just jump to Safari and an Amazon.com page, just in case the price might be lower...
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The trouble for Apple would seem to be that their argument is least compelling in the cases when there is most money on the table.
If you are just some rando it's probably worth what Apple charges to possibly be visible and be able to get paid by users who would never bother to set up an account with you or give you their payment information. Of course, if you are just some rando, odds are excellent(though not quite perfect) that Apple's cut of the action isn't going to be wildly exciting.
If you are Amazon or Genshin Impact or Epic, or patreon, or whatever, though, people have heard of you, quite possibly already have accounts with payment information set up with you. Apple's payment processing is slick; but much less likely to be 15-30% worth of slick; and that's where the reliable money is.
If you are just some rando it's probably worth what Apple charges to possibly be visible and be able to get paid by users who would never bother to set up an account with you or give you their payment information. Of course, if you are just some rando, odds are excellent(though not quite perfect) that Apple's cut of the action isn't going to be wildly exciting.
If you are Amazon or Genshin Impact or Epic, or patreon, or whatever, though, people have heard of you, quite possibly already have accounts with payment information set up with you. Apple's payment processing is slick; but much less likely to be 15-30% worth of slick; and that's where the reliable money is.
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That's not true. The Kindle app on my Android phone still allows me to buy books directly within the app.
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Just had a look on mine and I can't buy in the app due to "Google Play store policies". Perhaps it's a regional thing? I'm in the UK.
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Must be a UK thing, in US you can definitely purchase through the Kindle Android app.
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Regardless of what happens, if Apple wins on appeal and reverts all of this, it's going to become increasingly obvious to people generally that they're not the good guys here. Sure, they may not be as predatory as Google and Facebook, but a $3 trillion corporation isn't your friend just because they don't sell all of your data to advertisers.
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It's hard to say Apple has been loosing though, right? They're not exactly teetering on the brink of insolvency. This is not even a drop in the bucket. I'd like to see some real penalties come from this: like refunding the 30% they've been scraping from the App Store since the ruling was made. That is at least a drop in the bucket.
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I 100% agree that there should be major penalties like you're arguing, but I also think that going forward this is an absolutely enormous problem for them that most observers (and investors) have yet to appreciate fully.
The Cook strategy for Apple is services revenue. He's reaffirmed that over and over again, and honestly while it's a little depressing, he's probably right. It's extraordinarily unlikely that Apple will have another hit product like the iPhone. That's not a knock on Apple specifically; it's just reality. Even with Steve Jobs in charge, the iPhone was unlike anything Apple had done before and vaulted them from an also-ran computer company to a colossus. To maintain a $3T valuation, the company needs to continue to find ways to extract value from that signature product, and what Cook settled on was, basically, figuring out how to take a 30% cut of Candy Crush whales' spend in perpetuity..
It's a big deal if that turns out to be over. That's not to say that Apple is "crushed" or anything, but it does mean that their valuation becomes a bit more questionable and that shareholders are going to be pressuring the company to send them some of that cash hoard as opposed to justifying the price based on future revenue growth. Flops like the Vision Pro will become existential again (like the Lisa was in the old days) as opposed to almost irrelevant experiments. That's almost certainly good overall---if there were a stick to spur innovation in Cupertino as opposed to just the carrot we'd all benefit---but it's rough times for leadership there.
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I wholeheartedly agree with you, and thank you for spelling it out so well. I would STILL like to see some meaningful payouts from Apple, and direct that money to the people who were most affected: the consumers.
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A win for the good apps (and probably also a win for bad apps that might try to steal info, etc).
Happy on the kindle front but I’ve also gotten so used to just go straight to Amazon website for the book.
Happy on the kindle front but I’ve also gotten so used to just go straight to Amazon website for the book.
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FWIW, I did like the Apple way because it showed all subscriptions in one place with easy cancellation and renewal.
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This article leaves out the high likelihood that Apple will make significant changes to the App Store that will endanger the whole “freemium” model, where the app is free to try and then you in app purchase for full functionality.
After the court decision, Apple is in the position of potentially losing all of its app revenue—why wouldn’t purchasable apps switch to freemium to take advantage of the reduced cut of an external payment provider?
I don’t see them supporting this world for very long, when they could start charging by download, or hosting fees for high volume apps, or simply wiping out free commercial apps.
Unrelated but another interesting side effect is that app revenue will suddenly become much more opaque, since it all won’t be forced through the relatively easy to monitor App Store.
After the court decision, Apple is in the position of potentially losing all of its app revenue—why wouldn’t purchasable apps switch to freemium to take advantage of the reduced cut of an external payment provider?
I don’t see them supporting this world for very long, when they could start charging by download, or hosting fees for high volume apps, or simply wiping out free commercial apps.
