Amazon Kindle Cloud Reader Sidesteps Apple App Store Restrictions

NEW YORK -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. on Wednesday revealed new video and book-reading services that are designed for the iPad but bypass Apple Inc.'s fees on content sales.

Wal-Mart started to stream video from its Vudu service to the iPad's Web browser, and Amazon announced the Kindle Cloud Reader, which lets users read e-books.

Amazon, the leading seller of e-books, has a Kindle app for the iPad. However, Apple recently forced it to remove a button that launches Amazon's Kindle website, where users buy books. Apple wants companies to sell their content through its iTunes system, where it gets a 30 percent cut.

Media companies are finding Apple's fees hard to accept. So they are getting around that by avoiding apps that must be distributed through Apple's App Store, where Apple's fee policies apply. Earlier this summer, The Financial Times created an app-like website for its newspaper to avoid Apple's fees.

The Kindle Cloud Reader is a "Web app," nearly indistinguishable from a regular app. Users have to go through a few steps to store the app and their books on the iPad. But when that's done, it's capable of reading stored books without an Internet connection.

Wal-Mart's Vudu site relies on streaming video, so it does not work without an Internet connection. The site already works with PC browsers, but the Flash technology used doesn't work on the iPad. Instead, Vudu is using "Live Streaming" tools from Apple to reach the tablet.

Vudu.com's business model is similar to Apple's own iTunes. It rents out movies for $1 to $6 for a 24-hour or 48-hour viewing period. It also sells them for $5 and up, which allows viewing any time. Its claim to fame is that it has many movies on the same day they're released on DVD.

Edward Lichty, general manager for Vudu, said the site will also work with iPhones and iPod Touches, but the interface could be hard to navigate, because it's designed for tablets. The movies will even stream over "3G" cellular broadband, but the image quality will suffer, and a full movie would eat a lot of the monthly data allowance that iPad plans usually come with.

Vudu is owned by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. The Little Rock, Ark.-based retailer bought Vudu a year and a half ago.

Comments

[DRaymond]

10:06 PM on 08/11/2011

Technically this is not an iPad app.  It is a web app, which is pretty much a website with a lot of script and no access to the Apple API.  But there was no way Amazon could make money with Apple taking a 30 percent cut.

[FreelanceWriter]

07:32 PM on 08/11/2011

I LOVE IT!

LOL you gotta admit, this is capitalism at it's best. Apple created a hot item (the iPad) and wanted consumers to get all of their content through the iStore (so that in turn Apple could collect their 30% cut). Which meant Apple could sort of "double up" and not only profit from selling the hardware, but also make dough off the content as well.

So, it was inevitable that larger companies or those with established brand names would simply do the obvious -- namely design their own apps, so a consumer could simply obtain THAT company's product/content at THEIR proprietary site. Which meant viola! -- they've successfully done a end run around Apple.

Which really IS capitalism at its best because it means you used your brain to do that end around. And it means you now get to KEEP that 30% that Apple otherwise would've have taken, and which frankly could be argued IS rather excessive as a monetary split.

And speaking as someone who spent years in the publishing world -- and who has even self-published to test those waters -- make no mistake. With publishing cost/profit margins SO tight and thin (more so than most people realize) that 30% really can be the complete "make or break" margin for being able to do your dream project...or having to put your dreams away.

[Kache]

03:22 PM on 08/11/2011

The web app has been available to iOS devices before apps in the iTunes store were even available. Although web apps can be designed to very closely work like an app, web apps do have some small short comings designed into iOS in purpose to give an inferior experience.

This run-around for a big company like Amazon, B&N, Vudu and others will work for them because they are a known destination for their content. They simply do not need the exposure that listing in the iTunes store provides. But for smaller publishers (my self included) the exposure in the iTunes store is a must, while the 30% is a deal killer. We went ahead and played iTune's game and gave the troll under the bridge his 30%. But, we also designed for Android tablets, placing a link in the app to purchase content directly from our site. We are making far more net profit per purchase on Android sales, and our total net revenue from Android sales is now greater than from iPad sales even though unit sales of iPad are greater - for now.

[mojo filter]

11:55 AM on 08/11/2011

Droid, baby.

[Mitchman57]

10:46 PM on 08/10/2011

The chains are being broken.

[Gigity]

06:45 PM on 08/10/2011

Love that Amazon keeps one-upping Apple.

[theveggiedude]

06:26 PM on 08/10/2011

It is good they are taking Steve Jobs advice. Apple supports web apps and even has a site dedicated to them at www.apple.com/webapps (but stopped being updated on March, 2010 after hitting the 5000 mark).

Apple started the iPhone with web apps only. After a year, and many developer complaints, they opened up iPhone API's and the app store was a result.

Steve Jobs has openly said (in his keynotes) he supports both the free web app method and his own walled garden approach of the app store. He said developers have a choice of the two. So it is a myth that Apple controls everything. They only control their own app store. Want to put porn on the iPad? You can easily do so, just build your own web app.

[Kache]

02:36 PM on 08/11/2011

Try designing a web app on iOS to work exactly like an app - Apple has crippled the Safari engine on iOS so that many app features can not be reproduced on a web app. One finger scrolling of fixed width & height divs - nope. Apple requires a two finger scroll just to set apps and web apps apart. The iTunes library at one time contained a fix for that in the view-source of the library page, but Apple removed it and crippled Safari's use of it unless the Safari is on the iTunes site. Luckily, there is an iScroll fix for it, available for iOS developers at code.google.com.

[theveggiedude]

10:00 PM on 08/11/2011

There are many web browsers for iOS. You telling me it is crippled on all of them?

[LittleSanityLeft]

05:09 PM on 08/10/2011

Good I can't stand Apple and it's strong arm tactics. I'm not sure when but this Apple bubble's going to burst.

[JohnTheMac]

05:40 AM on 08/11/2011

Ironically, the article gives people another reason to buy an iPad.
So, good!

[Kache]

02:37 PM on 08/11/2011

No, it gives people stuck with an iPad a way to use it.