News Corp's 'The Daily' launches on iPad with Apple's in-app subscriptions - Page 4

Hear! Hear! The best deal is where each party feels they have gained the advantage -- the best negotiator is the one that can frame and consummate that kind of deal



I think that that Apple trait is a kind of Steve Jobs paranoia -- Take advantage of me once... twice... thrice...


Edit:

You and I., being right > 90% of the time, are aware of the difficulty that others have to tell/convince us that we are wrong on any given issue...

... now, how do you like my fine new suit of clothes?

You're using the same incorrect argument that anonymouse is using. Apple has not only allowed, but encouraged these apps to work the way they have. Their Ads for the iPhone even showed the Kindle app. That proved they knew exactly what it was doing, and approved of it. That Apple is now selling books isn't a good excuse to change the rules for everyone else.

What both you and he forget, or don't understand here, is that Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Sony are retailers of books. Apple is a retailer of books. I've tried really hard here to show why what Apple is trying to do won't work, and isn't fair.

Apple will be more than removing all the money these companies get from the publishers. This will actually make the book they buy more expensive than what they can sell it for. They would incur a loss on every sale. Not a good way to do business. Meanwhile, Apple would incur no such problem selling their own. This could be restraint of trade, of Apple taking advantage of their position of owning the pipes, or at least some of them, as they would be charging unnecessarily.

I know you guys want Apple to be able to make as money as possible, but this isn't how they should be doing it.


Again, it has nothing to do with physical media or not. Goods are goods, and a product is a product. What's the difference between a program that comes in a box, and the same one that you just download? Nothing! Apple's servers aren't being used to sell these books, and so Apple shouldn't require that they also be sold in app.

That's one of the oddest things I've heard of. They know they can't stop out of app purchases like this, so they add the requirement to also sell in app.


Did you really read what I said about this? Or did you just skim? I've bought over a hundred books on my iPad so far since early May. Most of those books were bought either from Barnes& Noble or Amazon. Why? Because Apple has a miserable book store! There are very few books in it. They've caused this problem, and now they're trying to profit off others who have been more successful at it. They should fix their own problems instead, and make up with all the publishers they've been giving a hard time to. Amazingly enough, other booksellers are making a profit doing this.

The reason why Apple gave way on iAd, was because it looked as though the government was going to investigate them for restraint of trade. What Apple wanted to do was apparently illegal in allowing only their own agency.


This does affect the user. The average user doesn't spend time on forums, and doesn't understand any of this. They just see what they see. If Amazon, for example, needs to raise prices for in app sales by 30% to make up for the loss, that's the price people will see. If they take the loss, then people will see that price. People rather do what is simplest. If in app prices are too high, it will drive them to Apple's poorer store. When people can't find the books there, they will get pissed at Amazon for higher prices, and won't understand why it's happening. They may not even understand they can go to Amazon's own store instead. That's the real world.

What you suggest about a reader is silly. What would be gained? A couple of more steps for the consumer to jump through? The end result would be the same, except for lower satisfaction with Apple's products, as they won't have to do that on other platforms.

So you guys are right, let's drive customers away from Apple. Good thinking!

I'm surprised and a little dumbfounded why people are having such a hard time grasping all of this? \

Loopholes are not immediately closed...otherwise they aren't loopholes but permissible actions (in spirit and the law).

Show that their book sales are dismal. There is one author which reports his iBooks sales are much lower than Kindle sales...it was widely reported but it was only one data point.

Initial sales:

http://www.teleread.com/ebooks/april...-the-agency-5/

A later survey indicates decent sales:

"A survey of 6,250 frequent book buyers conducted by the Codex Group in early November found more book buyers acquiring their e-books for the iPad from Amazon's Kindle store rather than through Apple's iBookstore, with the Kindle store accounting for 40% of e-book sales for the iPad and the iBookstore 29% (one factor limiting sales through the iBookstore is that Random House e-books are not directly available there because RH is not using the agency model)."



http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/p...-its-edge.html

Not having RH is both Apple and RH fault. The agency model and the publisher's revolt is what pressured Amazon from completely taking over the ebook market and locking everyone into the Kindle format. This was the publisher's greatest fear that Amazon would dominate the ebook market like Apple does music market with iTunes. This is documented in the New Yorker article from last year. RH just got a free ride since the other 5 pitched in and it didn't need to in order to check Amazon.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...urrentPage=all

Given the iPad is probably now the dominant ebook reader 29% of iPad sales doesn't indicate "dismal" sales. Would they like a larger slice of the pie? Sure. But this is more about fairness. Neither Amazon nor B&N allows foreign book stores on their devices at all. So why should Apple allow them to have a free ride on its?

