Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) Shutting Competitors Out of App Store

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) has reverted to some of its former business practices, as they are taking more control of their App Store and shrinking what apps are allowed in it.

One of the major decisions by Apple is to disallow Sony (NYSE:SNE) from selling content within their apps, or to allow customer to have access to acquisitions they've made outside of the App Store.

In other words, Apple is moving toward any sales made through their iPhone apps to go through the App Store.

Included in content their shutting Sony out of are e-books. This was specifically targeting the Sony Reader Store. All in-app purchases are now required to go through Apple.

While it isn't clear at this time, the assumption is this will probably extend to Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) and their Kindle reader. If that ends up being the case, e-book readers could end up only being allowed to be read e-books on company-specific readers, and not on others.

James McQuivey, a consumer electronics analyst at Forrester Research, commented on the change saying, "This sudden shift perhaps tells you something about Apple's understanding of the value of its platform. Apple started making money with devices. Maybe the new thing that everyone recognizes is the unit of economic value is the platform, not the device."

It that's the case, apparently Apple is recognizing the market will eventually mature, and then readers could become commodities, with no differentiation, as content would be able to be read by all.

They may see that content will eventually outsell hardware, and so are positioning themselves for that time.

Apple had no comment on the story. They closed Tuesday at $345.03, gaining $5.71, or 1.68 percent.