For years now, Apple has enforced a click-through requirement on e-book apps on the iPad—they can’t sell the books directly from their app without giving Apple a cut, so they have to send them to the Safari browser to make the purchase, then back to the app. So why is it that Amazon is the only one to get it right?

That’s a question posed by a post to the Mobile Tech Experts blog comparing the iPad e-book apps. The blogger finds iBooks’s built-in store too awkward, and Nook and Kobo send him to Safari to let him buy the book but don’t actually download it.

The Kindle app, on the other hand, brings all of Amazon’s content (far more than iBooks) and its excellent browse and search capabilities (which are both better and much faster) to the iPad. On the top, Amazon’s great one-click buying experience works perfectly on the iPad. Of course, it does switch to the Safari browser but, when you’ve bought the book, you just click to send it the Kindle for iPad and it takes you right back to the reading app. The book immediately downloads and you can read it right away.

The blogger prefers to read books on his e-ink Kindle anyway, overall, owing to lack of screen glare, but when they have lots of pictures, especially color, he’ll view them on the iPad.

I suppose it just goes to show why Amazon continues to be king of the hill in the e-book store world. Even on the platform of one of their harshest critics, who actively tried to torpedo them in conspiracy with five of the six major publishers, their store still works even better than any of the others—including Apple’s own.

Publisher’s note: While Mobile Tech Experts’s premise was right on the money and remains so today, the MTE blog item dates back at least several years. The blogger apparently disguised the origins and timing of the post. – D.R.

2 COMMENTS

  1. Although I don’t doubt your premise, there are some clues in the text that dates this blog post. The blogger references a “brand new Kindle 3” and the Stanza app he (or she) has on the iPad. Stanza hasn’t been in the app store for two years and a “brand new” Kindle 3 hasn’t been available for over three years. Since there is a future tense reference to a “color Kindle,” I would say the post was written sometime between mid 2011 and late 2011. FWIW, I still prefer the Kindle app to iBooks.

  2. @Tim: Yes, the post’s premise is absolutely on the money and jibes with my own feelings about both apps. As for the article quoted, it popped up in an aggregator as current. Based simply on the headline, I passed it on to Chris for consideration. I see now exactly what happened. The post lacked a date, and it’s easy to understand why he went ahead—the credible and still-timely premise distracted him from details like the Stanza reference (yes, he’s been e-booking forever and is well-familiar with the product!). There but for the grace… A quick Google search shows the article might have been ripped off from elsewhere. Good catch—thanks! David

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