Apple may not be able to call the shots with digital books and magazines as it did with music on the iPod, given that some of its publishing competitors are formidable tech firms themselves.Remember how Apple Inc. shattered the music business? Publishers do too — and they don’t want it happening to them.Since Apple rolled out its iPod music player a decade ago, album sales have dropped by more than half, record stores around the nation have closed, and Apple’s iTunes online store has become the nation’s top music retailer.To read this Los Angeles Times report in full, see:
www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-apple-publishing-20110217,0,5636158.storyAlso see:Google Elbows Apple, Woos Publishers
Google Inc. fired another salvo in its broadening competition with Apple Inc., opening a payment system for digital content that will let publishers keep a bigger share of revenues than a service launched by Apple this week.Google’s new One Pass service allows consumers to use one account to pay for access to multiple publications on the Web and across a range of mobile devices.
online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703373404576148142926860706.html