Remember my concern that Apple’s new rules for in-app purchases might imperil e-book reader apps other than its own iBooks? It looks like the process may be beginning. Sony has been trying to bring a Sony Reader e-book app to the iPhone (only arriving about three years late to the party—seriously, why did they wait this long?), but Apple has told them nothing doing. Sony writes on its e-book store site:
Unfortunately, with little notice, Apple changed the way it enforces its rules and this will prevent the current version of the Reader™ for iPhone® from being available in the app store. We opened a dialog with Apple to see if we can come up with an equitable resolution but reached an impasse at this time. We’re exploring other avenues to bring the Reader experience to Apple mobile devices. We know that many of you are eagerly awaiting the application and we appreciate your continued patience.
The New York Times and 9 to 5 Mac are taking much the same tack as I did in my earlier post: might this spell trouble for Kindle, Nook, etc.? But at Technologizer, Harry McCracken suggests that this may be much ado about nothing. He points out those other news sources have it that the rejection seems to revolve around the idea of “in-app purchases”—that is, that the Sony Reader app was trying to offer an in-app purchase ability, rather than redirecting customers to an external web store where they could buy content. As we noted last year, the Amazon Kindle app was also rejected until it removed its own in-app purchase ability.
The e-reading apps that are already in the App Store don’t permit in-app purchases of books, either. If Sony submitted a Reader app with in-app book buying and was refused admittance to the App Store, it’s only being required to play by the same rules as other e-book merchants. (Apple itself offers iBooks, which offers in-app book-buying.)
He does admit that it’s still possible Apple could be changing the rules to define linking to an external website from within the app as an “in-app purchase” ability, and if that’s the case he would be very upset and end up having to switch to a different phone. But Apple has declined to comment on the reasoning behind the rejection, so it could be a while before we understand exactly what is going on.
Update: Ars Technica’s coverage suggests that Apple has indeed said e-book apps can’t download content purchased elsewhere, in addition to not allowing in-app purchases. If true, this would definitely imperil every other e-book app on the iPhone. However, in the follow-up discussion thread, someone posts information suggesting that the problem is in the methods Sony is using, not the actual practice.
Sony simply needs to make simple changes: use the file system, allow book migration between devices, and stop using a directly connected 3rd party payment system. If they do as Amazon and BnK [sic] anlready [sic] do, it will get approved, and apple still gets $0 from each book sale.
As an aside, isn’t it a bit ironic that Sony’s being locked out of someone else’s platform when another division of the company is trying to do the same to Playstation users? And meanwhile, Sony continues to insist people use its own proprietary memory card standard, at least for some devices (the Sony Reader accepts SD cards), instead of joining the SD card party of the rest of the industry.
(Found via Engadget.)
Late to the game and they do not even learn from other people’s mistakes. Why do they bother?
Given Sony’s propensity to obtuseness I’m not surprised that they are having problems. Also, their Android app isn’t the greatest either. I’ve been waiting since it came out to be able to read all my books on it. So far, the CS department in Central America seem to be unable to resolve the problem. Not impressed by Sony at all. They need a change of management + a new outlook. And for heaven’s sake get an ereader out there for Canadians with Wi-fi on it. Even Kobo did this. Losing hope by the second.
As you note, a big question is how “in-App purchase” is defined. Currently, apps can “contain” web browser windows, and it would be untenable for Apple to attach to commerce inside such a window. But with HTML5, the content in such a window can look very much like activity anywhere else in the app. So while there may be a line to draw in the app code, the UI line can quickly be erased.
This is a slippery slope.
Yeah, I can’t access my Sony books via their Android app either. Still, Apple doesn’t impress, with their draconian and restrictive trade practices. 1984 indeed !
“Apple doesn’t impress, with their draconian and restrictive trade practices”
Yeah, We must hate on Apple at all cost. When we see iBooks or iTunes access on a Kindle or a Sony or a Nook you let us know OK.
This is all just part of the development process of a new technology ironing itself out.
Sony don’t allow Apple do anything on their devices does it ? so the criticism of Apple by borax99 is disingenuous.
There is no doubt that Apple are controlling. I love that as an Apple user. It keeps the iOS secure, efficient and smooth working. It’s the best there is for a reason. I am sure that like in other areas, these issues will sort themselves out over the next 6 months and there’s no need for anyone to get their nose out of joint over it.
Teddypig and Howard, you guys are missing the fact that Apple won’t allow Sony or Barnes & Noble or Microsoft to support iBooks or iTunes. Apple refuses to license Fairplay (Apple’s custom DRM) to any third party.
