gdgt

I don't see how this means they "blinked." Apple is enforcing their anticompetitive rules and Amazon is doing their best to stay on a platform their users want them to be on.

I'm getting really tired of Apple's new strategy for competition. They either sue or do stuff like this. I wouldn't be surprised if the Kindle app sold a significant number of iPads, and now they're making it difficult for those users to use it.

I guess it's Apple's right to do it, but should they?

That's disappointing. It just seems that Apple is slowly constricting developers even more than they already were. This has definitely made for some less intuitive and overall worse apps. I love using the Kindle app to read and get content on any of my devices and it was one of the last apps I used continually on my iPod Touch before I got rid of all my Apple products. Too see good apps getting such a petty downgrade is really disappointing.

This is really bad.

Since mobile is constantly getting more and more important when it comes to computing, it's time to think about how agnostic companies are going to be when it comes to installing programs. For example, despite Windows running most of the world's computers, you don't see Microsoft charging companies a 30% cut of the developers' profits on every program ever written for Windows and I doubt they will anytime soon.

As iOS become more and more like the Windows (in terms of popularity) of the mobile space, they'll just be shooting themselves in the foot by constricting the developers with more rules regarding purchasing content within the apps. Sure, Apple controls the app store and maintains the quality of the apps but Apple still needs to leave some room for the developers to do what they need to do to stay in business.

If developers can't make a profit off their content within their apps because of Apple's rules and they can't sell their app in any other marketplace for iOS, then I think they'll more than likely start developing their apps for another OS like Android or Windows Phone 7.

Honestly, after thinking about it more this has given me pause about whether or not I want to continue to buy into the Apple ecosystem.

I'm more mad about it than I thought I would be. Its really annoying. It's even harder to recommend a friend use the Kindle app of they don't know anything about buying books from the web browser.

It's already jarring enough to have to hit on a link, then go to the website to purchase the book there before returning to the app to read the book. This will only make things worse for non-sanctioned stores, and ultimately for customers.

Ok, so it appears there are two distinct things here that some people are confusing:
1. The 30% cut Apple takes for in-app purchases.
2. The requirement that apps do not link to outside stores (what Dave wrote).

The first really is a non-issue, as that's the industry standard. Google charges this same percentage. Amazon charges this or more on their store.

The second is the one that's annoying and (as far as I know) unique to the App Store.

Well, the App Store is Apple's ballpark. They write the rules, and they can change the rules mid-game. Darned one may be if one were expecting fair play. (see what I did there?)

I'd like to hope Apple will loosen their policy, because this is bad for them. They're not getting the 30% cut they wanted, all that's happened is a bunch of major apps became less intuitive.