With Apple’s announcement of the iPad and the Apple iBook store, people have been noticing the ongoing debate about e-books, e-readers and the ugly concept of DRM, which assumes that paying customers are thieves.
Joining the fray, is is Stephen Green, also known as the Vodkapundit.
Originally published at Urbin Technology.
Tags: Apple, book, ebook, ebook reader, iPad, Technology
“I’m betting the Apple product announcement today will have a more positive effect on the economy than Obama’s attempt to rebrand himself on national TV tonight.”
Source: Me.
It’s called the iPad and Apple is announcing their own bookstore, in direct competition with Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Update: Here are some details on the iPad. Pundits were wrong on the pricing. They were talking $1000.
The intro price is $499. That’s for 16 Gig and WiFi. The iPad comes in two basic flavors: WiFi & WiFi+3G.
Both models comes in 16, 32 and 64 Gig models. So here is the pricing
WiFi only: 16: $499 32: $599 64: $699
WiFi+3G: 16: $629 32: $729 64: $829
The announcement said that the iPad will run iPhone/iTouch apps, so you can load the Amazon Kindle app and read books from Amazon, as well as e-reader apps like Stanza and Bookshelf.
So it looks like that the tech rumor that there will be a lot of Kindles on e-Bay once these start shipping is probably on target.
The iPad won’t start shipping for 60 days, another 30 days after that for the 3G models.
More details at Urbin Technology.
Tags: Apple, ebook, ebook reader, iPad
Barnes and Noble has announced the Nook, their e-book reader.
This is in direct competition to Amazon’s Kindle. It’s a very similar bit of technology, the major difference being that the B&N Nook will allow users to “share” e-books with other Nook users. It works this way. You purchase an ebook from B&N on your Nook. You like it. You think your buddy, who also has a Nook, would like it. So you can “loan” that book to said buddy. It will be available to be read on his Nook for two weeks. My bet is that this will generate a lot a ebook sales.
Now, some may argue that Amazon already owns the mind share for e-book readers, having crushed the Sony E-Reader in the market. The Kindle took off because Amazon was already seen as a major e-retailer of books and they had the ability to buy books immediately on the Kindle using mobile Internet technology. Sony wasn’t known as a book seller and they had no such “instant buy” option. The Nook has a similar broadband connection to the Kindle and B&N is seen as a major retailer of books by the public. The fact that B&N has a much larger ebook library than Amazon doesn’t hurt either.
There are two major flaws I can see with the Nook. First, the whole DRM thing. Second is that it only supports three formats, EPUB, eReader and PDF. A few more, including unencrypted Mobipocket, would be nice.
Amazon has responded, quietly, with the announcement that they will release free “Kindle software” for the PC platform, so people can read Amazon’s DRM crippled ebooks on their desktop or notebook computers. MAC and LINUX users are not supported in this release. Amazon is also selling refurbish (i.e. used) first gen Kindles for $150.
Originally published at Urbin Technology.
Tags: Amazon, book, ebook, ebook reader, gadget, Kindle, Nook
Before you get too excited, it won’t be released until next month, it’s only available in Japan, and it has a $1,000 price tag.
The FLEPia will however have a color screen with touch capabilities. Old School Palm OS stylus touch control though.
The display uses a variant of LCD tech that doesn’t use a backlight. The backlight is the power hog that has kept it from being used in a ebook reader yet.
I wouldn’t call this a threat to the Amazon Kindle or the Sony EBook reader, but it shows the market is opening up.
First posted at Urbin Technology
Tags: ebook, ebook reader, etext