Apple's Cheap Shot Bodes Ill for Company

The craziest part is that Apple actually thinks the iPad makes a better ereader than Amazon's Kindle!

Like many of you, I've been following the antitrust case against Apple regarding price fixing in the ebook market. The government says the big New York publishers in cahoots with Apple decided to attack Amazon and its low prices for electronically delivered Kindle books.

Apple believed Amazon's low prices were part of its ploy to sell more Kindles. As far as Apple was concerned, this was hurting the iPad, which has its own store and cannot afford to sell books as cheap as Amazon.

So Apple got together with the grousing New York publishers who conspicuously hate Amazon because Amazon uses every sort of trick to screw the publishers out of a few pennies here and there. In fact, Amazon has decimated the model used for selling books that publishers rely on.

So Apple, apparently unaware of price-fixing regulations, bumbled along this route and got caught. Most of the publishers involved in the scandal opted out and settled with the government.

The case has wrapped up and a verdict will come out within the next month or two. Much of the case will center on whether or not Amazon itself adopted the entire conspiracy pricing because it wanted to or it was forced to.

A CNET article ran the following back and forth between Apple's attorney, Orin Synder, and the government man, Mark Ryan:

"Amazon made the exact same, intelligent business decision to move to agency as Apple and Barnes & Noble," Snyder said. "They recognized that without all titles on their inferior e-reading device ... it would be a disaster, and its 90 percent share would plummet."

However, the Justice Department disputed Apple's characterization of Amazon's shift, saying that every Amazon executive and publishing industry witness testified that Amazon resisted changing deal terms.

"I think 'ultimatum' is the right word, not 'choice,'" Ryan said.

Well, I did not fully realize that Apple actually thinks that the Kindle is inferior and the sole reason Amazon was low-balling everyone was to maintain market share. The way I see this, Snyder believes that, all things being equal, people would flock to the iPad and dump the "inferior reading device" (aka the Kindle).

Is this guy nuts? Nobody who uses an ereader of any sort would ever say this. The Kindle is far superior as a reading device to the iPad. It's easier on the eyes. The power lasts forever. It's ultra-portable. And yes, the iPad is a better tablet and computer, but that's not the point.

Ninety percent of all sales of ebooks run through Kindle Avenue. Everyone in the publishing business knows this. If Apple thinks otherwise, it is insane. Book writers target the Kindle. The iPad is like foreign rights to an author or publishing company, a little extra spending money to bet on football. It's a joke.

There is no other reason for the curious insult to the Kindle here. Maybe if Apple folks and lawyers actually used a Kindle they'd understand what it is all about.