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There Goes Those Fancy eBook Aspirations from Apple, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon: 100,000’s of FREE eBooks from the Public Library
Sometimes the best laid plans can be put out to pasture due to a lack
of foresight in regards to the ever changing, liquid landscape known 
as
the Internet. What fascinates me so much about the Web is that it is
the great democratizer, it brings down the barriers to entry and allows
for unfettered information flow. For instance, who would have thought
that your local public library could lay low the massive aspirations
media and retail titans such as Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Apple? Put
simply, why would you buy an eReader from these vendors for several
hundred dollars, then go ahead and spend more money buying the eBooks
for said reader when you can simply download the books from your local
public library’s website into the equipment you already have? Okay, I
know why those Apple heads would do it – because they want to spend
money on Apple products,,, the eBooks may look cooler with that shiny
Apple logo-thingy indicating that you too have donated unnecessarily to
the Steve Jobs’ enrichment fund, but how about the rest of the
vendors???
As a matter of fact, you can kill several birds with one stone simply
by buying one of the recent Android phones. Google is really on to
something here, and the growth potential of Android is simply
phenomenal. When those Android tablets get moving at Kmart for $100… Whoops, there goes that Amazon Digital eBook business model.
Attention Kmart shoppers: $149 Android tablet on aisle 5 : The Android OS isn’t just powering high end smartphones, it also runs barebones tablets sold at Kmart for the price of an iPod nano.
Think about this! Hundreds of
thousands of titles freely and legally downloadable from your local
public library to play on your $150 tablet with standard ports, HD
video, the whole 9 yards, or maybe just on your cell phone. Android can
scale pretty high in the capability department and reach rather low in
the price category as well.
NY’ers, check this out from your NYC Public Libraries:
These books use DRM protection administered by Overdrive.
Guess what platforms they won’t play on (okay, I’ll spoil it for you –
the two front runners in the space – Apple’s iPAd and Amazon’s Kindle!).
Of course you can always pick up one of those Android phones, or even a
Microsoft Windows 7 phone…
DRM-protected Adobe® EPUB & PDF eBooks work with most computers… |
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Windows® desktop, laptop &
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Mac® desktop & laptop
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DRM-protected Adobe EPUB & PDF eBooks work with these devices… |
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DRM-protected Adobe EPUB & PDF eBooks are incompatible with these devices…
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More on the Creatively Destructive Pace of Technology Innovation
- There Is Another Paradigm Shift Coming in Technology and Media: Apple, Microsoft and Google Know its Winner Takes All
- The Mobile Computing and Content Wars: Part 2, the Google Response to the Paradigm Shift
- An Introduction to How Apple Apple Will Compete With the Google/Android Onslaught
- Don’t Count Microsoft Out of the Ultra-Mobile Computing Wars Just Yet
- This article should drive the point home: An iPhone 4 Recall Will Hurt Apple More By Opening Additional Opportunity for Android Devices Than Increased Expenses
- A First in the Mainstream Media: Apple’s Flagship Product Loses In a Comparison Review to HTC’s Google-Powered Phone
- After Getting a Glimpse of the New Windows Phone 7 Functionality, RIMM is Looking More Like a Short Play
- Android is gaining preference as the long-term choice of application developers
- A Glimpse of the BoomBustBlog Internal Discussion Concerning the Fate of Apple
- Math and the Pace of Smart Phone Innovation May Take a Byte Out of Apple’s (Short-lived?) Dominance
- Apple on the Margin
- RIM Smart Phone Market Share, RIP?
- Motorola, the Company That INVENTED the Cellphone is Trying to Uninvent the iPad With Android
- Android Now Outselling iOS? Explaining the Game of Chess That Google Plays in the Smart Phone Space
- advertisements -
Why does this contributor seem to focus so much on negative spin against Apple(in particular). The spin in the last two articles is fairly transparent.
This contributor has no negative spin against Apple, he simply reports facts as he sees them. Why haven't you said the same thing about Barnes and Noble, or Amazon since the article stated their business models were at risk as well, and even to a greater extent.
As I said in an earlier post, people tend to use their emotions when dealing with Apple (be it as a customer or investor) and that is a very dangerous thing.
DOW/SP500 daily charts are now bearish.
So the downtrend first mentioned early May this year, can now resume.
http://stockmarket618.wordpress.com
Anyone read the blog fakesteve.net? Good satire... money quote from a recent post:
We would rather have 10 percent of a gorgeous beautiful pristine market that we can completely own and control (read: huge margins) than have 90 percent of a bucket of shit.
