14 DAY TRIAL // eBook reading application developers have until June 30 to modify their apps to comply with Apple’s new terms of service which require all book sales to be routed through the company’s in-app purchase API, thus also giving Apple a 30 percent cut of all sales.
As a result of this change, BeamItDown is discontinuing its iFlowReader app for iDevices on May 31, saying "Apple has decided that it wants all of the e-book business in iOS for itself and it has has made mid-game rule changes that make it impossible for anyone but Apple to sell e-books at a profit on iOS."
Basically, Apple requires that e-book apps no longer send customers to an e-book store that is accessible through Safari (or their mobile web browser of choice), but rather through the e-reading app itself, via in-app purchase.
In keeping customers within the confines of its ecosystem, Apple retains the right to get a 30 percent cut of all e-book sales. This, however, spells bad news for iFlowReader, who now says ‘We’re closing… For Good.”
“Five of us spent nearly a year and a half of our lives and over a million dollars in cash and sweat equity developing the iFlowReader app…,” the disgusted developers write.
“What sounds like a reasonable demand when packaged by Apple's extraordinary public relations department is essentially an eviction notice to all e-book sellers on iOS…”
“We put our faith in Apple and they screwed us…,” BeamItDown says.
“It was the American dream that we all strive for. Sadly, the America that we thought we were working in turned out to be a totalitarian regime and the dictator decided that he wanted all of what we had. Our dream is now over.”
The company is now instructing iFlow customers on how to save their purchased e-books. They also provide advice on how to contact Apple CEO Steve Jobs himself, encouraging them to complain to Apple.