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ebookishness
By insidebooks | September 10, 2009
The world of ebooks has moved on in the last few months. Sony have launched a new touchscreen version of their Reader and have announced the arrival of a wireless version (to match the Kindle from Amazon). They have also announced that by the end of the year all their ebooks will be available in the ePub standard. This standard is becoming commonly acceptable in the industry alongside the PDF (which still remains the best solution for complicated text with tables etc.). Google is also issuing its public domain titles in the ePub format.
This leaves Amazon and their Kindle standard as the main exception. For Amazon there is the advantage of tying Kindle users to their store (the Kindle has yet to launch in the UK); but they are left with the concern that their standard will go the way of Betamax in the age of the video recorder – VHS came out on top.
What about Apple? Probably one of the most popular ebook routes has been the use of Stanza on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Set this alongside the quote about ebook readers from Steve Jobs: ‘It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore …’. (We have other publishing quotes on the site here.) He was asked again recently about ebook devices:
‘I’m sure there will always be dedicated devices, and they may have a few advantages in doing just one thing,’ he said. ‘But I think the general-purpose devices will win the day. Because I think people just probably aren’t willing to pay for a dedicated device.’
He said that Apple doesn’t see e-books as a big market at this point, and pointed out that Amazon.com, for example, doesn’t ever say how many Kindles it sells. ‘Usually, if they sell a lot of something, you want to tell everybody.’
This is from an interview in the New York Times. Intriguingly there remains the question about the new Apple Tablet computer. A larger device than the iPhone, could this be the reading device that breaks the market open?
Topics: Uncategorized |
November 11th, 2009 at 11:09 pm
Ebooks are becoming of the norm nowdays.
The times are now changing, the normal 1500-2000 print articles are NOW slashed to 500 word articles online,
The internet an abundance of ways to tell a story.
People remember stories not lecture notes.
December 15th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
[...] to the post ebookishness, news also comes that the Kindle will be available as an app for the iPhone. You can read about it [...]