Computer and software firm Apple Inc., US, is reportedly further tightening its control of the App Store. According to reports published in the New York Times, Apple has advised some application developers, including Sony, that they can no longer sell e-books within their apps unless the transactions go through Apple's system. It reportedly rejected Sony's iPhone application that would have allowed people to buy and read e-books from the Sony Reader Store.
Apple has clarified that it was still allowing customers to read e-books they bought elsewhere within apps.
Apps like the Kindle app from Amazon.com and the one that Sony submitted open up a browser window when a user wants to buy something. This allows the app makers to argue that technically the purchase is happening on the web, not within the app.
Apple is reportedly saying that app makers must allow those purchases to happen within the app, not in a separate browser window, with Apple getting its standard 30 percent cut of the transaction. At the moment this applies only to e-book purchases.
The new requirement is seen to reflect a shift for Apple, which has traditionally made more money selling hardware than platforms. Also, Apple had recently indicated that it would be more collaborative, not less, with magazine publishers and other content producers that wanted more control over how to distribute content on the iPad. Industry observers point out that Apple may increasingly find platforms more economically significant than devices.
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