
Apple's 30% vig for ebooks just killed the iFlow Reader app - mikecane
https://www.iflowreader.com/Closing.aspx
======
ghshephard
Hopefully every (re)seller on the planet is now aware that they should not
attempt to build a marketplace on the IOS platform without getting a licence
agreement with Apple.

I'm very interested in seeing how Netflix and the Kindle play out on the iPad
though. If Apple gets too agressive in trying to lock down revenues, they may
just end up driving people off their platform on to Google's.

Thank goodness for competition - can you imagine if the iPad was the only
tablet option for the next couple years. At least this way, Apple will have to
exercise some restraint.

~~~
martinkallstrom
Sorry for taking this off topic, but this is the perfect example of a comment
where it would be very interesting to see how many hners that upvoted this
opinion. I was one of them, since I believe it is a preferrable position to
take. But it would be very interesting to see on what magnitude it resonates
with the community as a whole.

Downvotes accepted as retribution for me going meta on this conversation.

~~~
ghshephard
61 points.

I'll admit to having edited it half a dozen times to appropriately capture the
nuances. As a Silicon Valley professional (Started at Netscape in 1996), and a
huge fan of Apple Products (I'm typing this on an MacBook Air in a Redwood
City Coffee Shop, I tracked my workout this morning using GymBuddy on my
iPhone4, and I read Practical Programing for strength training last night on
my iPad2), yet at the same time not unaware of how much damage a Monopolist
can do (I believe that they eventually stifle innovation) I wanted to toe the
fine line between being a hater, a realist, and, because we are on YC,
effectively communicate the market realities of building on someone else's
platform.

I also always keep grellas, patio11, and tptacek in mind when reviewing tone
to keep out snark or discourtesy, and maximizing content.

How's that for Meta. :-)

------
jaysonelliot
I love the convenience of ebooks, but the ease of shenanigans in the
distribution channel and the ability of a customer to lose an entire library's
worth of books over business rules or technical issues distresses me.

When you read a paper book, you can be certain that the content in it is the
same as when it was printed, and hasn't been edited or censored since you
bought it. It can't be taken away from you by the publisher, except by
physical force. You can resell it at will. Publishers and retailers who wants
to try different pricing strategies can do so without facing the powerful
control of Apple or Amazon.

I plan to keep on reading ebooks, but I'll buy the books I actually care about
in physical form.

~~~
danilocampos
Alternatively, buy your eBooks and strip the DRM right off the bat. I'm taking
no chances and I'm sick of heavy boxes when I move.

~~~
spiffworks
Alternatively, pirate everything and laugh all the way to the bank

~~~
berkes
The moment that none-pirated material is

a) accessible and buyable by me (Linux, .nl based) b) at least as easy to find
and get as pirated material

I will immediately buy. In all other situations: I am not going to fiddle with
drm-ripping python scripts, convertors, virtual-machines, geo-ip-faking-
proxies and so on, just to be able to pay for stuff that I can get without all
that hassle for free.

I even track down authors for books I like and wire them the money personally,
if for some reason their publishers hide behind all this DRM nonsense.

~~~
darklajid
The last two sentences seem to contradict each other: You don't want to jump
through hoops but try to track down authors to send them money on a
sidechannel?

In general I'm with you though (Germany, mostly on Linux as well) and I try to
do something similar whenever possible.

------
epistasis
There are two components to this company: an eBook reading app, and a
bookstore. They clearly took much more pride in the app, and that's where they
have true value. With the store they are just middlemen, and though perhaps
they could add value by helping people find they books they'd most enjoy, they
don't seem to be innovating there. In the end their eBooks are just Adobe DRM
protected ePubs.

So monetizing the middlemen part won't work, but aren't there any number of
ways to monetize the reading app part? I, for one, wouldn't mind a flow-based
reader. I've bought eBooks from a few places now, but also hate the page-
turning interface.

