Too much agreement kills a chat - Eldridge Cleaver
|
|
|
Amazon and Walmart launch Ipad web apps to evade Apple's app policies
MAJOR ONLINE AND RETAIL STORES Amazon and Walmart have announced book and video services that evade Apple's demand for a 30 per cent cut of in-app sales on the Ipad.
Amazon announced the Kindle Cloud Reader, which is a web app that allows users to read ebooks on their Ipad and, more importantly, buy new ones from the Kindle store.
Amazon already has a Kindle app for the Ipad, but it was recently forced to remove a link to the Kindle web site, as Apple wanted a 30 per cent cut of Kindle sales made through the app. The web app is nearly identical to the Ipad app, which should help avoid user discontent over the issue.
Walmart has also decided to go around Apple's requirements and use the web instead, launching its Vudu video streaming service for the Ipad's web browser, according to the Associated Press. The reason for this decision is that Vudu rents and sells movies and Apple would want a cut of the profits.
Due to the Ipad's limitations regarding Flash, Walmart was also forced to use Apple Live Streaming tools to display its Vudu service on the device, despite it being accessible on nearly every other device via Flash. When coupled with the in-app sales royalties, Apple can't be making many friends, and if it weren't for the popularity of the Iphone and Ipad many of these companies would likely pull out entirely.
The move by Amazon and Walmart is the latest in a series of actions by major technology firms that have refused to co-operate with Apple's App Store policies. In addition to Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Google also pulled in-app sales from their apps at the Ipad App Store, protesting Apple's rules.
The Financial Times and Wall Street Journal have also opted for web browser based services to avoid paying the hefty royalties. It seems likely that the majority of the industry will follow suit, particularly when they realise that no one else is willing to give Apple such a large share of their profits for simply hosting their apps. µ
Tags: Apple
Share this:
Share
Apple will issue an iOS update that will either block them or any protocol that it can to quell these "infidels".
Apple is now worse that IBM ever was in locking users into paying for software, and hardware, since any 3rd party that develops hardware has to also pay a royalty to Sir Jobs.
They are sitting pretty right now but every time I see the commercial about how so called mature men use their "smart" phones and devices.
@Dificil - "Soon they will be censoring the Internet and requiring users to pay to surf."
Both of those are already true. Apple has censored the 'net by refusing to allow iOS users to see Flash, and they make their users pay by having significantly higher prices than the competition. For example, the B&N NOOK Color comes in at just US$250, and the Viewsonic gTablet comes in from US$230 to $280 depending on how much flash memory is installed. The cheapest iPad I can find is still well above US$600.
farkus on Betamax: "It was clearly the better technology"
No, it wasn't. It had slightly better picture quality, possibly imperceptibly better, in exchange for half the recording time or worse. Anyone who thinks that Beta should have won because it had better picture quality is missing the fact that the "killer app" for VCRs was playing & recording long sports games & movies, not to mention the price war.
My mother-in law & her husband were offered a choice for their wedding present: A VHS VCR or a week-long trip for two to Hawaii. At the time, the two were equal in price. They took the VCR.
I don't see anyone fighting a price war against the iPad or offering the kind of "iPad can't record your 4-hour football game, but our ePad can!" advantage.
This reminds me of the days when Sony invented the BetaMax VCR. It was clearly the better technology but because they restricted its deployment to licensed manufacturers only it quickly went the way of the dinosaur. However the porn industry gave it a pretty good push over the edge too. Can you really patent rounded corners?
Turned out they'd rather be Big Brother. They've always tried hardware lock-in; now they're implementing it in software. It'll backfire on them, not least because too greedy right from the start.
(BTW: didn't get a captcha image 1st time.)
Let me get this right:
Apple wanted 30% of sales made _through_ an app? That's just insane! Soon they will be censoring the Internet and requiring users to pay to surf.
Stay kool Apple sonbois.
Nelson says .. HAW HAW ...