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Originally Posted by Jason Dunn
Amazon did the only thing that makes sense: they made the Kindle app a read-only tool, not a purchasing tool. Anyone using an iPad, myself included, will now have a degraded experience because I'll have to grab my Kindle 3 or Android phone in order to quickly purchase a book. The alternative is to buy the book via Safari on the iPad, and while it's not exactly difficult, it's certainly a lot less slower than buying from an app that allows for one-tap purchase of books.
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Have you used the Kindle Store from your iPad? Because if I recall correctly all it ever was, was a button that would launch the Kindle website in Mobile Safari. There was no one-tap purchase from within the app to begin with- even the Buy Now link at the end of each free sample would just redirect you to the correct page in mobile Safari. So all that's missing is that web link within the app. Now you have to launch Safari yourself and browse to the kindle store, but after that the buying experience is the same (Ok, so this isn't true for the free sample since you need to find your specific book). Anyway, it seems to me like you're making a mountain out of a molehill as regards the Kindle app specifically. Arguably they should have been allowed to build their own in-app store from the beginning, but that's another story.
I sort of have mixed feelings about the policy. As a consumer, I don't really care for it, since it degrades the end user experience for everyone. As a developer, I fully support Apple's 30% cut for App purchases, and realize the position this loophole put them in: if companies provide free apps that get funded outside of the App Store, then how does Apple get paid and what's stopping all other developers from following suit in order to avoid the 30% cut? Perhaps a smaller cut of content purchases would work (not that I expect Apple to go for that unless forced to by consumer demand and competition).
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64 GB iPad 2 WiFi, Apple TV 2, 32 GB iPhone 4
Early 2011 MacBook Pro 13" (dual boot with Windows 7), Early 2009 Mac Mini
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