Did Apple Just Neuter iPad Ebook Apps? [Apple]

Do you remember when everybody was worried what Apple’s iBookstore meant for apps like Amazon’s Kindle? The undercurrent of dread Apple would kneecap competing ebook stores the way in which it does iTunes competitors? Well, those fears might have just come true .

Sony has told the recent York Times that Apple blocked their Reader app, which would let users read their Sony books on iOS devices. Not for a peculiar reason like private API use, but in step with Sony’s digital reading president Steve Haber, Apple is mandating that ” all in-app purchases” struggle through Apple.

The Times spells it out more:

The company has told some applications developers, including Sony, that they may not sell content, like e-books, within their apps, or let customers have access to purchases they have got made outside the App Store .

(Emphasis mine.)

That’s the nuclear option. If Apple follows through on this line, that suggests no more Kindle books, no Nook books, no content from third-party magazine apps like Zinio, and more. It’d break half the rationale I would like an iPad-to read books from any source I would like, like Kindle . Blocking stuff I buy from other services that I was ready to read on an iPad won’t make me buy iBooks or other content from Apple; it’ll push me elsewhere. And it’s just desperate.

Kindle, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Kobo and Zinio are all still within the App Store. So hopefully there’s more to this than Sony’s letting on, but Apple’s ” no comment” to the NYT on the matter isn’t terribly helpful. [ NYT ]

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This post is tagged: barnes noble, digital reading, ebook stores, nuclear option, peculiar reason, undercurrent