“Amazon has followed through on its plans to go nuclear on its competitors: The company removed all listings of Apple’s Apple TV and Google’s Chromecast streaming adapter from its website Thursday,” Janko Roettgers reports for Variety.
“This includes listings from third-party resellers, as well as used and previous-generation devices sold through Amazon’s marketplace,” Roettgers reports. “Users who search for Chromecast or Apple TV instead get recommendations for Amazon’s own Fire TV devices.”
“The company confirmed the decision to stop selling both devices when contacted by Variety, sending a statement that read in part: ‘It’s important that the streaming media players we sell interact well with Prime Video in order to avoid customer confusion,'” Roettgers reports. “Blaming missing support for Amazon video on Google and Apple is somewhat misleading: Chromecast has long had an open SDK, allowing any publisher to add casting to their mobile apps. And the newest Apple TV, which Apple is starting to sell this week, also includes an app store that Amazon could use to distribute its own app.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote on October 3rd:
Amazon had better be careful lest they gain and cement the reputation as “the everything store that doesn’t offer everything.”
SEE ALSO:
Amazon makes a stupid mistake by banning sales of new Apple TV – October 14, 2015
Amazon pulled Apple TV from their store, so Apple should pull Amazon apps from their App Store – October 3, 2015
By banning Apple TV and Chromecast, Amazon shows what it means to be a monopolist – October 2, 2015
Amazon to ban sale of Apple TV, other streaming devices – October 1, 2015
Apple TV and voice control: What Siri does that the others don’t – September 18, 2015
With the all-new Apple TV, Apple changes the game, yet again – September 14, 2015
What Apple got right in Apple TV’s user interface – and what needs work – September 11, 2015
New Apple TV has the potential to do for television what iPhone did for mobile phones – September 11, 2015
Apple preps to conquer living room with all-new Apple TV – September 11, 2015
Hands-on with the all-new Apple TV – September 10, 2015
Gruber: Apple TV will define how all TVs will work in a few years – September 10, 2015
Conversely, I’m pretty sure Amazon’s Fire is not offered on the Apple Store.
“It’s not personal, Sonny. It’s strictly business.”
Contrary to Amazon, Apple Store has never been presented as an everything store.
so?
Did you really anticipate Amazon changing their slogan to “The Everything But Apple Stuff Store”?
If the shoe fits…..
And the Apple Store doesn’t offer Microsoft computers. That’s because it’s The Apple Store.
That’s funny I picked up a copy of windows and office at the apple store.
Yes, but Apple doesn’t have third parties selling through them. Amazon forbid other retailers from selling Apple TV Chromecast, something that would be illegal if the DOJ wasn’t in Amazon’s pocket.
Legality may depend on the contents of the agreement 3rd party sellers have with Amazon.
The contract is irrelevant if the action is deemed to be illegal.
The Apple, let me repeat, APPLE store sells Apple products and Apple accessories, even third party accessories that work with or enhance Apple products. Amazon’s products don’t work with or in any way enhance Apple’s products, so why would Apple sell them? In addition to the Fire, Apple doesn’t sell basketballs, jewelry, or lawn chairs either. Hello? McFly? Anyone home? Think, McFly!
oh shut up.
Short sighted. Grow up Bezos.
Shortsightedness may depend on what actual revenues and profit margins Amazon received for selling competitors’ streaming devices vs. what they are getting for their own.
Who cares if they offer Apple TV? This is just a jab at a good company that benefits all consumers.
Amazon is simply confirming that it’s own products can’t compete with Apple’s. It also sends the message that it thinks it’s customers are too dumm to select products on their own.
Consumers, beware.
Agreed.
Well this is lame.
Is Amazon so unsure of their own device that they have to resort to this kind of crap to compete?
Pathetic.
So I ordered my Apple TV4 from the Apple.com and will pick it up today……………oh the AgONy……
Best Buy also has it available….!!!
Apple.com ordering gives Apple all the purchase money with NO FEE to the reseller (eg-Amazon)………
Its rather hypocritical that they won’t sell Apple TV and Chromecast because it confuses consumers, yet they still happily sell Apple TV and Chromecast accessories. That is the ultimate confusion. I get why they are doing it (for competitive reasons) but don’t insult our intelligence by saying you want to deliver a great user experience.
They actually are delivering a great user experience by encouraging their users to find their products elsewhere and move off of Amazon for their purchasing.
This Amazon customer is not confused. I’m paying too much to be an Amazon Prime member because Amazon keeps adding “features” under the Prime umbrella that add cost but deliver no value (to me). One day I will get tired of subsidizing the valueless features. and become a former Amazon Prime member.
