You Can Finally Buy Books from the Kindle App (Sort Of)
Credit: Amazon
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Developers aren’t wasting any time taking advantage of the new freedoms offered by last week’s US District Court ruling. Ever since Apple was smacked down hard by Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers for defying her 2021 injunction that required it to allow developers to link out to alternative purchasing systems, we’ve been seeing new updates that provide users with other ways of paying, in some cases opening up new features that have long been annoyingly missing.
Spotify was one of the first in line, releasing an update less than 48 hours after Judge Rogers’ ruling that added buttons to subscribe to the streaming service via its website. Patreon has announced plans to do the same, and today, Amazon released an update to the Kindle app that now includes a “Get Book” button below any titles you don’t already own.
Spotify had briefly allowed in-app purchases from 2014 to 2016 before deciding it wouldn’t give up 15-30% of its revenue to Apple and shut the feature down entirely. The only problem is that this forced users to subscribe at its website, and the silliest App Store rule that Apple ever came up with prevented Spotify from even mentioning to users that there was a way to sign up. Ditto for Netflix and others, which had to flat-out tell users they couldn’t sign up in the app, leaving them to figure out how to do so on their own.
This was the “anti-steering” provision that was at the crux of the case. It was the only point on which Apple lost in its original lawsuit with Epic Games; the court came down on Apple’s side on nine of the other ten claims, but Apple wasn’t willing to take the win. It continued to fight to maintain control over its commission stream. Even after it lost its final appeal and the injunction came into force, Apple did everything it could to find ways to comply without actually complying. As Judge Rogers later pointed out, the company “at every turn chose the most anticompetitive option.”
In the end, Apple was ordered to relax its rules and do what it should have done in the first place: let developers direct customers to make digital purchases outside of the App Store without paying a pound of flesh to Apple.
This decision isn’t just helping developers earn more money. It’s brought fresh air into the App Store as apps that had omitted Apple’s in-app purchases can now offer users a much more convenient way to buy digital goods.
Subscription apps like Spotify were bad enough, but at least they’re a “one-and-done” payment option. However, one of the earliest apps to be impacted by Apple’s intransigence has created a much more cumbersome road for iPhone users: Amazon’s Kindle.
Kindle is one of the oldest apps on the App Store, predating Apple Books (initially known as “iBooks”) by about a year. Apple unveiled in-app purchases the same year, but when Amazon wanted to use them to sell Kindle books, Apple flatly told the company it would only be able to do so if it gave up a 30% cut of each book sale as a commission.
Naturally, Amazon gave that one a hard no, which meant it couldn’t sell books in the Kindle app. However, Apple’s policies meant it couldn’t even link out to the Kindle Store in Safari. Customers who wanted to buy a new book had to go and find the title themselves on Amazon’s website and buy it there. It was cumbersome and unnecessary, but Apple was determined to ensure nobody could get away with buying something it didn’t get a cut of.
However, that changes with today’s update. While it’s still not as smooth and seamless a process as you’ll find in Apple Books, which naturally uses Apple’s App Store purchasing system, the new “Get Book” button in the Kindle app will at least take you to the appropriate page in Safari, where you can then make your purchase, return to the Kindle app, and start reading almost right away (once it finishes downloading). It’s a reasonably seamless process as long as you’re logged into your Amazon account in Safari.
Sadly, this is only available in the United States. Kindle customers in Canada, the UK, and elsewhere will still only see a “Get Sample” button to download a few pages and will be left scouring the Amazon web store in Safari to make the purchase. That’s because a US District Court ruling only applies in the US, so Apple hasn’t been forced to make these changes elsewhere.
Apple is also appealing the court ruling, so there’s a possibility that this new App Store freedom could be short-lived. It’s hard to say how that will turn out, but the higher courts have already sided with Judge Rogers’ initial injunction from 2021. They’ll likely uphold the core principles that Apple has to allow developers to link out to external websites. However, the new restrictions that prohibit Apple from charging any commissions are murkier and could be reversed by an appellate court. Apple may not get away with the 27% it was trying to levy on developers, but even a smaller commission could be more than Amazon wants to pay, especially considering how razor-thin the margins already are on book sales.