Yah, as soon as I heard the latest iPhone didnt have Flash, and then saw Job's ridiculous attempts to spin his way out of it without mentioning 'walled garden' or 'revenue from appstore' I decided I wanted nothing to do with Apple products.
As a commenter mentioned above, Apple has already failed in the PC market by refusing to open their platform. They will fail again in the smart phone/tablet market too, they just happened to be first to market; which has its own problems.
Give it 4 years and people will have forgotten the iWhatever, but will still be using smart phones and tablets, and sitting in a corner will be the 'cool Apple users' spraying off about how crap everyone elses technology is. Same Same.
Except one thing. It is like saying libraries would put out book stores, or cd's, or dvd. I get all of them from my library.
There will be a segment of people who continue to want things on paper as well.
trouble with the tablet readers (think droid and apple) vs e-ink (think amazon or barnes and noble) is the eyestrain issue and battery life. because the tablet readers are backlit they run through their battery much faster. amazon's new reader is clearly being marketed against these devices and the price point for the cheapest one is below that of the droid. so it'll be interesting to see how this shakes out.
I suspect that for serious readers who do a lot of reading, rather than the casual reader who also wants to go online, the backlit units will be a bust--just like ebooks on laptops are largely a bust for reading just b/w text.
...either way, this will be interesting.
Reggie....
See why I keep telling you about Googlization? Android is the new Windows. MS and Apple move over. Happening right before your eyes!
Yin-Yang
An apple a day keeps the doctor away?
Not many people can afford an AAPL a day...
One "little" flaw in your reasoning. If everyone can get free e-books from the library, won't that utterly obliterate publishers? If all the publishers are forced into bankruptcy, where will the books come from? Yes, some will say that authors will be able to do their own desktop publishing. But even that doesn't make sense. Most authors are not technology savvy. And if the books are loaned out for free, no author will ever make a dime. So writers will need to get another day job, or they will starve. This will need to be resolved or the whole publishing industry will collapse. The money motivation to write a book will also disappear.
A "bigger" flaw in your reasoning. The public library has been around for over 100 years, loaning books out for free and so has the commercial publishing industry. Why do you think things will be different because Amazon or Barnes and Noble goofed in the eBook space?
. "The public library has been around for over 100 years, loaning books out for free"
Gee I wonder how they do it for free? Apparently you aren't a property owner I pay
library taxes every year with my property tax.
the digital rights issue will make for some strange times for libraries. they already have issues with dvds and other media that can be ripped, so for ebooks (not including public domain works) my bet would be on a new wave of limitations and lawsuits (think 1997 and Napster, only with books and the local library). The Google project to scan books failed to resolve any of these issues, so expect round 2 to start really soon.
You still don't get it. The reason the library could co-exist with commercial publishers is because the library could only lend one paper book to one borrower at a time. That meant that many people had to wait for the book to be returned, or like most of us who couldn't wait, you went and bought your own copy. E-books allow the library to loan out the same e-book to as many people as want it simultaneously (with no waiting). The only physical limitation in loaning out a popular book is the speed of their servers and their internet band-width.
Hey, it worked for banks loaning dollars. I think Goldman needs to branch out into ebooks. Work out some sweet inside deal with the Library of congress...
On a more serious note...
I follow this sector for my volunteer work in Africa, setting up community libraries and helping bring the Internet to rural schools. The Marvell and OLPC tablet will shake up the market if it comes close to the $100 US price point. 4 Q 2010 schedule launch.
http://www.mobylize.org/ <--<< Marvell site for project (kinda bare....)
Here are a few sites that blog on this subject.
http://armdevices.net/
http://www.clonedinchina.com/
http://carrypad.com/
http://www.liliputing.com/
http://www.olpcnews.com/
Just noticed this:
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/08/mass-romance-novel-publisher...
Actually, I do get it. Access through the public library will not kill publishing just as it has not done so yet. Publishing's biggest threat is a lack of understanding and acceptance of the digital age - from book publishers, to magazines to newspapers. Most of the book publsihing industry consists of middle men who simply are not necessary in the digital age of easy distribution. Self publishing (ie blogs, ie. the medium that you are currently posing your query in) is the path of least resistance, and the profits are still available for as margins go down, volume increases as well. The role of the mddle man will be relegated to those shops who assist self publishers in distributing thier content in a frictionless distribution model world.
For instance, HP has an Android tablet that syns with an HP printer to print out eBooks for physical use. The 300 year old book publishing model is in for a long over due overhaul, and gutting.
