

RIP Pandora, Kindle on the iPhone - abraham
http://whydoeseverythingsuck.com/2011/02/rip-pandora-kindle-on-iphone-and-many.html

======
teilo
I really think there is some valid anti-trust possibilities here. It is one
thing to require apps to be vetted - but to demand that 100% of all _content_
is subject to an Apple Tax, even though it never touches any Apple assets at
all?

One could argue that since Apple must provide storage, infrastructure, and
man-hours for all the apps that are purchased for iOS devices, that they are
well within their rights to take a cut of App purchases. But what
justification do they have for demanding the same regarding content consumed
by said apps? They do not store the content. They do not filter the content.
They do not provide the bandwidth that delivers the content. They are not
liable for what the content itself is. What _possible_ justification could
they have for doing this?

This is very nearly the same as saying that Sony should get a cut of all ad
revenue for anything viewed on their TVs.

~~~
w1ntermute
> I really think there is some valid anti-trust possibilities here.

Except Apple doesn't have anywhere near the market share needed for the legal
definition of "trust".

~~~
cgranade
Not in general, no, but they do have quite enough market share in some niche
markets, such as smartphone apps. I think that is sufficient to spark anti-
trust suits in many jurisdictions.

------
lukifer
I'm gonna take a wild guess at what's going to happen:

\- If you're an existing, popular service on iOS, you get grandfathered in,
and you get to keep your current way of doing things so long as you don't rock
the boat.

\- If you are a new application/service, you have to pay 30%. No workarounds,
no exceptions.

My theory is this: if Apple tightly enforces the policy on services customers
already know and love, at least some will be forced to remove their offerings
from iOS. Existing users are disappointed, and are now (a) upset with Apple,
and (b) incentivized to go buy an Android.

On the other hand, if a service is small and not yet widespread, most users
won't be disappointed if that service can't afford to put itself on the
iPhone, and there are plenty of other apps/services to choose from, so no
incentive to leave the iOS walled garden.

~~~
randall
Yeah, I had been semi-ok with it till now. Now, I realize a lot of these
companies really can't make the 30% work.

I wonder if they could just make it as a "consumption only" device... like
don't have a link to get a new customer, only allow people to subscribe
through the web.

~~~
lukifer
> only allow people to subscribe through the web

My understanding is that the terms of the App Store explicitly forbid this.

------
Flemlord
Coming soon: Kindle for the Web (Beta)

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000579091)

Looks like it was made for touch devices. I wonder if Amazon's about to pull
their Kindle app.

~~~
j2d2j2d2
That would destroy its portability.

~~~
bryanlarsen
They'd just use HTML5 caching to provide the portability.

~~~
j2d2j2d2
If the plan is indeed to ditch the app approach, I would be very surprised.
Html5 does not offer the same reliability as a native app at this time.

It could happen down the line with a solid web experience as the starting
point.

------
mellinwood
Fair/unfair, whatever.

This move immediately makes many subscription billing models that touch iOS
uneconomical. You can't give up 30% of what you bill your customers in
perpetuity. The long-established economic model for customer acquisition is to
pay a cost of customer acquisition, and then you have a calculation to
determine time to customer profitability. You have to have some astonishing
margins to be able to give away 30% FOREVER to Apple and make that work. I
can't imagine it works for Netflix--I think they are paying ~$60 per customer
and probably seeing profitability in 6-12 months. Can they really have margins
great enough for them to justify participating in a market with rents like
this?

I suppose another way to see it is that these customers shared with Apple will
be MUCH LESS valuable to companies.

I'd be interested to see what the numbers look like for Dropbox, Tumblr,
LinkedIn, etc. Everyone with a lower-margin model is hosed. Does anyone have
some real-world acquisition costs they've run against this change?

------
teilo
Sirius is also going to have a real problem with this. I subscribe to Sirius-
XM Online, and use their iOS app all the time.

------
w1ntermute
Pandora and Kindle both duplicate Apple services (iTunes & iBooks,
respecitvely) to some degree. It's not particularly surprising that Apple
wants to kick them out now. They've probably had this planned all along and
ready to put into action once they got big enough.

What do you think your average iPhone or iPad owner is going to do in response
to this change - buy a Kindle or Android device so they can keep using
Pandora/Kindle, or just buy stuff from Apple's services instead?

~~~
avree
iBooks maybe, but iTunes? There's absolutely no functionality cross-over
between the two, with the exception of the broad category of providing a way
to listen to music...

~~~
Qz
iBooks doesn't even make any sense, considering Kindle came first by a
longshot. iBooks is only there to turn the iPad into a (poor) Kindle
substitute.

