Apple Tightens App Store Rules on In-App Purchases

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Apple wants to have control over what content you are selling within your app. Among the recently declined was Sony’s iPhone application, which would have sold e-books and materials from the Sony Reader Store as an in-app purchase. Sony digital reading division president Steve Haber said that Apple told them that all in-app purchasable content would now have to go through their company, which means Sony couldn’t sell products from the Sony Reader Store.

“It’s the opposite of what we wanted to bring to the market,” Haber said to the New York Times. “We always wanted to bring the content to as many devices as possible, not one device to one store.”

This could mean the end of the Kindle App, which sells Amazon reading content, and other like-minded programs. However, unlike Sony’s app which would allowed an in-app purchase, the Kindle app directs the user to buy items from a web browser. Both Sony’s iPhone app and the Kindle app compete directly against Apple’s iPad Tablet functions, so the company might be seizing this opportunity to weed out competitors on their iOS platform.

More on TIME.com:

“Credit Card Bait” In-App Purchases Worries Parents

Store Letting People Trade Kindles For Physical Books

Amazon: Kindle Books Finally Eclipse Paperbacks