Music and movie industries face the same challenge, the distribution stream has been evaporated by the Internet and they havent come to terms with it yet.
Is it legal, in the US, to put copyright protected books on the internet for free download ?
Here in Brasil I think it's not legal... It's a pity... The lack of free ebooks in Portuguese will continue. I'll have to keep training my English...
EDIT: I don't know what DRM-protected Adobe EPUB is...
Google is in murky territory with the books project, the road to profits is paved with a multitude of legal issues, there will be no "stick ads on books" without a lot of legal wrangling.
The "ad supported" model is not one size fits all, the arrogance on google's part of such a plan is astounding.
some background: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/02/doj-google-book-settleme...
Plus google is translating older books as free ebooks in the open source book project. You can get the classics or any non- copywrited book for free.
The library is very popular these days- people are waiting in line for bestsellers- waiting on the reservation list instead of ponying up 18 bucks. Deflation is a bitch
Apple still makes plenty on the hardware and encourages free books- they win no matter what. kindle is toast
@mercury
"E-books remind me of a lunchbox that can hold 1000 lunches. You can only really make use of one at a time and not in large, consecutive amounts like with music. Plus, at this point I can't see literacy and attention spans going anywhere but down, at least in this country. Digitizing especially uncopyrighted, older and out-of-print books does seem like an unequivocal good however."
I am currently reading Moby Dick, Emma, Tarzan of the Apes, War of the Worlds and War and Peace, 20,000 leagues, Madame Bovary and Treasure Island on my ipad I also have the latest editions of EVO car magazine, Mens health mag and a few of the newspapers.... All downloaded free (war and peace in under 5 seconds) on the ipad using the freebooks free app. I use them all all the time depending on what I feel like reading. I read practically the whole of War of the Worlds on a flight from Europe to Miami a few weeks ago and I loved it (especially the Night Mode for dark reading as it meant you didn't need the bright overhead light!)
P.S buy Apple shares asap as no one realises yet that the ipad is the best gadget that has ever been invented. Period. (and I have had every mobile phone laptop and egadget ever invented too!!) For me, it has effectively replaced the smart phone, the laptop, newspapers, magazines, books and 95% of the things I/most people need a home computer for....
Well that's great, as I said I love Project Gutenberg and things like that but you should be able to do all that you described on a simple, <$50 device. And with all that free content that's not much of a business model for some of the e-reader makers which is part of what Reggie was getting at. If these things really are the future they should be commoditized and ubiquitous pretty soon. Once you can get flexible/collapsible screens however, now we're talkin'.
I remeber, ten years ago at least Apple had a "this is the future" type ad where someone picked up a larger, keyboardless screen, put it on the coffee table and started bringing up all kinds of programs with his fingertips on the screen. I guess they were right.
That was back in 1987. Even earlier, Alan Kay wrote about the Dynabook concept, and his pursuit of that elusive dream was one of the reasons he quit Xerox PARC and went to work at Apple. Here is the Apple video from the 1980s:
http://www.digibarn.com/collections/movies/knowledge-navigator.html
I had similar impressions after I bought my iPad (not quite as enthusiastic, for you cannot produce media easily, but it is a marvel at consuming media) until I got my Evo (and I literaly have most of every gadget that has come out in the last 7 years). The Androids will eat Apple's lunch. They are better at doing what most Apple products (tablets and phones) do and they are much more compatible and get cheaper by the the month.
Reggie, I've just started looking at tablets from a developer's perspective. I would say that Android tablets will put pressure on iPad if there are only 2 or 3 major ones. If we see dozens, like with phones, each one will require tweaking the application being developed, whereas iPad doesn't face that.
I just talked to a successful iPhone developer yesterday. He had done some Android phone work in the past, but wants nothing to do with that market now. He will be developing exclusively for iOS.
And Apple will sit on its hands while this happens? The only Android tablet on the market right now is that $150, crapgadget Genpad from Augen. Google should pay Augen to take it off the store shelves -- it's that bad. By the time Android pads hit the market in volume next year, Apple will have announced the next iPad, and lowered the retail prices on the existing models. I'm sure we'll continue to see cheap-o Android tablets that some will buy, but I'm surprised you think they will somehow overcome the 18-month lead Apple has in this market.
I knew guys like you back in 1984 when the Mac was first introduced. I guess Apple's first lesson in attempted world domination by closed source hardware/software didn't yet sink in. And now, 26 years later, Macs are largely an afterthought, in terms of revenue stream generated.
