Spoiler warning: Information technology's the same reason you couldn't in 2022 or previous years for that matter.

Apple users: Did y'all know that you lot can't purchase Kindle books from the Kindle app on your iOS device? In fact, you lot tin can't purchase them from the Amazon app either.

Even if you lot're an Amazon Prime number fellow member and you want to download a free volume. Nah, not possible.

This may not be news to you lot if you've tried to buy Kindle books from either application over the concluding 6+ years, just this recently came up again as an obstacle to a few family unit members and friends, and so we thought information technology was nevertheless worth sharing the workaround. Granted, we can file this one nether better late than never, but coverage seems warranted considering the fact that the issue has persisted for then long and isn't looking to be resolved in the immediate future.

The thing dates all the manner back to an App Store policy update in early 2022, a time when the tardily Steve Jobs was notwithstanding CEO and the company'southward App Store was merely a few years old. The App Shop was introduced in July 2008 with the release of "iPhone Bone ii.0".

Apple has been criticized from twenty-four hours ane over the rules governing its App Shop, which enforces various content restrictions and manual reviews of software submitted to the marketplace, in addition to (and more controversially) taking a 30% cut of revenue from apps sold through the Store.

In February 2022, the company announced something of an expansion to that policy along with introducing a new subscription service that gave iOS users a centralized location to manage subscriptions for content-based apps such as newspapers, magazines, music and videos.

The new service essentially gave iOS users a one-terminate-shop for subscriptions, and in exchange for greasing the skids and processing the payments, Apple wrote itself in for a 30% share of revenue from digital content sold over iOS devices.

"Our philosophy is simple -- when Apple brings a new subscriber to the app, Apple earns a thirty% share," Jobs said in the 2022 press release. "All we require is that, if a publisher is making a subscription offer outside of the app, the same (or amend) offer be fabricated inside the app, so that customers tin easily subscribe with i-click right in the app."

Being forced to cost-friction match in-app sales while paying Apple's thirty% commission proved challenging for many businesses. Compounding the bad news, the same press release announced that apps would no longer be able to provide links bringing users outside of apps for transactions, which previously helped developers sidestep Apple's policy and its tax.

In an interview before long after Apple unveiled the new App Shop rules in 2022, Rhapsody president Jon Irwin explained that the new rules strained his company's business organization model: "Apple's 30% will exceed the revenue on our product...It'due south not a thing of making less money, it would be null turn a profit."

The updated policy had anti-competitive leanings to say the least, substantially forcing rival distributors of music, ebooks and so on to compete with Apple on pricing for digital goods while simultaneously having to pay Apple a 30% royalty on those sales.

Kindle app on an iPad.
No "Buy" push button to be establish, even though this particular book
should be available as a free download to a Prime fellow member.

Browsing the Kindle app from an Android phone (below).
Prime number members can read for free and also get the option to buy.

Within a month, Apple eased its new policy by allowing developers to cost their wares differently on the App Store, though given the thirty% commission and ban on external links, this change didn't improve circumstances for many companies and products.

The Workaround

Such has been the case all these years for Amazon's Kindle books, which once more, can't be purchased through either the Kindle or Amazon apps on iOS, even if you have Amazon Prime, and even if information technology lets you download a sample, from which you all the same won't be able to buy the volume.

The workaround? Employ Safari or Chrome mobile spider web browser and utilise Amazon.com to complete your buy. Then go back to the app. While companies cannot provide external links to direct sales within apps, you can manually navigate to external sales with a spider web browser.

That's precisely what yous'll have to practise to purchase Kindle ebooks (or download costless books) on your iPhone or iPad. After buying them in a browser, they'll exist synced to your account and and then you can access them within the Kindle app.

Apple's now 7 twelvemonth old policy emphasizes profit over functionality, merely given the closed ecosystem's level of success, it's non surprising this remains an effect all these years after.