You're really straining here! Apple has allowed book apps for years now. The Kindle app was around long before the iPad. If Apple didn't approve of it, why would we have seen it being featured in Apple's Tv commercials, and in their app store? You think somehow that Apple didn't notice that Amazon was actually selling books through their store using the app to get there and back? You don't think Apple saw any of the dozens of articles about how Apple wasn't allowing Amazon to sell books directly through the store without their cut and so amazon decided to do it this way? You think Apple was oblivious to all of this for years, and only now woke up to it?

You're kidding, right? A loophole isn't something that can't be fixed quickly. It's also something that Apple could have prevented, but didn't want to, until now.

Why? Because Apple saw a big benefit before with the way it was, and now sees a big benefit to change the rules.

They have hired a staff of 100 people and have, no doubt, built out the infrastructure to deliver a daily publication.

Ignoring political bias, this looks like a reasonable effort at a reasonable price. I hope it encourages other publishers to consider this as a viable method for delivering periodic publications.

Here is a quote from you, so that you may remember what you said, and why my sentence makes sense, and why you ARE changing the goalposts:


As I keep pointing out, you don't HAVE to purchase anything to use these apps. That passes your test of the app being useful without having to purchase anything. I hope I don't have to keep looking back to quote from your posts.


While you keep saying this, it doesn't make it so. As long as none of Apple's resources are being used to download your purchases, Apple shouldn't be getting a cut. And the fact that Apple seems to know that they can't prevent these out of app purchases legally, they're adding this silly requirement. In the long run, the only one who will be hurt is Apple.

It is the most likely case that Apple seeks to gain only the payment processing plus a bit of overhead. Apple likely pays 2% or less for processing plus a transaction fee. I think Gruber is right about what other vendors will pay for in-app content purchases except that I would characterize it as "less than 5%". The actual cost to someone like Amazon is relatively small - they will not be paying any payment processing fee to their processor but will instead pay Apple a processing fee plus a bit more.

Wrong about Jon Stewart. He does take himself seriously and has a very serious opinion about all the 'jokes' he makes. He just wraps his serious thoughts, opinions, and beliefs in comedy. There are many ways to make a cake, but in the end you still end up with a cake.

BTW Beck also uses comedy in a lot of his opinions, but is a lot more emotional than Stewart. Please don't make it like Jon Stewart has not agenda, because he has as much of an agenda as ANY other opinionated journalist.

You mean other than Apple developing the platform they are using? Let Amazon sell their wares exclusively on Kindle and Sony on their own hardware.


Not if Amazon loses access to the iPad and iPhone for Kindle book sales. They lose revenue too. Granted that Android and WP7 are winners is Apple can't sign RH. On the other hand Apple can go cut throat and offer a 80%/20% split with publishers and see if Amazon dares to match. At some point RH will sign because the deal will be too lucrative to pass up.

No matter what your politics, to get as much content as The Daily is providing at 14¢ a day, I would only hope that the rest of the media would do the same.

Having access to the original article, remember that The Daily like most true newspapers, write their own material, not copy, edit, summarize, bastardize, prostitute, etc., other works. And as readers, we has the option of accepting the editorial policies of any publication going in.

In any event, getting complete information as published for free is not easy. We have turned into snippetters. We end up knowing little about a lot of things, or a lot of nothing.

With respect to the amount of advertising, it didn't appear to be much. If anything, ads are beautifully done. In fact, so much so, that they, as other iPad mag apps do,tend to entice one to read and explore the ads that we normally would shy from in the 'flat' print versions.

As Jobs stated, people are willing to buy content over blogging. This type and pricing strategy could help that paradigm significantly.

For the next two weeks The Daily is free. That is an offer that every iPad owner shouldn't refuse.

29% is dismal. It's Apple's platform. If their sales after this time are just 29% that should tell youngish it's dismal. It could be a lot better, but there are too few books there, and that's why it's dismal.

I read the articles you've linked to a long time ago. The fact that Amazon still has much more books shows that Apple's model isn't working too well.