And Howard, this isn’t keeping the OS secure, efficient, or smooth. It is purely a business arrangement. Apple got to the top by offering a better product, but it is difficult to argue that they aren’t abusing that position to bully people and company’s into accepting non-traditional arrangements.
Sony will easily weather the storm of this rejection, but many entrepreneurial startups like BeamItDown Software, which is a small developer can potentially have its business obliterated overnight after spending over a million bucks developing an ereader app and bookstore for iOS. We don’t sell TV’s or anything else. There is really no fallback for us. Apple can kill us or any other developer, for that matter, with a click of the mouse. Our employees could be out on the street looking for jobs tomorrow. We find this to be quite chilling.
When we first embarked on this development effort, we specifically asked Apple for guidance on purchasing of digital content. We submitted wireframe diagrams to Apple showing exactly how we would build our bookstore. (This was while, unknownst to us they were developing iBooks, but before it was released). The guidance we got was that in-app purchases of digital content were OK if it involved the purchase of content that could be purchased and/or consumed elsewhere as well, meaning that it is not usable just by your iOS app such as an enhancement to a game app. Ebooks in the portable epub format, which can be read on a hundred other devices certainly met this criterion so we proceeded with confidence. Just to be safe, we jumped from our app to Safari to process the financial transaction because Apple had already approved many other eBook apps that did purchases this way. A year or so later in November 2010, we released our iFlow Reader app and Apple approved it. Two months later the rules have changed again and our future is uncertain. According to Apple spokesperson Trudy Muller:
“We have not changed our developer terms or guidelines. 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.”
It all sounds so reasonable, but it is not even remotely so. When Apple went into the eBook business, it convinced 5 of the top six publishers to adopt what they call the “agency model”. Several more have since gone along with Apple’s requirement. In this model, the publisher becomes the retailer of record and sellers like Amazon, Apple, and iFlow Reader are agents who get a commission. (This, by the way, is why you now have to pay sales taxes on many books and why some books are priced exactly the same in every store) All the publishers fix that commission at 30% and unless you are dealing directly with the publishers, you will also forfeit another 10% to a wholesaler. This means that we would have to sell ebooks for 40% more than Apple to make the same profit. Bad, but it gets worse. The in-app purchase mechanism was designed to allow developers to sell enhancements like new game levels for their apps. A typical developer might have a small handful of offerings. Each one has to be entered manually into the iTunes Connect forms individually. This is completely impractical with hundreds of thousands of items. And it gets even worse… Like most independent booksellers, we currently get most of our books through a wholesaler. We get these books already encrypted with a specific users Adobe ID. There is no mechanism whatsoever in place to provide this content in a form that would be compatible with in-app purchase so even if we had the resources to enter hundreds of thousands of titles manually into iTunes Connect, the content is just not available to us in the appropriate form. The bottom line is that if Apple enforces this “rule”, we are toast. And our employees can go home. We are apparently just one Cupertino keystroke away from non-existence.
We have very ambitious plans for the iFlow Reader. We believe that being by being truly innovative and producing the best ereader product, we can build a viable business. In a world of mediocre, me-too ereader apps, we tried to do something truly exceptional. We think that we succeeded and now offer what we think is the best ereader app available on any platform. Our users seem to agree. Apple, on the other hand, has decided to compete by breaking out the 1984 sledgehammer again. But this time it is not the little guy swinging at the Man. This time Apple is the Man and it is swinging its mighty hammer at all of us by stifling entrepreneurship and innovation in the ebook business.
The eBook form offers a staggering potential for innovation and we are at the very beginning of its development cycle. The Kindle is essentially the Model T of ereaders. iBooks is not much more. Much like the Model T looked to the horse and carriage for its design sensibilities, the Kindle, iBooks, and most of the current crop of ereaders have their design sensibilities rooted in the paper books of the past, not the truly digital books of the future. This innovation, if it comes, will not come from sledgehammer wielding behemoths like Apple and it will not come from the publishers who are even more locked into the paper books of the past. It will come from the same sort of entrepreneurs that created Apple in the first place. It’s too bad that they have forgotten who they were.
I am not missing a dang thing.
Kindle Sony and nook is never going to allow each others drm to work in their ebook readers any more than apple is going to continue to give them a free ride.
apple is saying you want to play and use our infrastructure to sell on then you have to pay.
The nook already supports “Sony’s” DRM … and Sony would, too, if they ever bothered to update their products. I also find it difficult to call this a “free ride”; Sony, Amazon, and hundreds of other developers have helped promote and develop Apple’s platform.
Dennis’ comment above, and I don’t doubt it, is enlightening in that it confirms that Apple isn’t even set up to make this type of transition yet.