Steve Haber, president of Sony’s digital reading division, has revealed that Apple from now on is only accepting application developers who agree to go through its in-house app store.
According to the New York Times, Apple has prohibited Sony’s apps Sony Reader’s e-book iPhone app for inclusion in the iOS App Store in fear of developers selling content within the app without using Apple’s in-app purchase feature.
As a result of the application not been sold solely through Apple’s store, Apple has now informed application developers that it will not continue to sell any content such as e-books within applications. This will also affect customers, as they will be forced to purchase only within the App Store.
The application reader, however, is available for Android. This move by Apple could be perceived as an attempt to keep profits within Apple, and make access more difficult for competitors. Amazon.com and other companies competing with the iPad tablet computer may witness the consequences of Apple’s decision.
The iPad can be seen as the motivating factor for this move, as it has not needed reader apps devices, for example, iPad users do not require a Kindle to read Kindle e-books on their iPads.
Haber has demonstrated his disappointment with Apple’s new restrictions. “It’s the opposite of what we wanted to bring to the market,” Haber said.
“We always wanted to bring the content to as many devices as possible, not one device to one store.”
This new transition has begun rumours that a new subscription service may apply for previous developers.
