Claim: Kindle app proves Apple has no interest in e-Books

Does the fact that Apple permitted Kindle for iPhone prove that it has no interest in e-Books? One analyst thinks so. One thing’s for sure: we’ve got to the point where Apple simply permitting an app is taken as guidance regarding its corporate intentions. People just assume that AppStore devs are effectively commission-only Apple contractors. [Computerworld]

1. [BCJ]

   Wow, every time I read Apple in that paragraph (and in the first bit of the article), I read it as Amazon, and was really confused. Apparently, it’s too damn early still.

   I still don’t think I agree with the author though.

2. [Rob Beschizza]

   Neither do I. Apple will simply remove Kindle for iPhone as soon as it takes an interest in eBooks.

3. [BCJ]

   That’s what I’ve kind of been wondering. Can Apple legally do that? I realize that Apple claims the right to take apps off of the store for pretty much any reason, and in a perverse way, Amazon would be “duplicating functionality,” but copying another companies idea, and then forcibly removing that company’s competiting product sounds a little anticompetitive.

4. [0xdeadbeef]

   People just assume that AppStore devs are effectively commission-only Apple contractors.

   And why the hell not? That’s exactly how Apple apologists characterize it to deflect criticism about the closed and secretive nature of the thing. That is their response to the very real risk of having hundreds of hours of work and thousands of dollars evaporate as ones application is rejected.

   Christ, I’ve actually had to correct people who have called writing an application for the iPhone “work for hire” for Apple.

5. [Halloween Jack]

   I think that it’s Apple’s way of saying that The Current Economic Situation is not a super-great time to challenge a very well established and organized competitor in what would be a new market for them.

6. [bardfinn]

   Given the … “selection” … of titles available on the Kindle Store, if Apple makes a deal with O’Reilly Media to distribute their technical manuals via the iStore — That alone would likely begin the lopping off of limbs of the Amazon Black Knight.

   I’ve been using the Kindle App on my iPod touch since its’ release on Wednesday. Battery life is fine. Eyestrain isn’t a problem. A selection of titles I might want to keep in my pocket: definitely my biggest issue.

   … gonna go back to reading PDFs in Mail.app R.S.N.

7. [Rob Beschizza]

   I’ve called appstore development work made for hire myself.

   Characterizing it as such strikes me as an effective way to illustrate its closed and secretive nature, and the control Apple has over both the labor put into making apps and the rewards that result. Work made for hire and iPhone development both involve adhesive contracts and effective ownership of the resulting work by the publisher, intellectual property notwithstanding.

   There are, of course, specific differences between work made for hire and the contract one agrees to to develop for the iPhone. Which are the ones that you think matter?

8. [Charlie Stross]

   Note that Stanza and eReader have both been available on iPhone/iTouch for a couple of months now. So allowing the Kindle app makes no obvious difference (except insofar as Amazon would be a plausible competitor for any hypothetical Apple attempt to set up a book store).

   Much more interesting is the news yesterday that Barnes and Noble have bought Fictionwise (who run eReader, among other ebook storefronts).

9. [Bugs]

   Steve Jobs said a few times that Apple had no interest in developing an eBook reader.

   Today he had a wide range of observations on the industry, including the Amazon Kindle book reader, which he said would go nowhere largely because Americans have stopped reading.

   “It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore,” he said. “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.”

   Source