“The Kindle has no color screen and therefore the books are all in black and white. The nice thing is that the Kindle-books can be read on multiple devices and can be synchronized with each other. At home you can read a book on the iPad, and when your on the go you continue reading on your iPhone. This can be achieved thanks to Whispersync. The application can remember where you stopped reading the last time you opened the e-book.

There are more than 450.000 titles available from the start, and there are always free samples (the first chapter). The iPad-app will be adapted to fit the larger screen. You’ll also be able to adapt the background color and change the font.”

It was also said the app won’t be available at the launch of the iPad since Amazon doesn’t have an iPad to test it on, but apparently it worked out just fine and the iPad version is now available in the App Store. Only a few more hours and the iPad will be launched.

Kindle, FREE [App Store]

Apple earlier announced digital books will come in the Open ePub format, also used by Project Gutenberg. Those e-books can be read by importing the books via iTunes. Apple probably wants to prevent a strong number of Gutenberg-bookshops to appear by offering these books in the App Store.

In this third and last part I’ll talk about the New York Times. It seems they can’t agree on the pricing of a subscription of their newspaper on the iPad. I have a little video of a piece of the January keynote which shows how the newspaper would look like on the iPad. And ofcourse with all the news about e-books, the question is: are people going to buy those books?

Pricing of the NYT

It seems the people working at the New York Times can’t agree on the pricing of their newspaper on the iPad. The digital operation of the NYT wants to charge $10 per month, while managers and the print circulation wants to ask up to $30 per month. The high price seems to come out of fear of loosing their existing customers. They think if customers can get books and newspapers for a lower price on the iPad, they will unsubscribe their current newspaper subscription.

But it would be more logical to lower the prices. You don’t have the printing costs and the costs for physical distribution. The Wall Street Journal is already using the payment model for online content and users are definitely prepared to pay for it. The New York Times is still trying to find its way into this new way of paying for newspapers. Most of their online content can be viewed for free. It’s not until 2011 when the online content will require a payment.

The chances are the high prices will ultimately win. President Scott Heekin-Canedy of the NYT Media Group also likes the idea of higher prices. On the Amazon Kindle prices for the digital version of the NYT is only $13,99, pretty low. The Wall Street Journal wants their customers to pay $14,99 and USA Today is asking $11,99 per month. So why is it so difficult to agree on prices for the iPad? The next following days or maybe weeks or even months will eventually give more information about the pricing.

Video

In the meantime you can watch a piece of the Apple keynote of January this year. The video shows the NYT giving a demo of the digital iPad version of their newspaper.

O’Reilly has sold 100,000 e-books

With all the news about e-books on the iPad, one last question remains: are people willing to buy e-books? The Kindle seems to prove that people want to read books in a digital form. The market seems ready. But the iPad is much more than only an e-reader. Will people buy e-books on that device as well? The answer is yes. At least, the iPhone suggests the answer is yes.

O’Reilly has announced that they have sold more than 100,000 e-books via the App Store. That means people are reading those books on the small screen of an iPhone or iPod touch. With the iPad and its larger screen the possibilities are even better.

Below is a picture showing that 54% of the sales is from outside the US. Books that are probably harder to get in Europe for example, are available in their digital form for everybody to buy.

In this second part I’d like to discuss the way newspaper publishers feel about the iPad. It seems they are not very keen on the iPad. There’s also a discussion about the security measurements of the e-books in the iBooks Store of the iPad. They are DRM protected, something most people using iTunes are not unfamiliar with.

Apple and the publishers

Newspaper publishers see the number of customers diminish worldwide. It looks like iPad could be the saviour. If publishers bring their content to the iPad, a new source of income can be created. Unfortunately the negotiations can not be called positive so far.

Apple wants 30% of the sales, which means the publishers can keep 70%. This is the same business model as the App Store, but it will not work for the publishers the same way it did with developers. “Thirty percent forever changer the economics,” says one of the publishers.

The newspapers are also not happy about the fact that Apple doesn’t share much information about its users. To newspapers that kind of information is crucial to them. They can easily get an insight in their user’s behavior and show specific ads for them. If Apple doesn’t share information, the personal contact between the newspapers and their readers would be lost.

The iBooks Store and DRM

What is DRM? According to Wikipedia DRM is the following:

“Digital rights management (DRM) is a generic term for access control technologies that can be used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals to try to impose limitations on the usage of digital content and devices. It is also, sometimes, disparagingly described as Digital Restrictions Management. The term is used to describe any technology which inhibits uses (legitimate or otherwise) of digital content that were not desired or foreseen by the content provider.”