This comes across as a stunt to try to change the agency model for book
selling. Good luck on that, though, because now you need to convince both
Apple and all the publishers to give them 20% again. But why would they do
that? Extra middlemen are not going to offer 20% of value in a digital
distribution chain.

~~~
83457
By extra middlemen are you referring to anyone who sells something on an Apple
platform which Apple also sells?

~~~
epistasis
I'm referring to collecting money through Apple's payment system:

Customer --> Apple --> Reseller --> Publisher

as opposed to:

Customer --> Reseller's website --> Publisher.

iFlow says in the linked article this second model is unworkable for them
because iFlow can't get by on 30% of the transaction. iFlow wants 50% like
they were getting before the agency model.

~~~
shod
"iFlow wants 50% like they were getting before the agency model."

You may not have intended this, but that sentence reads as though iFlow is
merely making less money than it wold like. The problem's worse than that.
iFlow would be losing money with each book sold.

iFlow doesn't have the clout to negotiate contracts with individual major
publishers: books are made available through a wholesaler. The wholesaler
distributes the publisher's cut, takes its own, and gives iFlow itself a cut
of _less than_ 30% of the sale price. Since Apple suddenly wants an entire 30%
of the sale price, iFlow would literally be losing money with each transaction
to make up Apple's "cut".

As part of the agency model, all books must be sold at the same retail price,
so iFlow can't simply bump up the price of its books to compensate, either.

~~~
epistasis
iFlow never sold books directly through their app, because the iOS terms never
allowed in-app sales. If iFlow was selling books before, they were doing it
through a website, unless their app was incorrectly approved.

iFlow doesn't need any clout when negotiating a cut, everybody gets the same
deal:

>All sales agents get a 30% commission on the sale of a book. No one gets a
different deal. Prior to the agency model, publishers typically offered
retailers a 50% discount.

Apple only gets a cut if they handle the processing, i.e. sold on iOS. Books
are not a subscription, they can be sold on a website outside of iOS without
restriction.

Am I wrong on any of this? I got downvoted but I'm not sure why.

~~~
nl
_Am I wrong on any of this?_

Yes.

If you sell digital goods for use on an iOS device then you _must_ also offer
them via in-app sales, _for the same price_ as you do elsewhere.

Since their app is only an iOS app, everyone will continue to buy via the in
app purchases even if they did offer it online, and for each of those
purchases they have to pay the Apple tax.

~~~
epistasis
I don't believe that's correct either. I'm guessin your source for Apple's
policy is this:

<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/02/15appstore.html>

But this policy only applies to subscriptions, not to purchases. In
particular:

>Publishers set the price and length of subscription (weekly, monthly, bi-
monthly, quarterly, bi-yearly or yearly).

does not sound like it is in any way compatible with the book world's agency
model.

Edit: found an Ars Technica article here:

[http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/02/apple-responds-
to-...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/02/apple-responds-to-app-store-
furor-says-it-wants-a-cut-of-e-book-sales.ars)

but it seems that this policy was unclear even at the time according to the
terms, and it's certainly not enforced with the Kindle app, so it's unclear
what's going on here.

~~~
danielsoneg
> it seems that this policy was unclear even at the time according to the
> terms

That's pretty much the problem in a nutshell - the policy's unclear, and it's
always unclear until Apple brings the hammer down. Not a good environment in
which to try to build a business.

------
mgkimsal
As much as Apple is problematic here, the "90% of ebooks being controlled by 6
publishers who all fix prices and pricing rules" seem to be at least as big an
issue as well.

I'd think there'd be an opp or two for someone to get in to publishing and
selling _just_ ebooks not owned by the big 6, but that market may be too small
to try to nurture at this point.

~~~
Steko
Honestly what is problematic about Apple here?

I mean if I start selling ebooks in the corner at Starbucks they may tolerate
that but when Starbucks gets into the ebook business there should be a huge
red flag going off telling you that the rules will eventually change: either
they'll disallow my ebook sales or demand a cut.

Another huge red flag is a business model based on buying egoods from a
wholesaler and reselling them in another vendors shop.

