I'm having trouble parsing this portion of Amazon's developer agreement:
3.a. Delivery Commitment for Apps. You will deliver electronically to us (and continue to make available during the Term all versions of all software applications, games or other digital products (including any special or collector’s editions) (i) that are designed for the Platform, (ii) for which you have the rights required under this Agreement, and (iii) that are the same versions and editions (except as otherwise provided in this Agreement) that you or your affiliates make available directly or indirectly to any Similar Service.
Does this mean that if I distribute one of my applications through the Appstore, I'm legally required to distribute all of my applications that way?
If so, no thanks. I'm perfectly happy to distribute one app through Amazon's store as an experiment, but there's no way I'm going to sign an open-ended agreement to distribute everything at prices set by Amazon.
If they want every app I write, they would need to earn that through good sales and a lack of shenanigans.
Yep. Note also that the royalty terms are apparently different, and significantly worse, than they offer for ebooks. With the Kindle 70% royalty option, you get 70% of your list price, no matter what discount they've applied, unless they're matching a lower price they found elsewhere[1]. With the app store, per the article, you get 70% of the discounted price, or 20% of the list price, whichever is greater.
It would appear that they intend to discount apps heavily, to try to get traction. Which is fine for something intended by the developer as a loss leader, but could really bite hard if applied to premium versions. But of course, they insist on access to the premium versions, if you want to use 'em to sell the loss leaders.
> Does this mean that if I distribute one of my applications through the Appstore, I'm legally required to distribute all of my applications that way?
That's not (quite) what it looks like to me: I think clause (iii) is just saying that you can't list an app on a competing service unless you list the same version on Amazon's app store. Effectively, it seems they get to sell any app that you want to sell on another app store -- but they're not asserting rights over all future Android apps you might write.
(This raises a question I don't know the answer to: is it possible to distribute Android applications without an app store, in the style of "download this bundle from our site and transfer it to your phone"? Or do the non-developer versions of Android out there require that apps be signed by a central authority before they'll execute them?)
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I'm having trouble parsing this portion of Amazon's developer agreement:
3.a. Delivery Commitment for Apps. You will deliver electronically to us (and continue to make available during the Term all versions of all software applications, games or other digital products (including any special or collector’s editions) (i) that are designed for the Platform, (ii) for which you have the rights required under this Agreement, and (iii) that are the same versions and editions (except as otherwise provided in this Agreement) that you or your affiliates make available directly or indirectly to any Similar Service.
Does this mean that if I distribute one of my applications through the Appstore, I'm legally required to distribute all of my applications that way?
If so, no thanks. I'm perfectly happy to distribute one app through Amazon's store as an experiment, but there's no way I'm going to sign an open-ended agreement to distribute everything at prices set by Amazon.
If they want every app I write, they would need to earn that through good sales and a lack of shenanigans.
Yep. Note also that the royalty terms are apparently different, and significantly worse, than they offer for ebooks. With the Kindle 70% royalty option, you get 70% of your list price, no matter what discount they've applied, unless they're matching a lower price they found elsewhere[1]. With the app store, per the article, you get 70% of the discounted price, or 20% of the list price, whichever is greater.
It would appear that they intend to discount apps heavily, to try to get traction. Which is fine for something intended by the developer as a loss leader, but could really bite hard if applied to premium versions. But of course, they insist on access to the premium versions, if you want to use 'em to sell the loss leaders.
[1] http://207-171-168-158.amazon.com/kdpforums/entry.jspa?categ...
> Does this mean that if I distribute one of my applications through the Appstore, I'm legally required to distribute all of my applications that way?
That's not (quite) what it looks like to me: I think clause (iii) is just saying that you can't list an app on a competing service unless you list the same version on Amazon's app store. Effectively, it seems they get to sell any app that you want to sell on another app store -- but they're not asserting rights over all future Android apps you might write.
(This raises a question I don't know the answer to: is it possible to distribute Android applications without an app store, in the style of "download this bundle from our site and transfer it to your phone"? Or do the non-developer versions of Android out there require that apps be signed by a central authority before they'll execute them?)
people can download and install .apk packages from wherever they want.
Wow - that's a total bummer.