~~~
cgranade
Exactly. If duplicating a service is grounds for rejection and expulsion, then
what is a company to do when Apple moves into a new market? Should the New
York Times not have a newspaper app now that The Daily has been endorsed by
Apple? Should Google Maps close up shop when Apple gets around to implementing
navigation? Maybe Foursquare should pack it up once Apple adds check-in
support to the base OS.

All snark aside, it's never a sound business model to hand a possible
competitor the "off" switch for your business.

------
hackerku
If Kindle and Netflix app gets removed, it will touch a nerve with lot of
Apple customers. Hope Apple understands that.

------
Tichy
This makes me think, is there a way to play music on the iPhone's browser? I
suppose not - but ultimately this move could strengthen the mobile web apps
approach to things.

~~~
jrk
Yes, MobileSafari plays music (with <audio> and direct links to MP3/M4A, etc.)
quite well. The biggest issue with this as a path to replace native audio
playback apps is how the browser manages resources for background tasks
(tabs): they are thrown into a single pool and garbage collected when
resources become constrained.

This directly mirrors how the OS manages suspended/background apps, but with
the critical difference that the OS specially treats apps which are registered
for different background services, like background audio playback, avoiding
eviction for things like this which are effectively _under active use_ , even
when they are not on-screen.

The solution, I'd argue, is for Apple (and the web working groups, in general)
to bring the same sorts of OS design concerns to browsers—in this case, richer
interfaces for more intelligent handling of background tasks by both the
runtime and the tasks, themselves.

~~~
Tichy
I was only thinking recently that "background tasks" might be a missing
ingredient for HTML 5. They probably don't make sense with traditional desktop
browsers, as it is sufficient to keep a tab open with the app. But on mobile
browsers it is a different story.

~~~
jrk
They aren't as essential for desktop browsers (now), since the relative
resource constraints on a given tab are so much smaller, but just as relevant
as "desktop" runtimes scale down in power/up in efficiency demands, and as the
apps run within them scale up in resource demands. Just look to how much RAM
your 25 browser tabs burn, and how warm a single tab with Flash ads can keep
your MacBook Air.

~~~
Tichy
Sure, but Background tasks wouldn't alleviate the problem, I think? The tasks
would still have to be coded in a "nice" way.

------
svlla
Amazon will open up Kindle for the web and then whatever value-add Apple
supposes they are adding will simply vanish.

~~~
teilo
Sorry, but you don't realize how many of us use our iPads to read when there
is no Wifi connection around. We can't do that with a web app.

I am outraged, fuming really. I read my Kindle books on my iPad all the time.

If they do not reverse this, this will all but guarantee that I am switching
to an Android tablet as soon as it becomes a viable contender. Honeycomb can't
get here soon enough.

~~~
blinkingled
HTML5 localStorage / cache manifest / Offline Web Apps can deal with that
perhaps?

[http://developer.apple.com/library/safari/#documentation/iPh...](http://developer.apple.com/library/safari/#documentation/iPhone/Conceptual/SafariJSDatabaseGuide/Introduction/Introduction.html)

~~~
teilo
I did not know about that. Well, let's just hope, then. Still pisses me off.

------
rhygar
There is a basic lack of understanding here. This is not "unfair" in any way.
Apple owns the platform, period. They have a right to do whatever they want
with the platform and set any terms they want.

Developers are free to choose whether or not they like the terms of the
platform.

~~~
cgranade
It's not so simple as that. Not at all. For one thing, a platform is a
concept. As far as ownership is concerned, the users own their respective
devices, not Apple. Moreover, it is not "fair" to exploit a monopoly (in this
case, one unethically created by means of a closed platform with undisclosed
and inconsistent app approval rules), and as such, many countries have laws
preventing the unethical exploitation of monopoly-derived power.

Anyway, I find it very odd to speak of Apple's "rights" whilst simultaneously
ignoring those that actually have rights: the users. The philosophy that
organizations can have rights independent of and greater in extent than any of
its constituent persons is, to say the least, bizarre to me.

Oh, and as for liking the terms of the platform: "I am altering the deal. Pray
I don't alter it any further."
(<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080684/quotes?qt0358500>)

~~~
rhygar
Theaters don't allow food that was purchased elsewhere to be brought inside
the building. Same principle. Sorry but you're just wrong on this.

~~~
runevault
Maybe if you spent $500 dollars for rights to use the theater while being told
you could bring your own food in, then the rules changed it'd be comparable.
Otherwise not even close.

~~~
rhygar
You just don't get it. Apple owns the App Store. Apple therefore has the right
to dictate the terms of the App Store, because they own it. Developers get to
choose to use the app store and agree to Apple's terms if they want. End of
story.