If you think that somehow Apple will avoid the same fate when it is using the same hardware and software approaches that failed over the last 26 years in the PC space, then you are welcome to keep that opinion. I suspect you'll be just as wrong as those Mac guys 26 years ago were wrong.
And this is not about "right" or "wrong" or what's "best". Betamax lost to VHS, not on technical merits but because of cost. And after 30+ years, Apple still doesn't seem to understand this. Betamax surged initially too but as the cost differential became obvious, the technical advantages of Betamax were not enough to sustain it over VHS. Now tell me why Apple will see its position sustained over Android or other such solutions over the long haul?
Exactly, it's not about right, wrong or who's "best". Apple is a company run for the benefit of its shareholders, and I'm one very happy shareholder. So your claim that "Apple still doesn't seem to understand this" doesn't carry much weight given the company's performance over the past decade.
Jesus, nothing lasts forever, but I'd counter by asking you to show me one Android or freeware-based company that has performance even remotely comparable to what Apple has done. Google sells ads, and it created Android to sell more of them. I don't see that focus as customer-friendly or OEM-friendly. This lack of customer focus, more than anything else will bite Android in the ass as time goes by.
You are wrong here. The thrust for Android is to enable Google to push cloud services, which it is probably second to none in in this space except for potentially Microsoft. Rememberr, you have to look at where the puck is going, not where it is...
If Apple felt the way that you do, they'd be a slam dunk short, however I'm sure they know better. That doesn't mean they are going to come out on top of this, but I''m sure if they go down they will go down swinging.
Take a look at the offerings coming up from Samsun, Dell, Asus, HTC, Motorola., etc. Many of them are slated to hit by September (as in next month). These devices are slick, and I don't care how much you love Apple, they can't out engineer all of these companies on the hardware side plus Android on the software side.
Reggie, I am always delighted by your grasp of technology.
HTC hardware is superior to anything that Apple can put out in the mobile space. Android / Linux / OSS is superior to any old turd of an OS Apple can polish up, and developers will ditch iOS and the horrible license terms and costs associated with it like a herpetic whore when the users are there, count on it.
You are 100% correct.
These devices are vaporware, and the school yard is littered with corpses of iPad "killers", joojoo, HP Slate, Courier, Genpad. The companies you mention, these supposed engineering powerhouses, were caught with their pants down when Apple introduced the iPad at $500. Then Jobs tweaked them again by mentioning Apple could drop the retail price lower if they had to. I'm all for competition Reggie, but from what I've seen so far, Apple has none in this market segment. It's high time for the Android team to put up or STFU, don't you think?
I don't know. That vaporware is currently outselling Apple. The first real Android phone debut was 8 months ago with the Motorola Droid. Look where we are now with the Evo, Samsung Captivate, etc.
I think Apple investors are very much like gold investors... Despite strong fundamental and macro arguments that may support the investment, they turn a totally blind eye to anything that refutes the bull argument.
I'll put my money on the Android tablets coming out sooner than later. The Dell Streak has already been priced and announced by cell phone carriers in the US and is currently selling in the UK.
I think it's time we eliminated the public library.
you could burn piles of books in the streets. Yea, that's the ticket!!
Won't be the first time.
Camden, NJ is on the cutting edge of this movement.
yes everything needs to be privatized ... well, the debt can stay public, but control and profits needs to be in the safe, sure, pickpocketing hands of the few
KMart shoppers read lots of books, especially the crufty, out of copyright e-titles offered at the public library. Sure.
You need a reader to access an ebook, so it seems to me the makers of general purpose devices have this angle covered. Single purpose readers will survive as a niche product, perhaps in schools and libraries. Crap devices (cough, Augen, cough) will always be around as well, but only the clueless will waste money on them.
Are any of these commercial e-book formats transferable to other platforms? I understand that an ability to do this facilitates piracy and file sharing that hurts sales but it also means that the consumer, who invests in a library of e-books may one day be stuck with the equivalent of a box full of 8-track cassettes that won't work on any contemporary equipment.
Digitized books are good for what they're good for (text search function for instance) but I haven't been able to get that into them for casual reading especially (in part because of e-books) now that you can pick up all kinds of real books for free or next to nothing. E-books remind me of a lunchbox that can hold 1000 lunches. You can only really make use of one at a time and not in large, consecutive amounts like with music. Plus, at this point I can't see literacy and attention spans going anywhere but down, at least in this country.
Digitizing especially uncopyrighted, older and out-of-print books does seem like an unequivocal good however.
Reggie, I've heard of talking your book but this is ridiculous.
Giggle!