We’ve previously mentioned that Amazon followed the console business model, of selling hardware cheap and recouping its losses by selling content, when it came to the Kindle Fire and one of its methods of making money is from eBooks sold on the Kindle bookstore. So it comes as no surprise when it was reported that third party eBook reader/stores weren’t made available on the Amazon Appstore on the tablet. Despite being available on the web-based app store, Kobo, Wattpad, and Bluefire were nowhere to be seen on the tablet version of the Appstore.
However it looks like Amazon has given in – to one store at least. Wattpad, an eBook reader/store has announced that it has managed to convince Amazon into letting its app appear in the Appstore. According to Wattpad, the app is complementary as opposed to being a threat to Kindle, and I guess Amazon sees that as well.
No word on whether we’ll be seeing eBook readers from other companies turn up on the Appstore but in the meantime, consumers will have to resort to sideloading those apps on their Kindle Fire tablets if they wish to use them.
Filed in . Read more about Amazon, Android, Apps, Ebook, Kindle Fire and Tablet.