Yesterday Amazon announced Cloud Player their digital music locker that has a desktop and Android version however and iOS version was not announced or suggested as coming soon. It leads you to wonder if Amazon avoided building an iOS app due to the new Apple in-app purchase policy. It is possible Amazon has an iOS app submitted that is pending approval however the later is a more interesting assumption.
If you recall the Sony Reader app was rejected weeks ago as they did not use the Apple in-app purchase API allowing Apple to have a 30% of cut of sales for no logical reason. The policy change requiring the use of Apple’s in-app purchase API seem like a logical reason Amazon would skip iOS with Cloud Player and other large companies will do the same with other technologies.
Smaller developers benefit from the Apple in-app purchase API but large companies like WSJ, Sony, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and many others don’t need Apple to handle point of sale transactions. The Apple policy forces a middleman, Apple, to get a 30% mob take when one is not technically required.
It is possible I am reading more into Amazon’s choice not to launch Cloud Player on iOS however this may be a sign of times to come. Will larger companies take their innovative apps to other platforms? Will RIM and Windows Phone benefit if companies start to avoid iOS due to the in-app purchase API policy? Keep in mind Rhapsody has already said:
Our philosophy is simple too – an Apple-imposed arrangement that requires us to pay 30 percent of our revenue to Apple, in addition to content fees that we pay to the music labels, publishers and artists, is economically untenable. The bottom line is we would not be able to offer our service through the iTunes store if subjected to Apple’s 30 percent monthly fee vs. a typical 2.5 percent credit card fee.
It seems logical that the Apple policy change is specifically designed to limit competition by charging an absorbent fee.
