Steve Jobs emails reveal why iOS users can't buy Kindle books
Newly unearthed documents made public by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee as part of an investigation into big tech reveal why users can't buy Kindle books on iOS.
Credit: Apple
As part of its ongoing investigation into tech company dominance, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee's antitrust subcommittee has unearthed a trove of internal Apple documents and communications. Some of those communications happen to be from Jobs himself.
Two sets of those communications -- emails, specifically -- reveal the discussions that led to restrictions on buying digital books from third-party platforms such as Amazon. The emails were first spotted by The Verge.
In 2010, Apple SVP of marketing and App Store chief Phil Schiller wrote to Jobs and other Apple executives to explain an Amazon Kindle commercial that touted the cross-platform capabilities of the service.
"While the primary message is that there are Kindle apps on lots of mobile devices, the secondary message ... is that it is easy to switch from iPhone to Android," Schiller wrote. "Not fun to watch."
In response, Jobs wrote back, "It's time for [Amazon] to decide to use our payment mechanism or bow out. And I think it's time to begin applying this uniformly except for existing subscriptions (but applying it for new ones)."
Another conversation laid out a draft of Apple's subscription policies around February 2011. Apple eventually launched subscriptions on the App Store that year, alongside new rules that prompted Amazon and other booksellers to remove the option to buy books in-app.
"I think this is all pretty simple -- iBooks is going to be the only bookstore on iOS devices. We need to hold our heads high. One can read books bought elsewhere, just not buy/rent/subscribe from iOS without paying us, which we acknowledge is prohibitive for many things," Jobs wrote.
During Wednesday's House hearing on antitrust, Rep. Lucy McBath questioned Apple CEO Tim Cook about why an app from Random House was blocked from the App Store.
She alleged that it was part of a strategy to coerce the publisher to join the iBooks platform. Cook, for his part, didn't answer the question explicitly and stated that there were many reasons why an app may be blocked.
Credit: Apple
As part of its ongoing investigation into tech company dominance, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee's antitrust subcommittee has unearthed a trove of internal Apple documents and communications. Some of those communications happen to be from Jobs himself.
Two sets of those communications -- emails, specifically -- reveal the discussions that led to restrictions on buying digital books from third-party platforms such as Amazon. The emails were first spotted by The Verge.
In 2010, Apple SVP of marketing and App Store chief Phil Schiller wrote to Jobs and other Apple executives to explain an Amazon Kindle commercial that touted the cross-platform capabilities of the service.
"While the primary message is that there are Kindle apps on lots of mobile devices, the secondary message ... is that it is easy to switch from iPhone to Android," Schiller wrote. "Not fun to watch."
In response, Jobs wrote back, "It's time for [Amazon] to decide to use our payment mechanism or bow out. And I think it's time to begin applying this uniformly except for existing subscriptions (but applying it for new ones)."
Another conversation laid out a draft of Apple's subscription policies around February 2011. Apple eventually launched subscriptions on the App Store that year, alongside new rules that prompted Amazon and other booksellers to remove the option to buy books in-app.
"I think this is all pretty simple -- iBooks is going to be the only bookstore on iOS devices. We need to hold our heads high. One can read books bought elsewhere, just not buy/rent/subscribe from iOS without paying us, which we acknowledge is prohibitive for many things," Jobs wrote.
During Wednesday's House hearing on antitrust, Rep. Lucy McBath questioned Apple CEO Tim Cook about why an app from Random House was blocked from the App Store.
She alleged that it was part of a strategy to coerce the publisher to join the iBooks platform. Cook, for his part, didn't answer the question explicitly and stated that there were many reasons why an app may be blocked.
Comments
I miss the old Apple. I feel Cook lacks the backbone Steve had. Android would have been a wasteland had Steve still been alive. Android has become large due to stealing, stealing, stealing.
In fact, on an iPhone, external links to Kindle books automatically redirect through the Amazon app to the related Amazon.com URL in Safari where they can be purchased, due to some fancy footwork using custom URL schemes.
This article deserves a more accurate headline.
Reality check 1: the year Steve Jobs passed away Android already had 47% market share and was growing by leaps and bounds year by year.
Reality check 2: Android became large due to differentiating, differentiating, differentiating.
They offered A) devices that allowed you to do more than iOS devices did thanks to a combination of a less restrictive operating system AND hardware and software features that existed on Android years - and in some cases many years - before they appeared on iPhones and iPads.
They offered
They offered C) devices that were in different form factors than Apple's one-size-fits-all 3.5' (later 4') iPhone and 9.7' iPad.
They - and especially Samsung offered D) a different image from Apple and its users (see my initial Beats/LeBron James paragraph).
