How Micro-Transactions Will Shake Up iPhone

Spanner Spencer writes "Talk to iPhone games developers, and the feature they're most excited about in the new iPhone 3.0 software is the ability to do in-game micro-transactions. And while you might wonder if this is just an excuse to get iPhone gamers to dip into their wallets even more often, it's actually a hugely positive thing for several reasons. Downloadable content, virtual items, subscription billing and fast-track social advancement are some of them, so Pocket Gamer looks into a bit more depth about what you can expect on the micro-payments side once iPhone 3.0 debuts."

Comments

Re:I hope it's clearly marked and confirmed

[tepples]

The current TOS doesn't permit Amazon to include purchasing functionality in their application

You said "current". Paul Carver and I were discussing the update to the operating system and TOS described by the article.

Re:I hope it's clearly marked and confirmed

[dangitman]

That doesn't make any sense. You said "That's why you can't buy new books in Amazon's Kindle app; you have to close it and open Safari."

The Kindle app is not yet available for iPhone 3.0 - so you must have been talking about the current iteration. And you cite the TOS regarding microtransactions as the reason that Amazon doesn't sell books via microtransactions. This is dubious. If Apple did allow Amazon to sell books via iPhone microtransactions, do you really think that Amazon would? I doubt they'd be inclined to hand Apple 30% of their book revenue.

Really, your post makes no sense on so many levels. Saying that the reason you currently can't buy books from the Kindle app has anything to do with a microtransaction feature that doesn't exist yet is pretty bizarre. Wouldn't it be a lot more logical and straightforward to conclude that Amazon doesn't sell the books this way, because they don't allow selling things via the iPhone apps?

Corrected verb tense

[tepples]

Saying that the reason you currently can't buy books from the Kindle app has anything to do with a microtransaction feature that doesn't exist yet is pretty bizarre.

"Can" is a defective verb. Please allow me to rephrase my previous comment with the proper verb tense:

As I understand it, $0.00 apps will not be able to call the microtransaction API. That's why you will not be able to buy new books in the updated version of Amazon's Kindle app; you have to close it and open Safari.

Re:Corrected verb tense

[dangitman]

As I understand it, $0.00 apps will not be able to call the microtransaction API. That's why you will not be able to buy new books in the updated version of Amazon's Kindle app; you have to close it and open Safari.

That addresses one point, but not the other. Let's continue playing the hypothetical - say that the Kindle app is allowed to call the microtransaction API. Would Amazon allow people to buy books via iPhone microtransactions? I doubt it. So, if that were the case, then you couldn't say that microtransactions are the reason why you couldn't buy books through the Kindle app.