Another question: why couldn't they continue as a reader app and a web app
store run by a separate company? (the store licenses the DRM to the reader
company) If the answer is that the business doesn't work without the legion of
customers the app store brings to the door that's another red flag.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
I disagree with your analogy. iOS is not a store. The App Store is a store.
I'd instead make this analogy: The owner of a bookstore is also the mayor of
the town. He enacts a law (via declaration) requiring all bookstores to accept
his bookstore's credit cards (of which he gets 30% of the sell price).

Luck for Apple they aren't dominant in ebooks. If they do the same thing to
iTunes competitors (and it looks like they might), they could be in real
trouble with regulators.

~~~
Steko
Speaking of bad analogies, iOS is not a town that Apple just happened to get
elected mayor of. It's more like Disney World and Apple is Disney. Good luck
starting your business inside Disney World without living by their rules.

------
biot
One word: disintermediation. iFlowReader was acting as an intermediary,
selling a publisher's ebook to a reader and taking 50% of the revenue. Why
should Random House pay someone 50% of the selling cost for doing an arbitrage
play on a bunch of ones and zeros with no additional effort? Random House can
cut out the middle man (who adds no value) and sell it themselves. It's a
smart business move.

Now iFlowReader claims to offer a more compelling interface, so pivot and find
a way to sell the reader software either to end-users who can import their
already-purchased ebooks or license it to the publishers. Offer branded
versions of the software to the publishers if it's that good and charge the
publishers based on a percentage of the gross purchased through the software,
which should be quite easy to track.

~~~
KaeseEs
Except RandomHouse isn't cutting out a middleman here, they're just using a
different one.

~~~
biot
I was of course referring to a middleman between Random House and Apple.
Whether Apple is also a middleman is a different discussion.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
How was iFlow Reader a middle man between Random House and Apple?

~~~
hollerith
In that the owners of IFlow Reader tried to monetize by getting a piece of
every ebook sale, and when that strategy failed, they decided to stop selling
iFlow Reader.

------
GHFigs
tl;dr : retailer's cut under agency model - platform provider's cut of in-app
purchases = 0

The author attributes the agency model to Apple, which I think is understating
the role of the publishers, who would have rejected it if it hadn't been very
much in their own interests. Expecting the publishers to keep giving you
outsized discounts[1] for no reason but inertia was a mistake. Even Amazon
couldn't keep that gravy train rolling. The market was begging for a shaking
and Apple shook.

[1]:Does this sound stable? _"There is no comparison between the retailers’
costs and risks associated with physical books and those associated with
ebooks. There is no economic justification to providing the same level of
discounts. But that’s where we are."_ That's from April 2009. --
[http://www.idealog.com/blog/ideas-triggered-by-amazon-
buying...](http://www.idealog.com/blog/ideas-triggered-by-amazon-buying-
lexcycle)

~~~
mikecane
>>>The author attributes the agency model to Apple

This is because it was Apple that devised the Agency Model and was the first
to propose it to the Big Six publishers as a way of getting them on iOS. This
led to Macmillan battling with Amazon one infamous weekend and had Amazon
retaliate by removing all Buy buttons from Macmillan books. Amazon soon
capitualted, other publishers -- except for Random -- piled on, moving to the
Agency Model. When Random finally joined, all their books went up anywhere
from $2 to over $7 in price.

~~~
GHFigs
_This is because it was Apple that devised the Agency Model and was the first
to propose it to the Big Six publishers as a way of getting them on iOS._

"....which I think is understating the role of the publishers, who would have
rejected it if it hadn't been very much in their own interests."

Apple just gave them a better deal than the one Amazon was willing to fight
dirty to maintain.

------
tsuraan
I've never used the app, but I'm not seeing why their apparently unique
approach to eBooks couldn't run on WebOS, Meego, or Android. I assume there's
a good reason, since you don't throw away years of work easily, but I'd love
to hear what that reason is.

~~~
irons
Build a business on Meego? Are you trolling?

People in these parts honestly believe Android is a hospitable business
environment, but if your business involves selling things, you have to content
yourself with a tiny fraction of iOS's revenue potential. That's why these
guys aren't pivoting. Their business wouldn't have existed in 2011 without
iOS.

