More re: Apple App Store restrictions

Money quote: “This sudden shift perhaps tells you something about Apple’s understanding of the value of its platform,” said Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey. “Apple started making money with devices. Maybe the new thing that everyone recognizes is the unit of economic value is the platform, not the device.” ...

AppleInsider:

... Analysts were taken aback by Apple's new restrictions, as they represent a shift away from recent attempts to be more collaborative.

Last fall, after receiving criticism for App Store restrictions that were viewed as "anti-competitive," Apple removed its ban on third-party development tools. With the more open licensing terms, Adobe resumed development of its Packager for iPhone tool for porting Flash to iOS.

Rival Google also gained from the changes, as its Google Voice application was accepted into the App Store. After Apple pulled Google Voice-enabled iPhone apps from the App Store, the US FCC launched an investigation of Apple and AT&T. ...

Amazon Should Open Source the Kindle Apps

Joe Wikert via O'Reilly Insights via Forbes: "Imagine how many great new features would be implemented in this model. Rather than being limited by the fixed (and apparently small) number of developers assigned to the internal Kindle apps dev team they’d suddenly have access to as many developers as they could recruit to the open source project. They could create a world class set of apps and quickly distance themselves from the competition."

Kindle App to Come Preloaded on Select Android Devices via Verizon

Mashable.com: "Amazon’s Kindle app, which allows users to download and read electronic books on a variety of mobile and desktop devices, will now come preloaded on a few Verizon phones running Google’s Android operating system. The app will come pre-installed on new copies of the recently released Samsung Fascinate, as well as Motorola’s Droid 2 and Droid X smartphones, Amazon and Verizon jointly announced. ... "

Amazon Releases Kindle App Store's First Two Games

Amazon releases the Kindle App Store's first two games – Video Games Reviews, Cheats | Geek.com: "Don’t expect Super Mario Bros. ... In keeping with the Kindle’s limitations, the two games soon to be available are both text-based. Every Word is basically a jumble game: you’re shown six or seven letters and need to find how many words you can make with them. As for Shuffled Row, it’s basically the same game, except you have sixty lettered tiles to work with. You can download both games for free at Amazon right now. If you have a Kindle, I suppose there’s nothing to lose ..."