I don’t use iTunes for a variety of reasons, many of which can be boiled down to “I’m really cheap, so I use free software so I don’t have to shell out a grand for Photoshop.” But I am familiar with the fact that it’s hard to sell music on iOS because of Apple’s markup on in-app purchases.
Which Amazon just figured out a great way around.
It’s pretty simple. In a move that might as well be called “neener neener neener,” the Amazon MP3 website has been “optimized” for mobile versions of Safari. That this “optimization” resembles their Amazon MP3 app on other platforms is, naturally, a total coincidence. This also means that Apple can’t add the 30% markup for music sales through apps that it so loves.
This is not without its problems: Apple doesn’t let you access music directly, so you’ll have to buy the song, download it to your laptop, add it to iTunes, and sync it to your iPhone or iPad, which is annoying.
It’s not a perfect solution, and until Apple allows people to mess with the music portion of the phone directly, it’ll be clunky. But if you want to stick it to iTunes, you’ve finally got an option.
Press Release On Amazon’s New Website Design [Amazon.com]