Apple responds: we want a cut of Amazon, Sony e-book sales
I think we were all afraid of some move like this. Nobody cares about Sony's ebooks. Everybody (me included) cares about Kindle.<p>I can sort of understand where Apple is coming from in this. They provide an ecosystem and apps live within their ecosystem.<p>That being said, I can't see Amazon or any other big player rolling over on a margin of 30%. This is the problem with one fixed margin: it works well for apps and music but not necessarily for other things.<p>You see the same problem with the Mac App Store: smaller devs love it. Will you see Microsoft Office or Adobe Photoshop on it? I doubt it. 30% is just too much for those big players to hand over.<p>I consider Kindle to be a key part of my iPad experience and I can say if the end result of this is that I can't read my Kindle books on my iPad I will be <i>pissed</i>. I bought them specifically because I could.<p>Ultimately though I think Apple needs to give up control here. They should provide a payment infrastructure and if it's comeplling, people will use it. If it's not, they won't. But don't make me a casualty of war in the names of the the consistency of your 30% cut.