The team behind iOS-based eBook App iFlow Reader announced in a strongly worded post on their website that effective May 31st, the app would cease operations, as would the development company, BeamItDown Software. In addition to providing instructions to customers on how to migrate and protect books purchased through the app before then, the letter savagely criticizes Apple for "changing the rules in the middle of the game" and stifling innovation on the iOS platform when it doesn't suit Apple's ends.
The move by Apple that BeamItDown says doomed the app and the company: Instituting a controversial, mandatory 30% commission that Apple receives for all ebook sales, which, in conjunction with an Apple-imposed 'agency model' of bookselling that caps middlemen's profits at 30%, necessarily makes third-party booksellers' profits zero or less than zero. BeamItDown alleges that this was done to ensure that the Apple-owned iBooks app would have no real competition.
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