Purchasing From the Kindle App
Phil Schiller (via Hacker News):
I just watched a new Amazon Kindle app ad on TV. […] While the primary message is that there are Kindle apps on lots of mobile devices, the secondary message that can’t be missed is that it is easy to switch from iPhone to Android.
The first step might be to say they must use our payment system for everything, including books (triggered by the newspapers and magazines).
Which is exactly what they did. This exchange makes it sound as though Apple’s motivation was to limit users’ flexibility rather than making it easier for them to buy content (as some people had suggested at the time). However, I don’t see how this makes actually makes it more difficult to switch to Android. I guess that’s what iBooks is for.
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Semi-bad news. The judge is weakening the DOJ's suggested remedy in significant ways. No allowing Amazon to have a direct weblink in their iOS app, for one example.
On the good side, however, she's keeping the 5 year anti-trust monitor on Apple's content agreement, not just in books, but in video and other media too.
So, again, this is like one the early-mid '90's DOJ actions against Microsoft. Nothing big, but laying out a predicate to build a more serious case against any future dirty-dealing.
"Ah, spite, that most prime mover of customer-oriented experiences."
I do my e-commerce with Amazon not out of spite, for for a significantly better customer-oriented experience...
I was referring to Steve's original email as quoted. I completely agree with your stance.
Maybe this is the best evidence we'll ever get that Steve was 100% about getting things done his way, instead of 100% about putting the customer first, even though they did coincide at times.
"I was referring to Steve's original email as quoted. I completely agree with your stance."
Noted. I'm just so reflexively conditioned to receive comments from you accusing me of lacking appropriate Cuperino-fervor that I completely misread you here.
"Maybe this is the best evidence we'll ever get that Steve was 100% about getting things done his way, instead of 100% about putting the customer first, even though they did coincide at times."
One of the many, many sad things of the early death of Steve-o was not getting to see him repeat billgates' evasive videotaped DOJ deposition on the illegal emails he sent...
You wouldn't have seen that in any case; he would have vigorously defended his right to be an asshole, maybe at times making himself a victim, but not by hemming and hawing. The self-assertive Apple slides at the end of the case are exactly the Apple tone at its worst.
I don't ever mind you lacking fervor although I sometimes mind you lacking arguments.
"You wouldn't have seen that in any case; he would have vigorously defended his right to be an asshole, maybe at times making himself a victim, but not by hemming and hawing. The self-assertive Apple slides at the end of the case are exactly the Apple tone at its worst."
Meh. Steve-o would've lawyered up to the hilt. billgates didn't do his deposition that way cuz he wanted to. He did it that way cuz he was lawyered up to the hilt.
And think of it. Those Apple slides at the end of the case are exactly why Apple now has a Federal monitor on their media dealings for the next decade or so. First predicate in the RICO case that's pending.
DOJ depositions are not press conferences. If sick Walter White Steve-o had decided to go full Sid during the deposition, the remedy would have a been a lot worse than what they got in this branch of the multiverse.
DOJ depositions bring the full majesty of the law into Admissible Evidence for Da Judge. Given lack of remorse played a big part in the relatively weak current remedy, imagine if Steve-o had ignored the lawyering up and played it His Way...
