Nate at The Digital Reader has spent the weekend keeping track of what’s happening to ebook apps available through Apple’s App Store now that their new guidelines are in effect, and today he discovered that Nook Kids’ latest update, released on Friday, removed a link to the Nook ebookstore. In a more extreme case, the Google Books app disappeared entirely last Thursday, with no explanation or info on whether it will return.
Among the big retailers, this leaves the standard Nook app, which hasn’t been updated since last October, and the Amazon Kindle app, which was last updated in April. Both are currently still available on the App Store.
Also see “The expulsions have begun – Google Books gone from iOS” at The Digital Reader.
Update: The Wall Street Journal also announced late Sunday that it would no longer sell content directly through its own app.
There’s another one. On Saturday, Kobo released an update to their iOS reader app, noting “We have removed the Kobo Store from within the application. You can continue to shop at our website.” Notice that Kobo refused to give Apple the demanded 30% slice of retail If they had, they’d probably lose money on each sale That’s not a valid business model. All this Apple newly enforced rule is doing make it harder for their iOS customers to buy ebooks from anyone but them. One by one, ebook retailers are giving Apple a thumb’s down. Amazon is one of the last to remain. It’s unlikely that this move will give Apple an advantage over its chief rival, Amazon. Amazon’s been clever in how they’ve designed their ebook ecosystem. They’ve made their online story well worth visiting. When I get ebooks from them, I buy there. Why? So I can check out the reviews and perhaps look at a sample.. And when I buy, I can designate whether that ebook is automatically downloaded to my Kindle 3 or my iPhone. Amazon’s size may be why thus far Apple hasn’t yanked their app. I suspect when Amazon updates their Kindle app to remove in-app purchase links, they’ll toss in new features that Apple will have trouble matching, features that’ll leave iBooks eating their dust.
We Australians aren’t allowed to access B&N or Google ebooks anyway. 🙁
now maybe we will see a sony iOS app in the store. c’mon sony now’s your chance to get in the game.