A huge amount of e-books in the iBook Store will get a Fairplay copy protection (DRM). This kind of protection was also integrated in the songs people can buy through iTunes, but a year ago Apple removed the DRM protection. Movies, tv-shows and applications are still protected. And now e-books can be added to that list as well.

Apple seems to try and keep their relationship with publishers as good as possible. The e-books in the iBook Store are allowed to be priced higher than the books on Amazon’s Kindle. And to try to prevent piracy a huge amount of e-books will be protected with DRM. The books will be released in the open ePub-format, but publishers can choose wether they want to protect the books or not.

Walt Mossberg had an interview with Steve Jobs after the January 27th keynote and made a little video about it. Steve Jobs says the battery will allow you to listen to music for about 140 hours with a single charge. In the same video Steve Jobs says the prices for e-books will be the same as Amazon’s prices: $9.99. The second video also show an interview with Walt and Steve. It’s a video from 2004 and Steve says they are not thinking about bringing a tablet to the market. Apparently he changed is mind.

Less than 60 days from now, I can finally get my hands on the iPad. I can than write a full review about the device. I hope I can find the time to test the 10 hours of video playback and 140 hours of music playback statement from Steve Jobs.

Time for my personal opinion: I think $1000 is too much for such a device. You can buy a complete and much more powerful computer system for that money. The question that keeps sticking in my mind is: why would I need a tablet device (besides the fact that I probably need one for my website)? In my opinion the tablet must be powerful enough that it can replace a laptop.

Apple really has to come up with some very good stuff to persuade people to buy the tablet computer. I don’t necessarily want to read e-books on such a device, so it’s not a big deal for me if that’s not integrated. But I would like to have 3G so I can choose to buy a data plan with it. I really like the fact that I have internet on my iPhone 3GS where ever I am and it would be handy to be able to surf on the web on a larger screen.

I don’t live in America so I am not familiar with AT&T services, but from what I’ve heard, it’s not the best. I definitely understand people don’t want to buy a device that’s connected to a bad service like AT&T. So if people have a choice to buy the device from Verizon and other mobile services as well, it would definitely be a big pro.

Another thing I have to agree with is a long battery life. I think that’s one of the things that could actually persuade people to buy the Apple tablet. Apple’s MacBooks are great and part of their success, I think, is the fact their batteries last almost 8 hours with a single charge. If the tablet computer lasts much longer, than that could mean instant buy.

I think Apple has to come up with some pretty good stuff. A long battery life, 3G connectivity and e-books won’t be enough. I will only buy the device if the App Store is integrated. The facial recognition also sounds awesome and you have to be able to watch videos, listen to music, play games, surf on the internet, and do your homework on it as well. If the tablet offers all that, than Apple has persuaded me.

How much are you willing to pay for the upcoming tablet device?

Steve Jobs started building a tablet device years ago, but without any goal. The question “why would people need such a device?” was never answered…until today. Apple is busy filling iTunes with content of several sorts of printed media. They want to make a device that is not only another e-book reader, but it is their purpose to redefine the print media market.

Yesterday’s rumor said the tablet will run a version of iPhone OS, but the tablet Apple has been busy with for several years, ran on a adapted version of Mac OS X. After years of testing, Apple is finally ready to release the tablet computer. The latest rumors suggest that the device will be introduced in January next year.

Apple reportedly met with magazine executives to pitch the future of that industry. Apple showed mockups of interactive content, to try and make a deal with the magazine executives. They really want to cause a digital evolution of print media and the tablet computer will be a key element of this revolution.

“Some I’ve talked to believe the initial content will be mere translations of text to tablet form. But while the idea of print on the Tablet is enticing, it’s nothing the Kindle or any E-Ink device couldn’t do. The eventual goal is to have publishers create hybridized content that draws from audio, video, interactive graphics in books, magazines and newspapers, where paper layouts would be static. And with release dates for Microsoft’s Courier set to be quite far away and Kindle stuck with relatively static e-ink, it appears that Apple is moving towards a pole position in distribution of this next-generation print content. First, it’ll get its feet wet with more basic repurposing of the stuff found on dead trees today.”

DRM-secured college books, that are only readable for a limited period of time, musty become a huge success on the Apple tablet. The prices can also be lower than normal printed books. And students only have to carry one device, instead of all the heavy books that take up a lot of space. The interactive content will also enhance the experience of reading books.

Steve Jobs says that people are not reading books anymore. It’s time to change that, and the tablet computer can do so. You’ll be able to see videos and pictures and interact with them. It’s clear the main goal of the tablet device is, to change the way we look at reading. Change the way we read. Create a revolution and re-invent the “wheel”. No more old fashion paper, the electronic reader is the future and Apple is the kind of company to do just that, WITH success.

Source: Gizmodo