~~~
vlucas
I sell an SEO app ( <http://semtab.com> ) on both iOS and Android, and the
Android version is outselling the iOS one by a wide margin. It caught me a bit
off guard because everyone I know keeps repeating that iOS users buy more than
Android ones, but that just hasn't been my experience so far. I even put the
iOS version on sale at $0.99 in hopes to increase purchases, but it is _still_
not resulting in as many purchases as the Android version at the original
$1.99 price.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
You may want to consider a new icon for the iOS app (also, please make sure
you have an @2x variant of it, too).

edit: i've had a couple minutes to try using it.

You may want to consider overhauling the application's user experience. It
doesn't look or 'feel' like a proper iOS app, and I'm guessing that's why the
Android version is outselling the iOS one.

* the icons _really_ need @2x variants.

* The user workflow is brittle, especially given how few view controllers there are, here. I shouldn't be able to choose to look at the 'Web' or 'Social' tabs until I've selected a domain.

* The domain entry experience feels cumbersome. Why is it capitalizing my domain name?

* Why do I delete a domain from the 'Web' and 'Social' tabs, and why isn't there an alert prompt?

Add Domain:

* The navigation bar tint color shouldn't change.

* This should be a modal view controller.

* The text shadow behind the label looks weird.

* The label's text should be something more like: "Domain name:", especially since you already give an example in the text field with its placeholder.

* You should call -becomeFirstResponder on the text field when this view controller appears.

Anyway, I know you didn't ask for any of this, but hopefully it proves helpful
in driving up your sales.

Good luck!

~~~
vlucas
Thanks for the suggestions and critical feedback. This was the first release
that I wanted to get on the app store/market as quickly as possible, so it has
not been perfected yet.

I am aware it doesn't have the best design/UI right now, but that will soon be
corrected in the next release - at least most of your suggestions anyways.

------
daimyoyo
I think the lesson here is never build a business on another companies
platform unless you have rock solid licenses guaranteeing they won't change
the rules like this. Same thing for Twitter or Facebook. They can put you out
of business if they choose to and it's not wise to give another company a kill
switch for your investment.

~~~
biafra
Following your advice no one could develop anything for iOS. Or Android. Or
WebOS. Or any other computing platform. Every platforms vendor could change
the rules your depends on.

~~~
hessenwolf
Or in any legal system (see another of today's posts re changing the rules of
online money transmissions in California).

------
ssebro
This is exactly the reason that I haven't bought an iPad 2- I intend to use it
for the netflix and kindle apps, and I'm not sure if they're still going to be
there in 6 months. For a $500 device, the risk was just too high. I got a
kindle instead, and I just use my laptop for netflix...

~~~
ssebro
Apple needs to realize that their greed may kill their platform. Nobody would
buy an iOS device with no killer apps - especially when android is getting
better every day. As an iOS developer, I fully expect the platform to go the
way of the dinosaurs.

~~~
kovar
What previous similar missteps has Apple made that support your theory?
Apple's been batting well over .500 and their sales and stock price both
indicate appreciation and support.

~~~
te_chris
Yeah, they're doing great, but you can't backup your theory with two measures
that are heavily dependent on past results. If you think Apple are going to
keep doing as well as they are now in the face of some pretty ferocious
competition then you can't just cite current sales and stock price.

------
inkaudio
I wonder why so many publishers and resellers insist on building only native
apps. With the current technology you could invest in a web app that is cross
platform. DRM can be cracked and it's just an annoyance to people who want to
pay for content.

However, if you insist on developing commercial apps on the IOS platform than
you have to realize that sooner or later Apple will want a cut. In business
their is no free lunch, people/companies always want something in return.

