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Amazon Sidesteps App Store Business Model, Plays Back MP3s From Safari
Press2ToContinue writes "Amazon has found a simple way around Apple's tight-fisted App Store rules: give users a web app to buy MP3s that runs in Safari. This way, they have no need to pay 30% per tune to Apple. Freedom of choice of vendor in Apple-only territory? Is this a big breach of Apple's walled garden? I wonder if Apple with have a response to this."
We'll see Apple changing the rules to ban it.
There... that wasn't hard was it.
When the iPhone came out, there was no third-party native apps. People were expected to build web apps.
I am sure amazon does not have the same contract as the small time developer and it will come down to licensing terms. They had to pull the link from within their old app before http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/amazon-others-cave-to-apple-on-in-app-purchases-today-html5-tomorrow/53116 so it was just a matter of time that they made it easy to purchase the apps on a phone conveniently. I don't see how this should even fall under terms of their license but I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't some broad reaching terms in the contract that apple will try to use as leverage.
When all else fails, try.
A bit of a sensationalist summary, but this is absolutely not a breach of the walled garden; the App Store rules and guidelines only apply for apps which are published in the App Store.
Web apps, due to their very nature, are not covered by these guidelines and I suspect Apple isn't bothered by this. It's no different than buying a Kindle book via a web page and then downloading & reading it within the Kindle app itself.
Backup not found: (A)bort (R)etry (P)anic
Isn't the main purpose of the iTunes Music Store to sell iOS hardware? If I recall, doesn't most of the 30% of Apple's cut go into running the store?
Apple is predominantly a hardware company, and they want people to buy their hardware. If the main purpose of their music/app stores is to sell the hardware then why would it matter where people actually get their music/apps from? Amazon is just giving people another reason to get an iOS device. They now have more options for their music purchases. Win/Win.
Apple will have no response to this, and nor should they.
This is exactly the path that Apple have been telling companies they should follow if they wish to sell media outside of the iOS app store.
Amazon are simply following Apple's own guidance.
The kindle is an actual app but you buy content online. This is no different they just didn't bother with an app.
And Safari will be broken In 3... 2... 1... At least that's what would happen when Steve was alive. Along with an explanation that the Amazon Web app was compromising stability and user experience. 'People don't want Amazon web app stores. People want iTunes.'
That was always one of Apple's suggested options. Heck, it was the original option.
Apple designed this as an "alternative", albeit crippled alternative, to "Apps" from the very beginning. The Financial Times was the first major organization to challenge Apple's greedy little scheme by making their subscription a web-only affair, thus avoiding the 30% Apple usury. I have been disappointed that more people have not gone this route and I am certainly glad to see the Amazon has grown a set and gone that way.
Film at 11.
This shouldn't come as a surprise for Amazon.
I'm constantly amazed at the hoops people jump through to help the tech giants control their lives in the name of convenience. This sure as hell doesn't sound convenient to me. Amazon, Google, Apple, Facebook.... It just never really ends.
I'll keep my CD's, thank you. Better sound quality, and I don't have to sell my soul to one of these parasitic companies just to play music. More convenient and infinitely simpler.
I don't respond to AC's.
The rules for iOS are very simple. If you want to sell apps through the App Store — or sell anything inside those apps — you give Apple a 30 percent cut. If you want to sell through the web browser, you're own your own. The idea that Apple has any interest in controlling what are essentially web pages is sheer idiocy. There's absolutely no evidence to cause a rational person to even ask the question. It's only insane hatred of Apple and the desire to attack the company that could be behind such a question, because there is no rational reason to even bring it up. If you want to sell something through what is essentially a webpage that has a link on your screen, Apple has never shown the least bit of interest in stopping you. It's sheer delusion to suggest otherwise.
1) As an iPhone customer, this is not appealing. Can I dock my phone in our car and control it through the steering wheel controls? nope. Can I dock my phone in the speaker on the kitchen counter and control it through the buttons on top of the speakers? Nope. Can I listen to music and play Field Runners 2? Nope. Sorry, but the few cents of savings are not worth the hassle.
2) "Is this a big breach of Apple's walled garden?" What sensationalizing asshat even had the balls to post that?
why dont amazon just add a surcharge for people who want to buy things using apples app store.
They will claim Amazon violates their patent on Safari's rounded corners. Then they'll go to court and try to ban Amazon. (It's funny, laugh...)