Apple needs to have as many other book stores on the iPad as possible, because it isn't a small, lightweight, and cheap book reader. The more things people can do on it, the more Apple will sell. There are people as loyal to Amazon and B&N as to Apple. If you buy all of your books from Amazon, and you get an iPad, it follows that you may want to continue buying your books from them. And I know some people with both a Kindle and an iPad. What then?

Sorry I'm getting way off topic.

It has to do with this Apple document.

http://developer.apple.com/news/ios/...p_purchase.pdf

Scroll down to the the matrix of what is permitted to sell. Real world goods are not allowed according to this documentation.

Yes, yes, and we think your argument is incorrect, otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion.

However, as I originally pointed out, I don't believe it's Apple's intention to apply the 30/70 revenue split in this instance. I think they almost certainly have established, or will establish, some other revenue split for periodical publishers and that they intend to also establish a separate revenue split for eBook distributors. But, since Amazon and others are behaving parasitically and are essentially operating under the rationale you express, Apple doesn't have any choice but to play hardball with them to get them to the negotiating table. This is exactly what they did with periodical publishers, and it looks like they've come up with a system that actually works for everyone. I don't see why you think that won't be the case in this instance. (Yeah, I know your argument about how iBooks sucks so Apple wants to steal revenue from the others, but I don't think much of that argument.)

There's no restraint of trade or any other illegal practice involved in requiring App Store app publishers to offer in-app purchasing for content they are selling elsewhere. It's part of the developer agreement and it's less "restraining" than many of Amazon's practices, and they will all end up benefiting, while certain parasitic companies will no longer be able to shift the burden of App Store operating costs onto other developers.



I feel like we're talking in circles at this point. There is certainly a difference between physical and digital "products", especially when those digital products are DRM'd and only useable within a specific app. There is certainly a very real difference between an eBook and a physical book, in how you can use it, what you can do with it, and so on. But, I've already provided a rather concise definition between app content and physical goods: the former enhances the functionality of the app, the latter does not.

It has nothing to do with whether Apple's servers are being used to deliver the content. It has everything to do with the fact that Apple's resources are being used to deliver the app that is generating revenue for the app publisher that they are not sharing per their contractual agreements. And, as you no doubt are aware, almost all contracts contain a clause, something to the effect that failure to enforce specific terms of the contract shall not be construed to be a waiver of those terms, and it would surprise me very much to find that the iOS developer agreement does not. So, just because some have gotten away with violating their contract for some time is no reason they should be allowed to continue to.

This sums up the distinction rather well. I really don't understand why some feel that Apple should not be entitled to an opportunity to recover some costs for free apps. Many would be happy to not have to provide their credit card info to another organization.

Dismal is a 60:1 ratio.

29% of ebook sales on the dominant reader isn't great but isn't bad considering a year ago Amazon had the unassailable dominant position and was about to drop the hammer on publishers.


It worked perfectly in that Amazon is not the dominant player anymore and Apple has a decent revenue stream from ebook sales it didn't have before. Apple has deals with 5 publishers and sin't likely to get locked out of content should Amazon pull the Kindle app and have the power to force publishers to stay away from the iOS ecosystem. Amazon doesn't have that kind of market power and it might have had it without the iBook store to counter balance it.


Why? Will more book stores really sell more iPads? No. It is a decent ebook reader but that's not a primary selling point but a secondary one.


If they have both a Kindle and an iPad they read their books on the Kindle (or Nook). If I want to read a book on the iPad I buy from the iBook store or load a compatible file.

If Amazon wants to sell books on the largest tablet device...they should pony up. And Apple's requirements aren't all that horrible anyway. Just that if you provide content purchases that you also provide an in-app purchase mechanism.

If the in app price is higher than the web site price...well then folks will use the web site, wont they?

What does this have to do with Apple developing their platform? Apple did that in order to sell hardware. They're selling tens of billions of dollars in hardware. The costs of this are very small in comparison. It also helps to sell Apple hardware. Otherwise Amazon might be selling a lot more Kindles, and Apple, less iPads. What is more important, small amounts of money from book sales from Amazon, or the money from iPad and iPhone/Touch sales? I think the latter.


What will happen is that more Kindles will be sold, and Nooks.

If Apple was going to go 80/20 then they wouldn't need to squeeze Amazon, B&N and Sony. They'd be losing much more money that way.

Oh, please, if your argument is going to hinge on taking a sentence out of all context, you might as well give it up right now.

