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To the extent to which their bookstore and app use open standards like epub (without bastardizing it) and allow for importing books that don't come solely from their bookstore, this isn't much different from their itunes play (which is not meant to minimize it, as clearly iTunes had a major impact on that industry), and as such, is of some but not grave concern to me as a proponent of open and free culture and education.

Not unlike iTunes, I do worry that by controlling the main channels (the bookstore) through which un-industrious users find content, they do start to cultivate monocultures, but then not sure this is that much different then other "channels" of the past.

What worries me most, though, is things like Apple's "PC Free" goal, which on the surface looks like "ease of use" for the consumer, but on a deeper examination looks less generativity, less tinkerability, and more lock in to the channels that they do control.

Time will tell; as people have come to learn through their successes with both iTunes and the iPhone etc, Apple's innovations can be disruptive in ways larger than one initially expects, and trying to predict exactly how large this one will be at this point is premature.

Who knows if this piece about the End User License Agreement is true, but if so, this is worse than I had thought.

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