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iPadsters looking to download fresh reads using their Kindle, Nook, or Kobo apps can no longer purchase e-books directly from their iPad's app store. Apple has begun enforcing its new in-app subscription rules, demanding a 30 percent cut for all sales directly from e-reader apps. Content providers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble don't want to pay up, so instead of giving Apple a cut of their sales, they've removed links to their shops from their apps, informing their customers that they must purchase their titles from a web browser and then download it to their device. Under this compromise, Kindle, Nook and Kobo get to keep their apps in the Apple store and you still get to read on your slick iPad. So everyone's okay, right? Or not. It looks like everyone involved loses something in the e-reader app store battle.
Customers lose. It's far more inconvenient for iPad users to get reads on their devices. Instead of purchasing directly from the Apple's app store, readers face a lot more clicks and cables to get to new books. "To buy Kindle books, iPad users must now open a Web browser on their own, type in Amazon's address, and sync their apps after making a purchase," explains PC World's Jared Newman. Some dexterous tech savvy folk may not mind the extra tapping, it's a difference of a few seconds, but others, as Epicenter's Tim Carmody points out, will find the process quite cumbersome. "They can use their own web sites and control their own destinies, but that’s slow and more importantly, cumbersome for customers who would overwhelmingly rather pay for and read content in as small a number of places as possible." For iPad users, one of the benefits on having a Kindle app is convenience. Not only does it allow users to minimize their e-reading subscriptions--they could of course switch over to Apple's iBooks--but the app used to make it easy to sync their reads. Now, it's much more difficult.