Apple is said to be preparing to get back to focusing on the sale of ebooks. This comes after Cupertino shied away from the business after receiving heavy fines from the government for alleged price fixing.
Hints of the new eBook sales already appeared in the recent iOS 11.3 update; where the iBooks app was simply renamed to Books. Indicating that the renewed ebooks push could be coming sooner rather than later. In addition to this, Bloomberg is claiming that there is a new version of the app being developed.
Ebooks are a rather sore spot for Apple, and it is interesting to see that the company is willing to make a return to the scene. The American Department of Justice ruled that Apple was colluding with publishers to control the prices of ebooks back in 2012; which resulted in a heavy $450 million fine. As a result, Amazon (Apple’s biggest rival at the time) went on to dominate the entire ebook market.
In more recent news, Apple hired Audible’s senior vice president Kashif Zafar to run its new Books effort. Zafar was also associated with the ebooks division at Barnes & Noble; which provides him with a rather intriguing set of skills for a company looking to break Amazon’s stranglehold on the market.
This year looks to be an interesting one for ebooks. Especially since Google has also introduced a challenge to Amazon’s Audible with its audiobooks.
[Source: Bloomberg]
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