Meanwhile, the Apple imitators? They all failed. The phones that Samsung were sued for infringement over? Didn't sell. Their Galaxy S/Note phones that offered bigger screens and the drastically different - and much mocked by Apple fans - TouchWiz UI? Made Samsung the #1 smartphone company in the world. Xiaomi? Did great with their iPhone knockoffs ... until Huawei and BBK (who owns Oppo, OnePlus and Redmi) came along with more traditional Android devices that absolutely crushed them. No one even talks about "the Apple of China" anymore. Oh and Google's attempts to replicate the iPhone's hardware and software philosophy with their Pixel phones? Selling so horribly that the carriers - especially Verizon - are threatening to ditch them.
Reality check 3: Android became large due to companies with a proven track record at hardware and software making great products that people wanted to buy. Claiming otherwise is an exercise in self-delusion. It would require believing that all of these very successful global companies are competent at everything else - so much so that Apple patronizes the likes of Google (cloud services), Qualcomm (components), Sony (ditto), LG (ditto plus monitors) and Samsung (ditto) - but smartphones. And then there are CONSUMERS. You would need to believe that the 50% of U.S. smartphone buyers, 65% of global tablet buyers and 85% of global smartphone buyers are for some reason purchasing year after year devices that are incapable of allowing them to watch videos, play games, send/receive text messages/emails/video calls and do productivity tasks. But Android devices - from the $35 Fire TV sticks to the $2000 Samsung Galaxy foldable phones and everything in between - do work and work well.
Reality check 4: since the iPhone 5, Apple has been incorporating features widely used in Samsung Galaxy phones into their own devices so much so that current iPhones and iPads more closely resemble Galaxy S, Galaxy Note and Galaxy Tab devices than iPhones and iPads from 2013 and prior. So who has been stealing, stealing, stealing from who?
Steve would have ended up in many hearings instead, hurting Apple in the long run. Times have changed quite a bit and I feel Tim is handling it very well. Much more humane, but also politically sensitive which is needed in the dire state America is in. And Apple has become a better place to work.
Google and alphabet are extremely intrusive companies. They're venture capital firm is InQTel, which is a subsidiary of the Central Intelligence Agency.
That is why Android got huge. No other reason.
No thank you.
I’ve never read (or bought) a book from iBooks, and never will. I own both an iPad and iPhone, but 10 years from now I could be reading on another platform. iBooks lack of cross platform compatibility makes it dead to me.
I did make the mistake of buying 10 songs from Apple. But, everything else is from Amazon... including movies.
I use Apple’s products because they’re better, but I’ve avoided any kind of platform lock-in... it’s just not worth the future potential headache.
The only “spend” on services within Apple would have to be with a subscription model, anything else would be a poor value when taking future uncertainty into account.
You can get an Android phone to meet far more of your requirements than you can an iPhone.
No one can deny this and Android phones were in the $1,000 plus range long before Apple went there. The difference is, from a $1,500 Android phone you can scale down through literally every price segment to the very cheapest options.
Want a gaming phone?
Want an enormous screen?
Want extra long battery life?
Want a rugged phone?
Want a folding phone?
Want 5G?
Want super fast charging?
Want super fast wireless charging?
Want reverse charging?
Want ultra fast WiFi 6?
Want far more control over the OS?
Want camera versatility?
Want dual frequency GPS?
The list is as long as people's needs virtually.
If you're happy with what Apple decides you can get and the price they offer, then fine but clearly people like being able to choose from a massive variety of features across the full spectrum of phones.
I miss the attention to the finest detail on OX X (macOS). All versions of OS X were perfected with each interaction, all hardwire to that point it was all fully compatible - and you had all the tools out of the box. What happened to iWeb? Try to make a website now on macOS, out of the box. IT's awful. And try to connect iPod version 1 (yes the first one, I have it) in macOS Catalina. Better yet, try to connect s freaking iPhone 4 and restore it using Finder. It's a pain.
But who cares if Android is stealing, and getting bigger or not... I, for one, got tired of this 'rivalry' in tech - Google is awful, and the best we can do about its to ignore it, even if they are a shameful copy. Just don't give them the attention, they will get hurt by that.. Apple should be worried about the old day's quality control, not the competition. Apple is where it s now because of quality and attention used to give to Pro users - the ones that hang on to the company even when it was on a brick to bankrupt.
It seems Apple forgot about them - and can only focus on the consumer market now. Yeah money money money. Too bad.
iPhone PRO is not the answer for us, pro users. That was a joke to excuse a higher price, Giving the elite pro users a 11,000 MacPro is not the answer either. Fuck Apple for that.
And I'm a Apple fan.