[doctorpangloss]

> Hindsight is a funny thing. Amazon's eBook/Kindle business is continuing to soar while Apple doesn't even mention iBooks anymore.

That's true, but for a few idiosyncratic reasons, if anything.

The Kindle app is available for the iPad, and for a period of time an iPad user could buy the book directly in the app.

If Apple wanted to, it could coerce Amazon to pay 30%, regardless of where the books are sold.

I wouldn't be surprised if Amazon makes most of its money off iPad users. But there are no hard figures. Though if the opposite were true, I'm sure Amazon would be trumpeting everywhere how successful the Kindle is.

[MatthewPhillips]

> That's true, but for a few idiosyncratic reasons, if anything.

> The Kindle app is available for the iPad, and for a period of time an iPad user could buy the book directly in the app.

Are you sure you meant to use the word idiosyncratic here? Because being available on as many platforms as possible is the default behavior for a business that sells content. It's Apple that is idiosyncratic here, by choosing to not make its stores available on any device not made by them. It helps their hardware business, where the money is made, but it's a bad choice for consumers.

[notimetorelax]

> I suspect Amazon makes most of its money off iPad users

Just wondering, why do you think that?

[FireBeyond]

Agreed, I don't believe it to be true at all, either.

Let's face it, the people who are that invested in reading that they'd consider a Kindle are likely to vastly prefer reading on a device purposefully built for it.

My Kindle Paperwhite is gorgeous. I also have an iPad 4, and a rMBP. As great as both those devices screens are, the Paperwhite wins, without a doubt, for reading. Even the iPad is too big, too heavy, to comfortably hold up or above my head for any period of time.

People so heavily invested in reading that they purchase many eBooks using Amazon's infrastructure are likely to have investigated the hardware designed for same. And whilst my preference for the hardware over an iDevice doesn't automatically mean everyone will find it the same, I find this claim highly tenuous.

[gtaylor]

yeah, I love reading on my Kindle. It's much cheaper, the battery lasts forever, I can buy stuff off of Whispernet without paying a monthly fee, it's easier on my eyes, and I can read it in bright sunlight.

Anecdotal on both accounts...

[snowwrestler]

Because it's easy to order all sorts of things off Amazon on an iPad, not just books. That's why Amazon pushes the Kindle Fire so hard now, but they have a long way to go to catch up to the iPad installed base.

[CJefferson]

"It is easy to see from the numbers that the vast majority of Kindle book readers use Apple devices."

Out of interest, where are those numbers?

[doctorpangloss]

Is it so cynical to assume that Steve Jobs & the "analysts" he mentions were right–that not many Kindles have actually been sold?

Sure, you're right, they've never given a sales figure.

I think because they haven't sold very many.

http://gizmodo.com/5963577/lets-just-assume-amazon-has-sold-...

[jonknee]

It's the top selling product on Amazon and has been so for years. They have sold a ton of them, it's ridiculous to think otherwise. Who do you think was buying all the Kindle books before there were other supported platforms?

Amazon doesn't release sales figures. Period. Not of the Kindle and not of any product.

[rmrfrmrf]

> [The Kindle is] the top selling product on Amazon

> Amazon doesn't release sales figures.

I'm not trying to step foot into this lose-lose debate, but you really can't say what has sold the most on Amazon without the release of sales figures. Amazon could easily be lying and none of us would know for certain.

[jonknee]

I'm going to assume they haven't been committing securities fraud just like I assume Apple has really sold however many million iPads that they claimed.

[FireBeyond]

Your supporting evidence for this opinion is a blog post that offers no evidence whatsoever?

Amazon does however publish Top 100s of categories, and the Kindle has been consistently high in the categories related to electronic entertainment.

Perhaps the claim is that Amazon manipulates that list, next...

[jonknee]

> If Apple wanted to, it could coerce Amazon to pay 30%, regardless of where the books are sold.

That would be interesting to witness. Apple's second trial over their criminal behavior over eBooks would be a hoot.

[meepmorp]

> That would be interesting to witness. Apple's second trial their criminal behavior over eBooks would be a hoot.

What criminal behavior would there be in this instance? It's their platform and they're not convicted monopolists, so they can set their pricing however they like. If Amazon doesn't like it, they can take their ball and go home (and likely get Apple to cave, cause people seem to prefer Kindle to iBooks).

This is called capitalism.

[jonknee]

Well for starters since Amazon does not sell anything through Apple's platform (and indeed removed that ability because of Apple's new rules requiring a 30% cut), there would be no setting of pricing.

You're suggesting that Apple would somehow require Amazon to fork over 30% of every Kindle book sold as long as the purchaser has downloaded the Kindle for iOS app. That would be quite anti-competitive and would introduce a whole host of troubles over their approval process (they would also have to take 30% of HBO's revenue or kick out HBO Go, Watch ESPN would be gone, Netflix etc etc). Not to mention nearly impossible to audit.

[meepmorp]

> Well for starters since Amazon does not sell anything through Apple's platform (and indeed removed that ability because of Apple's new rules requiring a 30% cut), there would be no setting of pricing.

It would be setting pricing for the opportunity to make use of Apple's platform.

> You're suggesting that Apple would somehow require Amazon to fork over 30% of every Kindle book sold as long as the purchaser has downloaded the Kindle for iOS app. That would be quite anti-competitive and would introduce a whole host of troubles over their approval process (they would also have to take 30% of HBO's revenue or kick out HBO Go, Watch ESPN would be gone, Netflix etc etc). Not to mention nearly impossible to audit.

You're conflating an impractical suggestion with an illegal one here. It's a patently unworkable idea if the vendor in question doesn't use Apple's APIs for transaction processing, and it'd be stupid and tone deaf and a bad deal for their customers. But that's got nothing at all to do with legality.

Speaking of legality, would such a hypothetical move on Apple's part be illegal? Since Apple isn't a convicted monopolist, I don't think it is. And in this particular case, you'd have a difficult argument to make that Apple is meaningfully interfering with Amazon's ability to sell e-books, since they have (as you point out elsewhere in this thread) a booming business selling e-book readers, as well as content on other platforms (such as Android).

My post was merely questioning your assertion that instituting such a policy would be criminal behavior by Apple. So far, I don't see that it would be. Feel free to show me where I'm wrong.

[mehwoot]

> It's their platform and they're not convicted monopolists, so they can set their pricing however they like.

I can't speak for countries I don't live in (like the US), but where I live, this isn't actually the case. You'd think it would be, but it isn't.

[meepmorp]

Right, I'm only talking about how it is in the US. Also, note that this isn't an endorsement (or condemnation) of how we do things.