Don’t expect to see an Apple e-book store anytime soon. No, not because the recently-turned-heel company hates books (or you) or anything, but because, well, running an e-book store is hard.
This whole hullabaloo started after the Financial Times reported that book publishers “have been in talks with Apple and are optimistic about their services being offered with the new computer, which could provide an alternative to Amazon’s Kindle.” (The new computer is the company’s rumored tablet or netbook or whatever you want to call it.) Yeah, you can extrapolate that to mean, I guess, “Oh, dear, Apple’s getting in the e-book game!” but that’s just not the case.
Alley Insider spoke to a “source connected to the e-book business,” who says that, no, Apple isn’t starting an eBook Store or whatever. Why?
One, there’s no money in e-books (there’s hardly any money in music, either), so it doesn’t really make sense for Apple to start an e-book store, and all that entails, when there’s no pot at the end of that rainbow.
Two, there’s already a few halfway decent e-book stores (Amazon’s and Barnes and Nobles’ among them), and it’d be a heck of a lot easier to just license those books for the new tablet.
Three, you or I could start an e-book store that uses iTunes and Apple will make 30 percent for every book we sell.
In other words, don’t hold your breath.