We’ve reported on Apple suing Amazon (and Amazon countersuing) for daring to use the term “app store” to describe the application store it is operating for Android devices, including tablets. (Recently, Apple suffered a setback when a judge declined to issue a preliminary injunction to keep Amazon from using the term.) It has also been quibbling with Microsoft over issues to trademark the term in the US. (It already holds it in Europe.) Now Apple has sent a cease-and-desist letter to free Java app repository GetJar, demanding that it stop calling itself “the world’s largest free app store.” GetJar...

CNet reports that the Borders iOS app has removed its e-bookstore browsing feature, in line with the dictates of Apple’s new policy on in-app purchases. However, unlike some of the apps I mentioned in my last post on this issue, Borders doesn’t tell people to go to Borders.com to buy e-books—it tells them to start using the Kobo app instead. The Kobo app still features an e-bookstore link a built-in e-bookstore, though undoubtedly its days are numbered given Apple’s moves to bring all content-based apps into compliance with its guidelines. Last month, we reported that Borders was shifting all...

Although the deadline for iPhone apps to be brought in line with Apple’s new in-app purchase rules recently passed, InfoWorld reports that Apple is still quietly working with developers to bring apps into compliance before the company begins enforcing the restrictions. Under the current form of Apple’s in-app purchase guidelines, apps such as Amazon’s Kindle app can continue allowing users to download externally-purchased content as long as there is no link or button within the app to redirect the iPhone user to the external purchasing source. At the time of the policy's announcement, All...

One of the biggest events in computer gaming last month was the long anticipated launch of Valve’s puzzle game Portal 2. After several months of promotion, including an alternate reality game, Valve's Portal sequel was exactly what's a lot of gamers had been waiting for. And after they finished beating the game—which, like its predecessor, did not take very long—some of them might have been curious exactly how the game came about. Enter game journalist Geoff Keighley. Keighley had written a series of articles called "Final Hours” about the production of various other computer games in the ‘90s and...

Good eReader reports that Entourage has shut down the content store for its Edge dual-screened clamshell e-ink/LCD hybrid e-reader/tablet, and is discontinuing the production of its second-generation Pocket Edge tablet. Perhaps ahead of its time, the tablet was handicapped by a somewhat awkward form factor and an outdated Android 1.6 environment that was incapable of supporting Flash or other modern features. Earlier this month, the Edge hit Woot for $150, a substantial discount over its $400 list price, so perhaps the writing was on the wall. Good eReader reports Entourage is rumored to be working on a “Slate” tablet,...

Consumer Reports has an interview with Jeff Bezos in which he hints at the possibility of an Amazon Android tablet, coyly advising interested parties to “stay tuned.” He did insist that just because the iPad and other tablets are becoming popular solutions for e-reading, it doesn’t mean that the Kindle and other dedicated devices are on the way out. “We will always be very mindful that we will want a dedicated reading device,” he said. “In terms of any other product introductions, I shouldn’t answer.” Bezos noted that whatever Amazon did, it was always...

Reuters reports on a company called Yudu that will supposedly allow magazine publishers to evade the 30% commission on iPhone and iPad media, by allowing publishers to sell issues direct from their websites that can then be downloaded directly onto the device. Yudu claims that Apple has approved its service as complying with app store terms and conditions. I find myself a little skeptical, however. First off, I don’t think Apple is going to go through all the hoopla of imposing a “thou shalt sell through in-app purchase” rule not to enforce it. Second, Apple has not proven itself...

The Wall Street Journal and CNet report that Time and Apple have reached an iPad subscription agreement whereby print subscribers to Time, Sports Illustrated, and Fortune would gain free access to the iPad edition. This deal is the first of its kind that I know of—up to this point, Apple has been firmly opposed to print publications allowing their subscribers free access to iPad editions because it cut Apple out of the 30% fee it got on the electronic editions. The details of the deal don’t seem to be public knowledge, but I would expect it to involve Time...

If the iPad was supposed to be a magic bullet for e-books, why hasn’t iBooks made more of a splash in the e-book market? Jason Bennett asks the question in an entry on Melville House Publishing’s blog, pointing to the much higher Kindle (24%) than iPad 1 (13%) ownership among those waiting in line to buy an iPad 2, and Apple’s overall cageyness about iBooks sales in its quarterly report. Apple certainly hasn’t seen fit to go to some of the lengths Amazon or Barnes and Noble have for providing more avenues of sale for their books. There...

It’s twofer Tuesday! (Well, okay, it’s Tuesday in the mid-Atlantic and eastward, at least). Microsoft’s lawsuit against Barnes & Noble for patent infringement in Android has been rather neatly bookended by another IP infringement lawsuit emerging on the same day in which Microsoft’s closest competitor sues Barnes & Noble’s closest competitor. That’s right, Apple is suing Amazon because Amazon has the temerity to use the name “App Store” for its new Android application service. Jeremy Hill at our sister blog Gamertell seems to find Apple’s decision justifiable: When we hear the term App Store,...

This might just be why I found the HTML5 version of Ibis Reader to run so ungodly slow on my first-generation iPod Touch. The Register has determined that iOS runs web applications significantly slower when they’re launched from the home screen than when they’re accessed from the Safari browser. It’s not clear whether this is intentional or accidental, though plenty of people are quick to assume the worst. [Apple] has a vested interest in its App Store, where it takes a 30 per cent cut of all applications sold, and pure web applications are ultimately a...

Fortune reports Merril Lynch analysts believe that Apple’s new in-app purchase policy could cost Amazon $80 to $160 million per year in lost revenue from Kindle sales. However, on his blog “@chuckdude,” Chuck Toporek writes about why he thinks Amazon isn’t worried over the matter of Apple’s in-app purchasing fee changes. He notes that Amazon has been working on Kindle for the Web, which will soon bring the full text of Kindle e-books to web browsers. The point I’m trying to make here is that the reason we haven’t heard Jeff Bezos screaming about this recent...