Unrelated but another interesting side effect is that app revenue will suddenly become much more opaque, since it all won’t be forced through the relatively easy to monitor App Store.
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That is quite valuable to me as an average customer. I wonder if there is a way for Apple to still be able to show subs there while still complying with this ruling.
Admittedly that section on my device only shows a few of my subs because most of my subs were cheaper direct from the company instead of going through Apple (or just not available via Apple).
In the very unlikely case that Apple allows both cheap subs direct plus better tracking of direct subs, that’d be a clear win-win.
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Opened Kindle on my phone, it also allow in-app purchases.
I wonder if there's some divide, whether regional or maybe manufacturer? I'm in the US, not sure about fnuckles.
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You have the choice though - you COULD subscribe through Apple, and pay a higher amount so that they're there for you. You've chosen not to, so it's probably not "quite valuable". You probably save $20-$40 a month by subscribing directly? While that's not nothing, it's not a ton in modern times. Does it have value to have everything in one place, for sure.
Apple probably would have been able to have kept their policy if the policy was "you can give the option to buy from you or from us, and explain why it's different, including the following "If you use Apple to pay, your information stays with only Apple and not the vendor, and all your transactions and subscriptions will be in one place"
but the whole "you can't even whisper they could get it cheaper some other way" is what did them in, I think
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Looks like it changed in November in the US.
https://goodereader.com/blog/kindle/you-can-now-buy-kindle-books-on-kindle-for-android
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Really good analysis here. Thanks!
FWIW, Apple already have been sending them some of that cash horde, in the form of stock buybacks, for over a decade. In 2024, they bought back nearly $100 billion in stock; since they started in 2013 they've bought back $775 billion. It's a mindbogglingly huge amount.
Chart from https://www.financecharts.com/stocks/AAPL/cash-flow/repurchase-of-capital-stock
(I'm skeptical of stock buybacks as anything but a tax dodge, but that's neither here nor there. It is a way of giving money to investors who want to cash out, and increases share value for the rest.)
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If several hardware problems and extremely high prices do not keep people away from Apple products I don't think this really changes things. At most it will raise awareness for Iphone users they can save money buying digital stuff using their web browser instead of the App in their phone.
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Apple kept all of that money for themselves too y'know.
Corporations are not your friend, including Apple.
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I would argue that the remaining people that think Apple are the good guys are the total fan boys or those that are not the sharpest thinkers lol
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Yeah, I was afraid (and expected) that Apple would limit these changes to the US. My Canadian Kindle app still doesn't include the new "Get Book" button.
I buy a tonne of Kindle books, and the whole 'see a book I want to buy in the kindle app, go to the browser, search for kindle books, click the link and hope it doesn't open the amazon app which also won't allow you to buy kindle books, go back to the browser and try a different search result until you find one that doesn't kick you into the amazon app' dance is absolutely maddening every time.
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It already has.
"The update, rolling out now, allows Spotify to advertise cheaper prices to US users outside the app."
https://www.theverge.com/news/660084/spotify-app-iphone-apple-update-external-payment-links
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Yes, so this change will just make it so every app will want to have your credit card number and a separate account with them, but will not save anyone money.
Yay, I guess?
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You couldn’t sign up within the app at all, so that article title doesn’t make any sense. He price didn’t change at all.
Edit: Spotify hasn’t allowed iOS users to pay in app since 2016: https://meincmagazine.com/gadgets/201...etitive-behavior-after-app-update-is-blocked/ Spotify did have a higher price for in-app purchases back then. When Apple disallowed that, Spotify just removed in-app purchases all together. The only change now is that Spotify is allowed to put a link to their website in the app now. Nothing is cheaper then it was yesterday.
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Thank heavens this change happened! I was beginning to worry that Amazon’s share of the ebook market would collapse. This will really help them compete.
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InfiniteJester
Ars Centurion
That’s the best joke of all. Big app developers know what the market will support price wise and have little incentive to lower prices just because they are moving off the pay mechanism to some other entity.
95% of the money goes from Apple to big developers, 4% of it goes to advertising lower prices, 1% of goes to actual lower prices—I’d bet money on it.
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ConnertheCat
Ars Centurion
I look forward to the run around for canceling in app subscriptions that the likes of the NYTimes and others do going forward.
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InfiniteJester
Ars Centurion
You can call me a fanboy if you want, but having my apps and their subscriptions all in one place is worth it to me.
Any app that doesn’t include a “stay here and pay here” option is probably not for me. (Yes even at a premium. How much of a premium? Guess we’ll find out!)
(It’s not like I use all that many apps to begin with so I’m probably not the likeliest customer profile.)
Any app that doesn’t include a “stay here and pay here” option is probably not for me. (Yes even at a premium. How much of a premium? Guess we’ll find out!)
(It’s not like I use all that many apps to begin with so I’m probably not the likeliest customer profile.)
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