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Comment by bowmande | Hacker News Reader

I find this absolutely insane. Apple is acting as a payment processor that is charging 30%. I thoroughly enjoy Apple's product, but taking 30 percent of in-app purchases seems crazy.

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I wonder if it's going to extend to content as well. If Amazon is forced to sell books directly through the Kindle app, will Apple get veto power over the books they sell? Will they be able to ban an "Android for Dummies" book?

Based on Apple's current track record: Yes

Completely agree!

They made the platform. You need to realize that if the platform didn't exist, there wouldn't be all these mobile apps in the first place.

I am not suggesting they don't take a cut, but when running the financials for the startup I am working on, 30 percent of every item is a huge chunk.

And you should realize that things like the Kindle app provide added value to the iOS devices that otherwise wouldn't exist. It's a two way street, and it is not just magical handwaving that lets Apple's actions become justified.

ha! If that were the case then AMZN would take their business somewhere else. Make the app only for android and WP7. Would they do it? Of course they won't. It's a massive platform that nobody can ignore and if you want to make some money on it better pay the piper.

You forget that the kindle isn't an app, it's a device, and the convenience of the kindle on alternate platforms is just that. It's still simply added value to those platforms which get the app. This won't hurt Amazon -- they'll pull their app and Apple will lose some value on their platform.

Realistically, it has cost Amazon nothing to support the iOS platform other than a few weeks of dev time to build the app and deploy it to the store. Complying with these ridiculous demands would cause a zero cost platform to suddenly have a very noticeable cost.

So did the shopping mall owners for their tenants but I have never seen such a mall charges you 30% commission for the privilege and convenience (parking, indoors, cleanliness, food court etc) of buying stuff there.

Why do people argue this point? It's not insane because people have to do what Apple wants, no one except for a few entitled folks are arguing this. They can do what they please.

It's insane because Apple have been suckered by their own advertising. Yes, the iPad is one of a kind at the moment, but the android tablet is right around the corner. And that android tablet will be running Kindle and Nook apps.

While the payment platform and app store helps create the ecosystem for apps to exist, the iPad owes it's current success to the the apps people sell for it, not to the payment platform or the app store. The app store and the UI library is a precondition, but it is not sufficient -- if no one made apps for it, no one would buy an iPad.

An iPad without Kindle is slightly worse than a sh*tty microsoft win7 tablet IMO. iBooks is currently not very successful as an alternative. because unlike iTunes, Apple has established competitors who execute very well in this space.

If they try to play hardball with Amazon, Google Android tablets will then just wipe the floor with Apple... same way microsoft did in the 90's. More likely, Amazon is playing hardball with Apple... Maybe Apple will make an "exception" using some tricky accounting to get a part of that 30% back to Amazon.

> iBooks is currently not very successful as an alternative. because unlike iTunes, Apple has established competitors who execute very well in this space.

Furthermore, Apple is demonstrating a very real tendency to retroactively fuck people over. I'd be pretty worried about my book collection if it were in Apple's hands and I stopped paying Caesar.

> * An iPad without Kindle is slightly worse than a shtty microsoft win7 tablet IMO.

Assuming, of course, that the only thing people do with their iPads is read.

(Personally, I can't make myself read for very long on an iPad anyway. I do fine on Kindle DX and Sony Reader. I would do best on a folding two screen eInk device the size of the tall Sony Reader, that opened to reveal two facing pages.)

It's not the only thing, but I'd argue it's a common use. I mean part of the selling point for the iPad was using the internet, which is essentially reading most of the time.

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