Is it possible that Amazon was playing 'chicken' with the Kindle app, and finally at the last moment, Apple relented and Amazon won?
On an episode of The Talkshow, Gruber was speculating that this would come to a head in early June and that something had to happen either way: The Kindle app gets pulled or Apple makes some kind of exception to the rule.
Kindle is not a subscription service. The relevant clause would be about in-app purchases. But it wouldn't surprise me that Amazon threatened to pull off the platform, and more power to them. If I were Jeff Bezos I wouldn't be removing any buttons or links from my apps, either.
Netflix is a subscription service. Apple's been approving Netflix and Kindle updates silently while picking on the small guys because they could, many small guys left the platform in frustration.
I chuckled when I read this. Work out a compromise with Apple? Most reasonable people would view Apple's position as being too constraining on content providers. If another tech giant whom I won't mention pulled a move like this, then people who be up in arms about it. But no, not for Apple ;-)
Well, clearly that wasn't the case. Unless the 'compromise' consisted of Apple relenting fully. Almost all the terms of IAP for subscriptions that were unfavorable to publishers have been removed.
On an episode of The Talkshow, Gruber was speculating that this would come to a head in early June and that something had to happen either way: The Kindle app gets pulled or Apple makes some kind of exception to the rule.