Google is no different, see:
[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/05/google_skyhook_case_...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/05/google_skyhook_case_goes_on/)

 _A Massachusetts court has denied Google's efforts to dismiss a hot-button
lawsuit that accuses the company of unfairly using its Android operating
system to strong-arm mobile handset makers into using Google location services
rather than those of rival Skyhook._

 _The suit specifically claims that Andy Rubin, who oversees Google's Android
project, told Motorola co-CEO Sanjay Jha that if Motorola didn't drop Skyhook
from its phones, Google would remove official Android support from the
devices. This would mean the devices could not use proprietary Google apps or
the Android name. The suit says that whereas Google paints Android as open
source, Google still maintains exclusive oversight of the OS._

This may be even worse if entirely factual, because Google doing the exact
opposite of what it claims to be.

------
jacobian
The link's plenty interesting, but next time please try to avoid
editorializing in the title. A "vig" is the cut taken by a loan shark or
bookie and has strong connotations of crime and dishonesty (at least in the
US). Apple's not breaking any laws here (right?) so calling it a "vig" is
pretty far off base.

~~~
mikecane
"Vig" was famously used by Nathan Myhrvold in an internal memo to Bill Gates
in which he proposed a structure whereby Microsoft could obtain a portion of
content transactions that occur on the Internet. He used the term "vig" and
it's appropriate here. [http://mikecanex.wordpress.com/2011/02/01/the-day-
apple-beca...](http://mikecanex.wordpress.com/2011/02/01/the-day-apple-became-
nathan-myhrvold/)

------
robert_nsu
I'm not sure how much money they have made over the time before Apple imposed
a 30% fee on book sales and the like, but I fail to see why they couldn't port
their app to another platform. You know, instead of kicking the sand around
and calling it quits.

------
kleptco
When you decide to develop for a platform, you are dependent on the platform
provider's goodwill if they are not open source.

Why would anyone who has paid any attention to Apple, depend on their
goodwill?

------
senthilnayagam
Badmouthing iOS platform and appstore policies wont help.

They knew the risk when the appstore was launched, the only exit strategy was
acquisition by a established publisher or seller, which did not materialize.

Apple is a thought leader, Android and others just copy their policies, so
expecting the margins on other platform is not viable on longer term.

If I was CEO of iFlowReader I would retune the business models for current
realities, tying up with self book publisher like lulu, xlibris, who can offer
50% margins on ebook sales.

------
axxl
Out of curiosity, why can't they have it as a reader of books that you
download on your computer and transfer over via iTunes/any local area network.
I admit this is not what they wanted most likely, but they could look into
developing applications for Android devices and such as well that allowed
royalty-free purchase in an application. As an iOS developer myself, I
_believe_ this would bypass the restriction, but I don't know for sure.

~~~
virmundi
The problem is that this is not the model that is the most hip. What an
iDevice user wants is one click purchase to download system. Apple knows this
and knows that requiring such would defeat their competition.

~~~
axxl
Valid point I guess. I also wonder how a company like Amazon handles this
situation.

~~~
jonknee
Jeff calls Steve and they trade curses and laughs until coming to an agreement
and handing off the details to VPs.

------
nextparadigms
The biggest problem I see with this is Apple won't even allow them to raise
prices. So they are knowingly taking them out of the business when they take
their 30% cut. If they are going to charge 30% for this, they might as well
allow them to raise prices to remain profitable.

Why aren't these service companies switching to a HTML5 web app though?
Wouldn't that allow them to continue their business untouched by Apple?

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Untouched by Apple and untouched by customers...

