Amazon Sidesteps App Store Business Model, Plays Back MP3s From Safari 114
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."
Re:The point is to sell the hardware... (Score:4, Interesting)
This may have been the case when it all started, but at some point, Apple realized the earning potential to monetize the entire experience. They provide the Hardware, and the mechanism to provide Apps, as well as provide the content. It is not in Apple's best interests to allow the user to acquire content through other sources. Period.
The problem with your belief is that there are no facts to back it up. We know that Apple make lots of profit on the hardware. But there's no evidence that they make very much profit from iTunes.
Apple can claim all day long that they are just a Hardware Company, but I haven't believed that for a long time.
It's not Apple that are claiming it. It's just the conclusion that most people who watch Apple closely have come to.
Nonsense... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.)