Category: reading

  • Google eBooks review: Liked the rough edge, not much else

    Google’s long-awaited electronic bookstore has finally arrived with the promise of great “openness” for all. But in the end, Google’s offering is merely another in a long line of ebook platforms that offers some pluses and minuses but in no way, shape or form revolutionizes the market. Whether you want to talk about pricing, selection,…

  • Free Kindle apps getting magazines, lending coming too

    I’m not sure what Kindle whiners are going to have left to whine about by next year (well, yes I do, DRM, but I digress…). Some big news emerged on Amazon’s Kindle discussion board the other day. First, the Kindle team revealed that you’re soon going to be able to read electronic newspapers and magazines…

  • Review: New York Times new iPad app is a step backwards

    The venerable gray lady, the New York Times, overhauled its iPad app this week. The original app, which supposedly annoyed Steve Jobs greatly, was called “Editor’s Choice.” Instead of including all the stories in the paper, it included only a selection. And the stories were arranged in the app much as they wold be in…

  • Newest Kindles are the iPods of reading more than ever

    What the iPod Nano is to music, the Kindle is to reading. –Jon Gruber, Sept. 21, 2010 It’s been almost three years since Amazon introduced the Kindle, a groundbreaking electronic reader that — just as the name promised — ignited the long smouldering e-reading revolution. Way back then, I wrote a blog post for Businessweek…

  • Amazon Kindle ad not at war with iPad

    Who is it that said all markets are conversations? Seth Godin? Robert Scoble? I can’t remember. But the new Amazon Kindle TV ad which debuted today immediately reminded me of the phrase. In the ad, a nerdy guy at the pool can’t read an ebook on his spiffy new Apple iPad because of the sun…

  • What Steve Jobs actually said about iBooks market share

    There’s been a bit of controversy about what Steve Jobs said yesterday (video here) in regard to the market share of the new iBookstore. To recall, Apple opened a new front in the electronic book wars when it introduced iBooks alongside the iPad two months ago. iBooks, sold in a proprietary DRM-locked format only at…

  • Out, damn’d spot – Reviewing iPad’s great Shakespeare app

    There are already a lot of very nifty iPad apps, from Entertainment Weekly‘s cool, interactive “Must List” to the show-me-the-radar greatness of Weatherbug to Amazon’s simple yet invaluable Kindle app. But so far, only one app has blown my mind: Shakespeare Pro (iTunes web link). It cost $19.99 but it’s probably worth $199.99 if you…

  • Insane eBook rip-offs — I tried to warn you

    Back when the major book publishers joined with Apple to go to war against Amazon and ebook consumers, there was some serious p.r. spin coming from the publishers’ camp and their toadies. In this bizzaro world, Amazon was hurting consumers by “forcing” an inflexible maximum ebook price of $9.99. If only publishers could get control…

  • Kindle for Mac review: Just the basics (updated)

    (Updated 10/19/10) Well, the free Kindle application for Macintosh computers has finally arrived. The press release is here, which repeats the promise that there will be an app for the iPad as well. It’s pretty much what you would expect, with all the flaws and strengths of the prior apps, starting with the iPhone/iPod Touch…

  • The real agenda of Apple’s ebook partners: death to ebooks

    The head of one of the big book publishers, MacMillan CEO John Sargent Jr., is out with an “open” letter about his dispute with Amazon over the pricing and timing of electronic books. It’s telling that this “open” ebook letter wasn’t released publicly and isn’t directed towards readers, book lovers and customers. It was placed…