Apple’s App Store Policy Forces iFlow Reader Out of Business

Granted it is up to the discretion of Apple to change the policy of their app store when they please, however their latest change to take a 30% cut has forced BeamItDown’s iFlow Reader out of business.

“Apple has decided that it wants all of the ebook business in iOS for itself and it has has made mid-game rule changes that make it impossible for anyone but Apple to sell ebooks at a profit on iOS.”

Typically readers such as iFlow Reader, Kindle, Nook and Kobo apps have managed to get around the 30% cut policy by simply sending their customers to a web-based interface outside of the app, however starting in June Apple has said that from June onwards all developers would have to sell their content from within the app itself therefore preventing developers to skirt around the policy.

The company was quoted as saying “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…What sounds like a reasonable demand when packaged by Apple’s extraordinary public relations department is essentially an eviction notice to all ebook sellers on iOS…We put our faith in Apple and they screwed us…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.”