Category: ebook

  • 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…

  • Apple’s iPad may be the perfect computer for kids

    I’m excited about Apple’s new iPad for a couple of reasons. While a lot of the iPad’s features and services had been leaked in advance, I found myself gasping along with the audience in San Francisco when the price was announced. This is a product that is going to have vastly more impact for under…

  • Steve Jobs’ ebook logic: I win, All of you lose

    Soon we’ll know just what Apple’s new tablet will really do, how much it will cost and whether it can save the world from global warming. Okay, just joking about that last bit — I think. In any event, many believe the tablet will shake things up in ebook world where Amazon’s Kindle is the…

  • Will Apple continue to allow competing ebook reading apps?

    There are many, many unanswered questions about Apple’s forthcoming tablet computing device, or the “God tablet” perhaps I should call it. For those of us particularly concerned about the future of electronic books, I have one pointed question for Apple. Will the company, which at times acts against its own customer interests, allow competing ebook…