Now, how do I put in a complaint to the European Commition (or whoever it is I complain to) as they are restricting trade ie banning second hand/market place and third party traders from selling ATV4.
Boycot Amazon!!!
Has Amazon ever actually claimed to sell “everything”?
They might give large lists of types of products they sell, but I don’t recall Amazon ever claiming they sell “every” single type of thing indiscriminately. Every single retailer exercises some discrimination over what they will and will not sell.
This not anti-competitive, and it’s not limiting consumer choice. This is hyper competitive, and it’s forcing consumers to make choices instead of relying on one retailer for everything.
I think some Apple fans can be way too defensive about Apple. Mean old Amazon, picking on poor little Apple! C’mon, Apple is a big boy, who is more than capable of marketing and selling a few of its product’s without Amazon’s help. Apple will be just fine.
I kind of agree with you and kind of don’t.
Amazon’s mantra is to sell every product it can at the lowest competitive price to extract the maximum revenue share from competing retailers. A product such as Apple TV with its large sales volume is precisely the type of product Amazon hunts for to dominate. They don’t leave money on the table, as a rule. Its in their DNA.
What I think Amazon’s actions really seem to be saying is that they aren’t selling a lot of Apple TVs because the price is stable (the same everywhere,) Apple sells quite well direct and they can’t dominate smaller retailers by out pricing them. Seems to me they are admitting defeat on this product. They just can’t sell it well based on price and to add insult to injury they can’t even get a piece of the content pie with Prime.
The Amazon store used to only sell books. That was an entire phase of of their business, where they made money just by selling books. They moved on to a second phase of business, expanding to sell things other than books, at aggressively low prices with and increasingly efficient distribution. Next, they’re transitioning to business that builds their own brand of electronic products: e-book readers, tablets, phones, tv streaming devices. That is a completely different type of business than being a discount seller of third party products!
Now that they are company that builds it’s own computer products, they have every reason to not support devices from rival computer companies. Like Apple, they want to take advantage of vertical integration, and make an ecosystem of devices and services that work together.
Apple doesn’t want to have to explain why Microsoft and Samsung technology doesn’t always mesh well with Apple’s technology. Vertical integration is one of Apple’s strengths: controlling everything gives the ability to make it all work together seamlessly. Apple doesn’t want to spend resources making their ecosystem support and help their rivals when they don’t have to. Amazon is now in the same business as Apple, with the same motivations: so don’t want to waste resources supporting rival technologies. They want to take advantage of vertical integration so their products and services will work well together and are more profitable for them.
According to this Amazon biographer: YES!
The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon
Amazon is supposed to be for everything the Apple Store is just that the Apple Store. Quite different. The only thing Amazon is doing is losing money by removing the latest Apple TV because this one is going to be the best selling version to date. Thanks Amazon for giving Apple more revenue, your loss and Apple’s gain.
Excellent point! √
Antitrust laws – also referred to as “competition laws” – are statutes developed by the U.S. Government to protect consumers from predatory business practices by ensuring that fair competition exists in an open-market economy. Antitrust laws are applied to a wide range of questionable business activities…………
What’s the big deal? If Amazon doesn’t want to sell Apple products, they don’t have to. But it is stupid of Amazon to say that selling Apple products “confuses customers”. That’s nothing but a big fat lie that makes Amazon look bad.
Amazon: Can’t compete.
Therefore, as usual:
If you can compete, cheat.
Hey DOJ! How about THIS monopoly move! Hello???
This is so pathetically irrelevant. As if this will have any effect on Apple or Amazon sales. I’m an Amazon Prime member, and can watch ANYTHING on Amazon Prime Video on my Apple TV via their app an iOS AirPlay. So can anyone else with other options. So this only tells me that Jeff Bezos and Amazon have run dry innovation, and are now building flimsy fences as “barriers” that can be topple by a gentle digital breeze. How prescient Bezos once seemed. How threatened and hobbled he know is.
And I must finish by saying this Bezos’s purchase of the Washinton Post has turned out to be very bad for it subscribers, of which I am one. Their iOS apps totally suck, and if you want to read and comment on a letter to the editor on a given morning, you have to wait a few days before it appears online (if it does at all). And just ry to find a story that appears in the print edition in their iOS editions. It’s 50-50. Last, the hardest thing to do is find out on the Washinton Post (iOS or online) how to report a missing paper. They clearly don’t want you to, and bury it many confusing layers deep.