Can you please provide authoritative proof of Apple extracting a "large percentage"? Based on The Daily launch, it appears that Apple's cut will be rather small.

What does this have to do with Apple developing their platform? Apple did that in order to sell hardware. They're selling tens of billions of dollars in hardware. The costs of this are very small in comparison. It also helps to sell Apple hardware. Otherwise Amazon might be selling a lot more Kindles, and Apple, less iPads. What is more important, small amounts of money from book sales from Amazon, or the money from iPad and iPhone/Touch sales? I think the latter.


What will happen is that more Kindles will be sold, and Nooks.

If Apple was going to go 80/20 then they wouldn't need to squeeze Amazon, B&N and Sony. They'd be losing much more money that way.

What you two guys are forgetting is that this is just going to annoy consumers. It may have no affect on where books are sold. Apple is just adding something. They apparently can't take the current model away. Consumers will become confused and angry, but eventually, after some bad press for Apple, the problem will go away and everything will be back where it was. That's why this entire thing is stupid.

What's fair, that big companies like Amazon or Sony avoid sharing revenue while small developers fully shoulder the cost of running the App Store, or that there be some degree of equity in what all developers pay relative to their revenue?

I see no point in continuing this discussion as our viewpoints on this are totally opposed, and we're not getting any closer.

It's still dismal. It's Apple's platform, and they have all the advantages, except for the inability of dealing with publishers.


Then the entire thing was a waste of time on Apple's part.

You make what you say is a major point, then deny that it's major after all. That's one reason I'm dropping out of this.

I look at the issue as sort of a reverse loss leader for the vendors - Apple allowed them to establish themselves on the iOS platform at no cost. Apple has now decided that it's time to get a (likely) small piece of the action.

True, lets scratch Stewart and add Rachel Maddow and Ed Schultz

Well, drop out for whatever reason, but I clearly, from the beginning, distinguished between revenue generating apps and non-revenue generating apps, and we were clearly discussing reader apps in the context of revenue generating apps at the time I wrote the sentence you quoted. That a reader can also be a non-revenue generating app is true, but not really to the point of the discussion.

You are making a ridiculously bold assumption here that suggests you think Apple will be receiving a 30% cut. You quoted Gruber in an earlier post where he suggests that Apple will most likely be collecting around 5% for in-app purchases. When you subtract out the 2% that the retailer no longer pays for payment processing, you have an added cost of about 3%. This is the most likely scenario.

It means, as I've already said several times, that they could have fixed it quickly, or it might not have been a loophole. You guys seem to want to think the worst of these companies, and the best of Apple here. Well, go right ahead.

You're not supposed to change the rules in the middle of the game.

That's only part of the question. And you're making a distinction doesn't mean it's the core of the matter, only that you think it is.

You know, this whole discussion has arisen based on the rejection of Sony's e-reader app. Have we actually heard anything from Amazon or B&N regarding their position relative to this matter?

It's not My assumption. It's what's being said. Gruber didn't suggest that Apple would be getting 5%. He suggested that Apple should get no more than 5%.

Go to Gruber's site, daring fireball, and scroll down. He's got several bits on this. 30% would be what Apple charges. A number of others are saying this, even Gruber believes it.

Well you've made it clear that because Apple has allowed something to happen, then it was a written policy to do so, even though no where was it written as such. You fail to understand that sometimes companies let things slide until there's no longer a reason to do so. This happens all the time. It is OBVIOUS with the release of "The Daily" and the subscription model, there is now a reason to change attitude - NOT policy. That policy says, all in app purchases must be done through Apple's store.

A loophole is a method or means of getting around a rule or regulation. Sometimes, just having that rule in place is enough for the company to be satisfied. Case in point, FairPlay music is meant to prevent music from being played on a system not "owned" by the purchasing account. So when I bought music from iTunes, the record companies are assured by Apple (via FairPlay) that I could only play that music on devices I "owned."

There is a widely known loophole in that system. I can burn the FairPlay track to CD, and re-rip it giving me an unrestricted copy of that music to play on any device and make copies of that music to give away. Just because there is a loophole, does not automatically mean that it is legal to copy that music. And if Apple comes with a way to stop that from happening, it does not mean they are changing their policy, they are simply closing that loophole.

This is the exact same thing. Just because Apple has not been enforcing its rules and let the loophole slide, it does not mean they have to change policy to close the loophole. All they do is change their attitude towards tolerating it.

