Recent App Store rule changes, prompted by a court order that Apple has appealed, have led to a fantastic change for users of the Kindle app. On both iPhone and iPad, buying Kindle books is now easier than ever.
Kindle app adds ‘Get Book’ button to link directly to titles on Amazon
Under the old App Store rules, buying Kindle books was a major pain on iPhone.
That’s because, in order to offer a seamless experience via in-app purchases, Amazon would have had to fork over a hefty percentage of sales to Apple.
Apple’s rules also prevented Amazon from making it easy for users to jump outside the app to make a purchase before coming back. As a result, you had to browse and buy titles entirely separately in your web browser before they would appear inside the Kindle app.
But since the rules restricting external links have now been modified, the Kindle app has now made the whole process easier than ever.
Inside Kindle on both iPhone and iPad, there’s now a ‘Get Book’ button provided with each listed title.
Tapping this new button takes you directly to the book’s Amazon listing in your preferred web browser.
Top comment by Blurft
We should take a moment to remember the history of the Kindle app on iOS, as detailed in 9to5Mac's own article "Internal emails show how an Amazon ad prompted Steve Jobs and Phil Schiller to block in-app purchases of Kindle books on iOS"
Until early 2011, users could buy Kindle books in the iOS app because Apple granted Amazon an exception to the "IAPs must go through Apple" rule. Apple approved this because they thought "users who have Kindles will be able to seamlessly switch between reading on the Kindle and their iPhone," which would sell more iPhones.
That changed when Amazon released an ad showing a woman reading a Kindle book on her iPhone, then switching to an Android device and continuing reading. Apple did not like the message that Kindle books being cross-platform made it easy to leave the iOS ecosystem.
Phil Schiller wrote an email saying "I do think that we should tell Amazon that based on their own TV ads it is clear that the use of their App now violates our terms and guidelines" and that Apple would "have to decide whether to pull the Kindle app from the store or continue to allow an exception."
Steve Jobs later wrote "I think this is all pretty simple — iBooks is going to be the only bookstore on iOS devices." iBooks notably is not cross-platform.
Apple made the user experience worse in an effort to lock users in to iOS. Simple as that.
This means you can tap ‘Get Book,’ buy the Kindle title in your browser with Amazon’s ‘1-Click,’ then jump directly back into the Kindle app.
It’s not quite as seamless as an in-app purchase flow could be, but it’s close.
No one knows whether Apple’s modified App Store rules will stay in effect beyond the current appeal, but this Kindle change is undoubtedly strong evidence of the new policy offering a better user experience than the old one.
Are you excited to buy books more easily in Kindle’s app? Let us know in the comments.
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