The new conditions of development applications on the Apple AppStore beginning to take effect, as explained eBouquin. Publishers have until June to comply with new rules of the App Store on sales within applications. It is now impossible to sell an application on the App Store without going through the in-app purchasing from Apple, the Apple sales solution that allows payment via the iTunes client's account. But this passage means to go through now that Apple takes 30% of transaction amount for each sale, or almost all of the percentage who returned to the publishers of applications.
Scanning applications (selling e-books through it) begin to update and remove all references to many of their stores in their applications. The application of Kobo removed any link to his shop in its latest version. The Google Books has removed all links to his shop. The application Kindle (free) removed all links to the Kindle Store.
Apple's new policy is drastic. She keeps mentioning the name of the website. It may not mention the real reason for the withdrawal of the store in the application. It rejects applications encourage users to go directly to the website. The shops of the AppStore is becoming empty shells.
As explained clearly Clayssen Virginia, for many shops is the end of the process of ease of purchase, a key element of customer loyalty. Now, to buy a book, they will leave their reading application, open the browser on their iPhone or their iPad, buy the ebook on the website of their preferred supplier, and reopen the file via the dedicated application . "A real handicap." Some applications may make another choice and may decide to pay their tithe to Apple, but it seems difficult to envisage for sellers of books, because it means leaving all of its profits to Apple.
As explained by Hadrien Gardeur of Feedbooks online bookstore: "there is no scope whatsoever for developers or users in this ecosystem and this is dangerous systematic closure of the industrial culture as". Worse, the system of payment InApp Apple does not support more than 3500 elements for an application: not so for an electronic library, offering thousands of titles to use the system! Apple keeps only the right, via iBookstore, to offer millions of titles. We are then faced with expulsion from the competition. With little alternative.
The dominance of Apple tablet that no competitor does is imposed, facilitates the establishment of this new rule. Yet, what one sees, application vendors seem rather reluctant (rightly) to implement the directives of the dictator Apple. Few have opted to purchase InApp and many have preferred to withdraw all references to purchases of their applications. The closure of the ecosystem itself is most likely to encourage competition to turn to other solutions, to accelerate the flight of Android, the mobile operating system from Google, and is most likely to sign the beginning of the decline of the iPhone and iPad.
For many publishers, the solution would be through the HTML 5. That is to say, to develop more interactive web sites to make applications outside the system applications. The idea is that people can go directly through the internet and web sites to manage their applications ...
But, as explained very well Hadrien Gardeur, HTML 5 does not solve all problems. Application HTML 5 does not open a file with DRM which means that if publishers want their books to make applications accessible via applications in HTML 5 from their websites, they will abandon DRM (which is not a bad, but all publishers, alas, are not convinced). Otherwise the risk is that fragmentation build Web applications locking us into the website of a bookstore reading for any content. In fact, as we said Hadrien Gardeur: "Only actors hosting the content can implement solutions based on a reading Web application with DRM. Given that in France, distributors consistently refuse to give their files to booksellers, this implies that some actors who have files on their servers will be in a position of strength compared to all the booksellers / librarians. "
But above all "distribution is likely to break even." That is to say that in their native applications, application developers reading may develop their own URL schemes calling their own players and only theirs. When you are on the website of the Fnac and you buy a book, the URL will be launched for the type fnacbook ://... When you are on Kobo, the URL will be the type kobo ://... When you are on Nook nook ://... etc.. This means that you will be even more dependent on hardware and software you have purchased. Thus, the application will launch support Kobo Kobo ://... to tell the operating system from Apple (IOS) that when he sees a link like this, we must launch its own application. The risk is to push the fragmentation of uses after the purchase of a security by forcing users to use a specific application, rather than generic internet link.
For example, this had been done by offering Amazon Overdrive for libraries: an offer of as dedicated digital libraries. While the files offered by Overdrive offers are readable by any compatible player (and potentially any reading light), only the player Overdrive works because the URL available when you select the book to start with a rental scheme owner type overdrive ://...
Of course, it is possible to open these links from other software players, but for now it's more complicated for the user.
Of course not least, this fragmentation ahead will not facilitate the reading society. These records must be exported and used outside of a given ecosystem (whether for personal or social reading). But we quickly realized that this fragmentation does not facilitate it. For simplicity, according to the player software or hardware you use, you will have future access to the notes of those who share the exact same hardware and software as you. And you yourselves will not take your notes to a smoothly because they are linked to the systems you will use. For hardware and software, a solution is possible of course. Do they include all existing callbacks: that is to say they can read callback functions for most of the URL schemes owner type nook ://... kobo ://... and other (meaning the list and make them available in applications that your reader can recognize them all).
For a complete ecosystem where everyone is free to buy / borrow where he wants to read the application he wants and do what he wants his annotations it will therefore Hadrien Gardeur estimates, more than never have to:
■ a standard format without DRM (epub)
■ a standard distribution that can manage as native Web callbacks, to syndicate libraries "in the cloud" and navigate through a catalog (OPDS)
■ a standard for annotations
The good thing is that the initiative could give Apple a final blow to DRM. The other bright side is that it will force players to move (and it is perhaps no coincidence that Google is embarking on the reading lamp with iRiver) and in particular to look further hardware and software. Competition could well benefit from the new tablets and multiply.
The whole question remains at what cost to sustainability, interoperability and diversity of the Internet itself?
