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Kobo found a way around Apple’s rules

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You might recall the ruckus last weekend where Kobo, B&N, and other ebookstores all decided to release updated reading apps within a single 72 hour period. This was a lot of fun to watch on that Monday, but it looks like the story isn’t quite over with yet.

When I looked over the Kobo iPad app I noted that it now had a news feed. Kobo could now push out blog posts and the posts would appear in the app. And this isn’t attached to Kobo’s blog; this was a new and separate feed.

It turns out that Kobo are using the news feed just as I expected. The latest post, dated 23 July, has several prominent links to Kobo’s website. this means that anyone using the app can navigate to kobo’s ebookstore and buy ebooks with a minimum of hassle. it’s not as convenient as the old ebookstore, but it is more convenient than any of Kobo’s competition.

The interesting thing about this post is that it wasn’t there when I wrote about how the new app had been changed. Kobo only added this post after the app was released.  And they’ve left the post there for 10 days without a follow up post.

It is clearly intended to be a way around Apple’s rule.I really hope that no one at Apple is going to be vindictive when this is noticed.

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Comments


Vicki Fox Smith August 3, 2011 um 9:22 am

Well, the blog has been updates, so the post about changes to the iOS Kobo app i no longer on top. See: http://blog.kobobooks.com/author-qa-kobo-talks-to-kelley-armstrong/

I follow the Kobo blog and it is a mix of announcements of changes to the app and reader and posts like the new one, an interview with author Kelley Armstrong. Surely Apple must have known this when they approved the latest iteration of the Kobo App.

Nate Hoffelder August 3, 2011 um 9:30 am

Nope. The feed inside the app has not been updated and the link post is still at the top.

Albert Yang August 5, 2011 um 2:12 pm

I just upgraded the Kobo app. The link has been removed.


Kobo’s secret link to their ebookstore is gone – The Digital Reader August 5, 2011 um 3:10 pm

[…] 5th, 2011 by Nate Hoffelder · 1 Comment · ebookstore news // On Monday I wrote a post about how Kobo had gotten around Apple’s no links to the ebookstore rule, and I explained how […]


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