Also, Apple did not encourage any app to work this way. What it showed was that users had access to their Kindle content, not someone purchasing a book from the Kindle store. The Kindle could very well be a reader only app - that's all the commercial demonstrated. Anything else the Kindle app does is beside the point, as I mentioned above.



Umm, I did not forget and do understand that they are all retailers of books, that's EXACTLY why I used it as an example in the first place; as an example of competition taking advantage of a platform.

Answer this then... is it fair for all of those companies to offer their own e-reader device that DOES NOT allow competition AT ALL? Can you buy an e-book from the Nook Store on the Kindle?



Did you really read what I said about this? Or did you just skim?

I said I DISAGREE with it. Apple makes enough money.

You obviously feel strongly about all of this, I really couldn't care less, but I do understand both positions. You just seem to be irrationally blind towards it, taking an absolute stance against Apple leveraging its own platform for monetary gains and anything they do to enforce their policies.

Not that I know of. After all, it was Sony's app that was rejected. Maybe Apple hasn't contacted them about this, at least, not yet.

As I said, if Apple just wants to collect a processing charge, it will likely be accepted. This whole thing is very strange. Apple's been getting very good publicity over having all these stores. They can't make enough from this to make it worthwhile. All the stores have to do is to raise their prices and blame Apple. Apple's been getting enough bad press over their unpredictable app store rules as it is. This won't help. And how much can they make from it? Very little. If prices are higher, some will buy from Apple instead, but they simply don't have a big enough selection of books. I can't see Amazon keeping prices the same with in app purchases as they will lose money on each sale if Apple does insist on 30%. So with higher prices, after consumers get ticked off at the whole thing, they will just keep buying from the store instead, as they do now. That is, after they figure out that they can still do that.

So what will have changed in reality? Very little, except that people will have another reason to accuse Apple of dictating to its closed system. Dumb.

Who cares what people are saying? Apple hasn't said anything. Therefor, it an assumption, whether it's yours or not. As I mentioned in another post, they could institute a "handler's" percentage, they could very well take a 0% cut for all we know. The bottom line here is that they want the transaction to go through Apple's store. Why everyone feels Apple has to charge 30% or anything at all is ridiculous and unfounded, until Apple says something.

So if Apple charges nothing, then what do they have to gain? Well they gain the ability of tracking their platform's purchasing power. Which is a very important metric to know.

A lot of what you're calling loopholes are not loopholes. One example if the burning of songs to a disk. Apple originally said that you could do that. The media companies didn't object.

Also what you're saying is obvious isn't obvious, because it isn't true.

You also misunderstand what is being said about in store purchases. What Amazon is doing isn't in store purchases, so it isn't subject to those rules. When Apple advertises an app, and features it in their app store, they obviously know what it does. It also means that they approve of what it does. And, they are acknowledging that it's benefitting them.

All thats happening now is that Apple is attempting to ADD something. They're not even trying to stop out of app purchases. This is why the arguments you guys have aren't working. They've never had the requirement that out of app purchases must be duplicated with in app purchases. That's new. Even Gruber has given it th , "are they kidding" look. There's no way Apple can force anyone to buy from within the app as opposed to what they're doing now. This is why it's silly, and it isn't going to accomplish anything, unless apple abandons the 30% model for this and just charges a nominal fee. And I'm not objecting to that as long as it isn't enough to disrupt sales.

By the way, I'm certainly no more "irrationally blind" about this than you are.

That is really the heart of the matter. Apple cannot maintain complete control over the iDevices forever. New issues continue to crop up because of the severe restrictions they have applied. People like things safe and easy but Apple has really locked it down way beyond what is reasonable in my opinion.

At some point they'll have to just open it up and let people do whatever they want with it.

Rupert has a certain "septic touch", meaning everything he touches turns into ****.

Hope this doesn't count as him touching Apple.

If Apple charges nothing, which would make a lot of people happy, then this problem with Sony would never have happened, and they would have changed their policy. Sony would have been happy, and would have announced that they would do in app purchasing. None of the problems we're seeing would be happening.

It should be pretty obvious that Apple would be charging. And as their policy is to charge 30% for in app purchases, it's a good assumption that that's what they would be doing here. Is it correct? I don't know, as I've said before. But as this is a discussion of what might be happening, we should look to reasonable possibilities, and as that amount is what Apple uses now, it must be considered. We will hopefully know more in a few days when announced its new subs policy.