February 26, 2010

imagine the meeting

We have learned that when Amazon first submitted its Kindle application for the iPhone to Apple, Amazon included its own payment system within the app, so customers could just pay for e-books and download them right in the app. When Apple spotted the payment system, it told Amazon to get rid of it, according to a source familiar with Amazon’s operations. Why? It’s a rule Apple smartly instituted at the App Store’s beginning, forbidding third-party e-commerce of digital goods within apps.

via blogs.forbes.com

“So, um, George. We know you’ve spent the last four weeks learning Cocoa Touch and building that really nice, seamless book shopping experience within the app, taking advantage of the payments API, connecting to user’s Amazon accounts and all that. It really was a nice piece of work. But we’re gonna have to rip it out. Instead, can you just do a little button in the top right of the home screen that launches Mobile Safari? OK, thanks.”