"We are now requiring that if an app offers customers the ability to purchase books outside of the app, that the same option is also available to customers from within the app with in-app purchase."
What ars interprets that to mean (emphasis mine):
"If an app lets users access content that they purchased via Amazon's website, for example, then that same app must also let users buy the same book via Apple's own in-app purchase system"
That's not at all what Apple said. Apple said if the app lets you buy books outside of the app, i.e. you click the buy button inside the app and are then sent to the webpage to purchase the book, then the app must also let you purchase the book without leaving the app by using in-app purchases. Apple says nothing about not letting users access content they paid for from other sources.
There's a slippery slope / definition problem here. This is essentially trying to disallow certain kinds of links from applications to the web: links that lead to a purchase decision, where the thing purchased is related to the app.
Couldn't this argument also be used against all sorts of advertising and up-sell / cross-sell in apps? No matter what way I look at it, it looks like a huge land grab attempt by Apple.
Gramatically you might be correct, but effectually ars is correct.
You will not be allowed to access the content if Kindle does not allow you to buy books through IAP. That is exactly what ars is trying to communicate.
Explain how? Where is Apple saying you can't access content not purchased through them? All I see if Apple saying if the apps sends users someplace else to purchase, then the app should also allow them to purchase from inside the app. There is nothing about what content can and can't be accessed.
"We are now requiring that if an app offers customers the ability to purchase books outside of the app, that the same option is also available to customers from within the app with in-app purchase."
The only way you can get access to premium content on the Kindle is through PURCHASING. Apple is implying that you can only access content that has the capacity to be purchased in iOS.
This does not mean the content has to be purchased through Apple's in-app payments. It only means that it has to be purchaseable.
That is, if an app can consume premium content, that content must be purchaseable through the app. Any individual piece of the content can be purchased through the app, or elsewhere.
Apple said if the app lets you buy books outside of the app, i.e. you click the buy button inside the app and are then sent to the webpage to purchase the book, then the app must also let you purchase the book without leaving the app by using in-app purchases.
Okay. But they also said you cannot buy books inside the app unless Apple gets a cut:
It appears as if Sony's app tried to offer a built-in bookstore as well as the ability to download books purchased on other devices, but that idea was shot down when Apple reportedly told Sony that all in-app purchases must go through Apple.
So that basically means if the Kindle app wants to let you buy books from Amazon it can only go through the Amazon website and it has to allow you to purchase books from Apple. How does that make any sense?
"So that basically means if the Kindle app wants to let you buy books from Amazon, it has to go through the Amazon website and it has to allow you to purchase books from Apple? How does that make any sense?"
It doesn't at all and I totally agree with you on that. I was just making it clear what Apple actually said because everyone seems to be latched onto the "Apple won't let you access your own content if you didn't buy it from them" fallacy.
Obviously Apple wants in on the purchasing action, and by forcing both actions to be available (staying in-app to purchase or being sent to a web browser) they are hoping at least some people find in-app purchasing easier/smoother and use it instead.
"We are now requiring that if an app offers customers the ability to purchase books outside of the app, that the same option is also available to customers from within the app with in-app purchase."
That is exactly the way the Kindle app on the iPhone works. When you click "Get Books" within the app you are redirected to Amazon's website on Mobile Safari where you can purchase the book then return to your app.
With that in mind I don't see how what you are suggesting is any different than what Ars is saying.
The kindle app wasn't denied, the Sony app was no one knows exactly how it offered the purchase of ebooks. It could have let the user search for books from within the app and only redirected to the web store for checkout. In that case it definitely "offers the ability to purchase books outside the app" as Apple states.
"We are now requiring that if an app offers customers the ability to purchase books outside of the app, that the same option is also available to customers from within the app with in-app purchase."
What ars interprets that to mean (emphasis mine):
"If an app lets users access content that they purchased via Amazon's website, for example, then that same app must also let users buy the same book via Apple's own in-app purchase system"
That's not at all what Apple said. Apple said if the app lets you buy books outside of the app, i.e. you click the buy button inside the app and are then sent to the webpage to purchase the book, then the app must also let you purchase the book without leaving the app by using in-app purchases. Apple says nothing about not letting users access content they paid for from other sources.