You're talking about a company that named itself using Apple's product naming
convention. They went all-in on the iOS model. They probably hired strictly
ObjC programmers, they probably have no business experience with the web
either. I'm not saying they couldn't switch, it just doesn't sound like this
is the company with the chops to easily do so.

~~~
nextparadigms
OK, that makes sense. But if Apple does the same to Amazon or Netflix I can
see them going the web app route if they are not allowed to raise prices,
because it would eat all their profits, too. Amazon has already showed a web
app version of their store, and Netflix is experienced with HTML5, too.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Amazon was working on the HTML5 version well before this decision came about
(they previewed it during the Chrome Web Store launch). What they showed
doesn't looked optimized for touch use. That could change, of course. I
imagine their strategy is to stay quiet and hope Apple doesn't go after them;
and when/if that happens they'll adjust. They _could_ be one of the few
companies capable of eating the cost to stay on the platform but that would
mean strengthening a direct competitor. I'm very interested to see how they
handle it.

As for Netflix.. if you're talking about their HTML5 player that was in the
news a few days ago to be on Chrome OS, that requires a plugin. <video>
doesn't support DRM -- and never will/can. I think Netflix may be the one
company that is given an exception due to their influence over Apple TV sales.

------
Tyrannosaurs
Why should I be that bothered about this?

As a consumer I want less people between me and the actual producer of the
work so another intermediary going out of business bothers me not at all.

My ideal world is that I buy a novel direct from an author, perhaps paying a
small commission to a single intermediary. Author to publisher to iFlow to
Apple to me isn't efficient.

Yes there is an issue here with how Apple and the publishers behave but there
is also a significant issue with how much value iFlow were adding in exchange
for their cut. A slightly different (maybe better) reader simply isn't worth
the 30% they seem to be planning on.

~~~
user24
As a consumer why would you care about the route content takes from producer
to consumer? The only thing that matters is the content and how you consume
it. If iFlow offered a better way to consume it then you should be happy to
get it from them, and sad that you can no longer.

I really don't see where 'efficiency' comes into it?

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
My point is that for a business to work the value you add must be in some way
proportional to the money you make - if it's not you're going to be vulnerable
and that's what happened here. I don't care about efficiency as a consumer but
I recognise that if a business is making a transaction less efficient while
adding little actual benefit that's likely (not certainly but likely) to be a
problem for them.

In essence the iFlow USP seems to be their reader app - everything else was
being done by someone else either the same or better. How is that seriously
going to a warrant 30% cut (which is what they were getting from the
publishers) in the face of greater choice and likely better prices from Amazon
and Apple?

Selling books from large scale conventional publishers is a bulk market right
now and if you can't answer the question "how do I compete with Amazon?"
you're in trouble and "a nice reader app" simply isn't a good answer.

------
michaelcampbell
I found it interesting (perhaps ironic), that that blog post, from a company
who is in the ebook business, whose very domain is "iflowreader.com", doesn't
flow the text to a narrow browser. It was unreadable on my handset due to the
horizontal scrolling required, and I got horizontal scrollbars when I resized
the PC browser to smaller than its width.

------
richcollins
Apple is doing the job of the publishers (marketing). If anything the
publishers should reduce the amount that _they_ take.

------
9999
Correct me if I'm wrong, but couldn't they do what Amazon does and just
redirect the user to Safari for purchasing books? I suppose that's a very
small inconvenience compared to iBooks' direct purchase, but I find it worth
the tradeoff to have my purchases available on more devices.

~~~
rcoder
This "loophole" was closed by Apple during the last round if App Store
approval rule changes back in December of last year. The Kindle app seemingly
gets a pass, but a number of other applications have been rejected since then.

~~~
eob
The inconsistencies in enforcement that appear, time and again, to give a free
pass to heavyweight competitors have to be breaking a law somewhere.

Isn't this what racketeering and monopoly laws are supposed to prevent? If any
lawyers are on this thread, it would be great to hear their input on this.

~~~
msbarnett
I'm not sure what they'd be violating. Stores obviously have a right to decide
what products they will sell, and to forge different deals with different
vendors.

Should Wal-Mart be forced to carry my self-published book because they carry
some Random House best sellers?

------
alanhooker70
<a href="[http://www.wristwatchreplicas.com/paul-picot-wristwatch-
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------
comex
They should wait until June 30th and see what happens between Apple and
Amazon.

------
jimrandomh
Have you consulted with any lawyers? You might have legal redress against
Apple. (Or you might not, depending on details of the Sherman Antitrust Act
and other laws with which I am not sufficiently familiar.)

------
nnutter
Their aesthetics are bad and their iTunes ratings are low. Pretty sure they
would have lost to Kindle, iBooks, Nook, etc. anyway.

------
andrewcooke
[mike, if you're the author, you've got a grammatical/cut+paste mixup: "The
first of this letter part"]

~~~
mikecane
I am not associated with iFlow Reader.

