Wednesday, February 02, 2011

iPhone app store, Amazon Kindle: Why e-book sellers should stop playing by Apple's rules. - By Farhad Manjoo - Slate Magazine

Excerpt from a timely Apple reality check

That's bad news for Amazon, which has made iPhone and iPad compatibility the centerpiece of its Kindle strategy. It's also bad news for all of us who'd assumed that Apple would be totally fine letting users bypass its store if we wanted to use our iPhones and iPads as e-readers. Stupid us! In the long run, though, I wonder if Apple's e-book restrictions might end up improving our devices by revealing—once and for all—the downside of the app-store model. Anyone selling "content" for mobile devices—books, games, movies, songs, magazine articles, anything—should be wary of Apple's motives here: The company seems unlikely to rest until it gets a cut of every transaction. Lucky for all of us, there's a perfectly good alternative to the App Store. It's called the Web, and Apple doesn't own it (yet).

iPhone app store, Amazon Kindle: Why e-book sellers should stop playing by Apple's rules. - By Farhad Manjoo - Slate Magazine

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