But publishers also say consumers exaggerate the savings and have developed unrealistic expectations about how low the prices of e-books can go. Yes, they say, printing costs may vanish, but a raft of expenses that apply to all books, like overhead, marketing and royalties, are still in effect.
They have a pretty fair rundown of what it costs to actually publish an ebook vs print books. What I think is interesting here is that it shows how little money the publishing industry really makes from publishing in general and how most of the money from the big books is used to feed the small books that make no money.
I think what Apple was getting squeamish about wasn’t the sexy apps themselves, but the cheesiness that the sexy apps (and their prominence in best selling lists) was bestowing upon the general feel and vibe of the App Store.
It all comes down to branding and the last thing Apple wants to do is tarnish it's brand. Since the failed ATARI experiment, Video game manufactures have restricting development on their platforms in order to keep out the crap and market their product to the largest group of people and offend as few people as possible.
The problem is that Apple has opened up their development to not just a small handful of highly funded developers but to the riff-raff of the lone iphone developer. The advantage of this is that you get slew of new ideas that never would have happened with a company that has too much on the line, the disadvantage is that you run the risk of too many flashlight and boobie apps that the clutter up the store and give the impression of the Apple store as the wild west of applications.