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
Fire up safari and go to the Google Play Music and you can buy and listen to music. Amazon isn't being innovative or anything.
The rumor is they are hiring Steve Ballmer to give the response.
Apple employees are hiding their Herman Miller chairs, just in case.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
Apple's %30 is less about making money from what I've seen (This is also substantiated by SEC reports) and more about customer support management. Remember, those of us here on /. are perfectly capable of knowing that when we buy app from Vendor B, and it's billing breaks, that it's not Apple's fault, but Vendor B's. For most consumers that is simply not the case though, they buy the wrong thing from Vendor B and the charge gets messed up? They're not even going to look up that company's phone number, they're going to call Apple and complain about the charge. Who can't do anything because it didn't even run through their system. A whole lot of people -still- don't realize that their ISP isn't the whole Internet, that their Dell isn't every computer, and that their iPhone and everything on it wasn't produced by Apple.
So we get this, where every charge runs through their system.
On the flip side, people who do their subscriptions through web apps should damn well know where they went to buy, since they had to literally type in the company's name in some fashion (Google search, the URL bar, SOMETHING) to reach the checkout cart.
Apple has been clear from the start on this: "Don't like the App store's policies? Make an html5 app!" In fact, it was the only way to build apps for the original iPhone -- with Apple's blessing, at that. (And it still is how unwelcome vendors, e.g. porn operators, build iOS apps.)
"I wonder if Apple with have a response to this."
Sure, the same response they've always had: If you don't like our app store rules, build a web app.
People keep thinking that Apple is going to be surprised by people building web apps or taken aback. Apple's line from the beginning is that the store rules were acceptable because if you didn't like them, you could still build a web app and get around the rules.
Apple will not give a sh!t. You can load mp3 files onto any iDevice and Apple does not care, why should this be different? Yes, you use iTunes to do it, just as I needed to use Nokia software to load stuff onto my old Nokia phones. Bah, the OP is just drawing your attention to a new serviced, it is just and advert.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
Shorter summary: Amazon creates mobile-optimized from which you can buy MP3's.
As many others have pointed out, this is what Apple has said for years companies should do if they don't want to go through the app store. Amazon didn't "find it" It's not a sneaky loophole or unique, innovative, or new. I'm puzzled why this is even a story at all, much less worthy of a Slashdot article.
What the submitter missed was the fact that the Amazon MP3 store for the mobile web is used for purchasing songs and to then play them using the Amazon Cloud Player. In fact, you can't even listen to mp3s through the website.
Basically, Amazon optimized the website to make it easier to purchase MP3s. You could do it before with their website, it just wasn't as nice. Nothing to see here, move along.
What, me worry?
First of all, Amazon has a wider selection at more sensible prices. I can buy a full physical CD at lower costs than the music on iTunes, and I have already come across a situation where I could only buy individual songs and not a whole album.
To illustrate what that means in money terms, Amazon would charge me $15 or so for the whole album as a physical CD whereas the same album in iTunes would cost over $40.
This was actually the point where I switched to Amazon. First of all, an MP3 plays everywhere (including in iTunes), secondly it's much cheaper and thirdly it doesn't seem to have those weird regional limits of the iTunes store which doesn't want to sell you something if you live in the wrong part of the world.
Apple, you're losing ground here. Clean it up.
Insert
There's a lot of apps that will play music, and most likely just hook in to Apple's player to do it, but none of them have the slick interface that Apple has on it's iPod app. When mobile Safari loads an mp3, the file will play with the Apple player, but it isn't the iPod app. If you have other music playing apps, Safari gives you the option to load them into one of those apps, but the iPod app is never listed. I suppose this is fine for people who don't mind loading every single song every time they play the song... but most will want to sync the song back to iTunes, then sync it back into Apple's iPod app. That's three extra steps Apple's iTunes store app doesn't require. This is all the advantage Apple requires.
Not very interestingly, though the iPod app will play m4a, and while the safari media player will play mp3/mp4 files, it will not play mp4 files labeled m4a (Apple's own invention, an mp4 labeled m4a).
It's just an advertisement for this new service. Add Apple hate, fan the flames and you get tons of visibility for nothing. Actually this is not so much a brilliant idea but rather smart astroturfing.
Google has literally been doing this since the week Google Music launched, and the week before iTunes match was launched!
NOBODY CARES.