Comment Re:But Worse Than Distributing on Android? (Score 1) 381
Sorta but not quite. This is all directed at Amazon. Apple has always delivered really well engineered premium products. It's just that the latest batch has a built-in distribution system. So now that they have a ton of customers they're going to try abusing their near-monopoly position. There's also some collateral damage to other companies who are doing business via Apple's platform. Where are they gonna go, The Blackberry App Store? It's not so different from what Amazon has been doing the whole time, but it was 100% closed. Would you expect to see the iBooks app on the Kindle 4? Nah, probably not.
Except it's not quite a monopoly. The positive outcome from this will be that Amazon (and others) will be forced to go with Android if they wish to avoid the Apple tax. Which they must do because their margins don't support giving 30% to Apple. It will suddenly become necessary to make Android just as popular and polished as iThings. I would expect to see some large resources devoted to Android evolution happening real soon, maybe forks backed by some deep pockets.
My next bet is Kindle prices drop down to around $99 by next Christmas. I bet Amazon wishes now they'd dropped the price much earlier. Then they would have the near-monopoly to abuse.