Due to new Play Store guidelines, e-books can no longer be bought or borrowed in Amazon’s shopping app.
Enlarge
Buying Kindle books has become a little more cumbersome on Android.
© amazon.de
Google plans to change Play Store policies. In response, Amazon has removed the ability to buy or rent e-books in the Shopping app on Android. As early as April 2022, Amazon removed the option to buy Audible in the Android shopping app.
Apple has long been excluded
Anyone who owns an iPhone or iPad has not been able to buy or borrow digital books in the shopping app since 2011. In this way, Amazon wants to prevent Apple from participating in the sales of digital books. Otherwise, 30 percent of the sales would have been due for Amazon. Amazon is now doing the same with Google mobile devices and prohibits buying or borrowing.
Preventive measure
When attempting to buy or rent an eBook on iOS or Android, a message appears explaining why this is not possible. Since Google has been using new guidelines since June 1, 2022 to take stronger action against providers who do not comply with the Play Store guidelines in their apps, Amazon has stopped selling or renting in the shopping app on Android without further ado.
Exception: Spotify
If you still want to continue buying e-books from Amazon and download them to your Android or iOS device, you have to do this via the browser. This is much less convenient, but ensures that Amazon does not have to share the revenue with Google and Apple. Although Google wants to offer selected partners the opportunity to use their own payment system, only Spotify has so far been able to qualify for this. It remains to be seen whether Amazon is interested in such a partnership. Borrowing or buying e-books from Amazon on Android or iOS devices will probably remain cumbersome.
E-books: Borrow digital books as a subscription instead of buying them individually