------
dusklight
To all developers who own apple products .. why? Seriously?

It's like jews cheering for the nazis. I don't understand?

------
trezor
As a iPhone-user gone Android, I can't wait to see all the awesome services
which will be coming my way as Apple makes iOS an unfeasible platform to build
on.

So far their greed has been tolerated due to an early iOS lead on app-
profitability. Now that the iPhone is getting (severely) dated with next to no
advantages to bolster, and with Android overtaking iOS in every way (including
the one which counts: marketshare) I can't see this holding up for very long.

Soon enough enough people will say "Fuck Apple" and just head to Android,
leaving iOS as a niché market. Why develop for 10% of the world's smartphones
when you could be doing 80%? Even if Android customers were 400% less willing
to buy apps (and no, no current market trends indicate that is the case),
Android would still be more profitable to developers.

Apple is doing some serious gambling here, and I honestly don't think it will
play out to their advantage.

~~~
pseudonym
The problem is that it's not an if-else scenario with Apple and Android. Right
now Apple is booting _developers_ out with their restrictions, and in this
case, the developer is making the same app as Apple has for free (iBooks). And
if there's not sufficient Android users to make developing this app for the
Android worth doing, then the developer isn't going to swap platforms, they'll
just pack up and go home.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see more Android developers. I just don't
think it's very likely until and unless Android picks up more steam...and that
probably won't happen until the Android App store is as saturated in iOS's.

------
GrandMasterBirt
BOO FREAKETY HOO. They put all their eggs in apple's basket. Sorry dudes, bad
strategy.

~~~
kjksf
So what exactly do you propose?

That every developer simultaneously develops for iPhone, Android, Windows
Phone, WebOS, Blackberry, Meego?

Developers aren't so cavalier as you about suggesting that you port your code
to multiple platforms because we do know how much time, effort and platform-
specific knowledge it takes to build a decent app.

Many iPhone, Android, Windows Phone apps are written by single developers that
can't take 6 months per platform to learn how to code for it.

For most of us making a bet on single platform is the only viable strategy.

Bad strategy? Maybe. The only one possible? Unfortunately.

You would be pissed off too if your business failed not because the owner of
the platform you bet on built a better product than you (and with their money,
teams of programmers, marketing and ability to advertise to users of that
platform they do have a huge advantage) but because they just used their
monopolistic control over their platform to set business terms that are
unheard of on other similar platforms and kill your business without them
needing to lift a competitive finger.

I'm sure you'll tell me that Apple has the right to screw everyone on their
platform and if I don't like it, I should just use another platform.

And that's exactly what I'm hoping people will do once they realize that Apple
not only has the power to screw their developers and their users but is
actually screwing them, as this on-going saga of 30% monopoly tax on content
sales shows.

~~~
senthilnayagam
"Five of us spent nearly a year and a half of our lives and over a million
dollars in cash and sweat equity developing the iFlowReader app"

if they were serious about the risking all their eggs in same basket, they
could have used consultants/outside developers to port their app to other
platforms with less than 10% of the said investment

~~~
djloche
Note that they state both cash and sweat equity of one million+.

Between five people and 1.5 years, a million dollars in sweat equity for
developers is probably understated. They invest the time & skills (that they
could have been using to freelance or consult for others) into their own
company. Some people would consider this 'free' - but it's not free, the
opportunity cost is still there. When you're closing shop without a gain, you
are going to start looking back and counting all those lost opportunities in
terms of dollars.

------
marcamillion
This is sad...but it has a very self-pittyish tone, which makes it come across
as annoying. Like the brat at the party that everybody wants to smack.

