Apple Inc. has told app developers that they will no longer be able to sell content within apps they have created for iOS, it has been reported.
A report in the New York Times said that Sony, one of the developers that has apparently received this missive from Apple, had an iPhone app that would have allowed users to buy and read books from the Sony Reader Store rejected.
According to Sony, all in-app purchases will have to go through Apple or the apps will be rejected. Steve Haber, president of Sony’s digital reading division, told the newspaper: “We always wanted to bring the content to as many devices as possible, not one device to one store.”
Haber added that having to go through Apple to sell content within Sony apps was “opposite of what we wanted to bring to the market”.
The move could potentially affect Amazon as well. Currently, a free Kindle app for iOS offers access to titles in Amazon’s Kindle Store.
Apple did not comment on the report. Apple’s handling of the App Store has received plenty of criticism in the past, with many developers unhappy about the less-than-transparent review process that apps have to pass to gain entry to the store.
However, Apple has made changes to this process in an attempt to be more transparent.
