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.I can sort of understand where Apple is coming from in this. They provide an ecosystem and apps live within their ecosystem.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.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.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 pissed. I bought them specifically because I could.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.