Entries tagged with “devices” from Tools of Change for Publishing
Kindle Comes to the iPhone
Mac Slocum
March 4, 2009
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Users of the iPhone and iPod Touch can now tap into Amazon's Kindle store with the free Kindle for iPhone application. From The New York Times:
The move comes a week after Amazon started shipping the updated version of its Kindle reading device. It signals that the company may be more interested in becoming the pre-eminent retailer of e-books than in being the top manufacturer of reading devices.
Amazon is positioning the iPhone app as a gap filler: nibble on book content while waiting at the airport, in line, at a restaurant, etc., but settle in for deep reading with the original Kindle (or, presumably, the printed edition). Toward that end, the Times says Amazon is using a bookmark feature that keeps a reader's spot as they switch devices.
Reaction to the Kindle iPhone App
I'll be adding to this list over the next few days as more coverage appears (I highly recommend following the real-time Kindle trend on Twitter). Please share additional links and your own Kindle/iPhone analysis through the comments area.
Hands on: Kindle for iPhone a great Kindle companion
(Chris Foresman, Ars Technica)
Clicking on the "Get Books" button on the Home screen instructs users to got to Amazon's Kindle Store via a computer for "the best shopping experience." And they aren't kidding; while there is a link that will open the Kindle Store in MobileSafari, browsing and buying books this way is just plain frustrating. The Kindle's own integrated buying is far simpler in comparison. Apple presumably has this restriction in place so that developers don't abuse the App Store system, giving away free apps on Apple's dime and then selling content elsewhere. Perhaps Amazon can build an iPhone-browsable version of the Kindle Store and display it via an embedded browser, or better yet, perhaps Amazon and Apple can come to some sort of agreement to allow in-app purchasing.
First Impressions of Kindle on iPhone
(Walt Mossberg, AllThingsD)
... it is a solid basic app for reading books, and is especially valuable if you already own a hardware Kindle, as I do. In my brief tests, the iPhone app synchronized rapidly and perfectly with my purchased library of Kindle books on Amazon's servers, and allowed me to retrieve a previously purchased e-book, without paying again, just as my hardware Kindle does. It also synchronized to the furthest page I had read in that book on my Kindle. After reading for awhile on the iPhone, I performed that process in reverse, and my Kindle took me to the same spot where I had quit reading on the iPhone.
Kindle for iPhone Review
(Perrin Stewart, 148Apps)
Read more…... it's worth having the app on your device for the access to Amazon's virtual library alone. In many cases, the pricing on Kindle versions of books are much cheaper than other ebook stores (compare the Kindle version of "The Graveyard Book" for $9.99 to the Fictionwise version which is $17.99 and the stand-alone iTunes store app which is $17.99, for instance), and they often have books that other stores do not.
Photos from New York Times R&D Lab
Andrew Savikas
February 12, 2009
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Nick Bilton was a hit yesterday at the TOC Conference, and during his keynote he talked about what they're working on with content at the NYT R&D Lab. Nick was kind enough to give a few of us a private tour earlier this week, and here's some photos from the trip:
iPhone App Outperforms Most Print (Computer) Books This Holiday Season
Andrew Savikas
January 7, 2009
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Conventional wisdom suggests that when choosing pilot projects, you pick ones with a high likelihood of success. It's hard to argue that iPhone: The Missing Manual was a reasonable choice for testing the iPhone App waters. But while we knew it would do well, we've been quite pleased with just how well:
- If the iPhone App by itself had been a book, it would be a top 10 seller in BookScan for Computer Books this holiday season, based on just 17 days of sales
- The print version appears to have been unaffected, retaining a solid position in the top 3 for Computer Books in BookScan
- A full 1/3 of those buying the app are outside the US, mostly in countries where the print book is not readily available
There are certainly some who don't care for the book-as-app approach, preferring the library model (where one app enables reading multiple titles). It's also clear there's substantial customer interest in both options, and we strongly believe that offering a variety of options and letting customers choose is the right approach. This is a time for experimentation, and we'll be doing quite a bit more of it (format, pricing, content) in the digital -- and especially mobile -- space in the coming months.
New Tech Mixes Book Experience with Sensors
Peter Brantley
December 15, 2008
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A new form of hybrid book is coming on the market -- and the inventor consults with Apple. From the Guardian UK:
Lyndsay Williams -- who has already developed the PC sound card, SmartQuill, and SenseCam -- is now working on SenseBooks, and the first of a series will be published next year.
SenseBooks are a hybrid of paper and computer intelligence, and will have MP3 quality audio from an ARM processor and a gigabyte of storage. Williams says SenseBooks "will know when the user picks up the book and looks at a page":
A proximity sensor detects this and can light up pages or make music. What is also useful is the book has sensors to know what page it is on, can send a wireless message to a PC and open up a web page with more information on. Current applications include children's teaching books, music books, cookery books etc.
Q&A With Co-Creator of Classics iPhone E-Reader
Mac Slocum
November 26, 2008
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We've covered iPhone-based e-readers in the past, but the Classics application offers a few twists: it's not free, and the app's book content is updated along with the software itself. Classics co-creator Phill Ryu discusses the application's design and development in the following Q&A.
Why did you develop a book-centric application?
When we started comparing the iPhone to the Kindle, it was immediately clear to us that we could take advantage of the iPhone's brilliant color screen and touch capabilities to create a reading experience that would stand out from the crowd, so it began as a very, very tempting challenge almost, and eventually turned into a months-long passion project.
How many books do you offer?
We're currently offering a dozen books. They're handpicked favorites of ours, but we'll be adding more with free updates to the app.
Are these books all in the public domain?
Yeah, they are public domain. At the start, [co-creator Andrew] Kaz and I thought we could really do something radical in terms of the digital reading experience, but we couldn't start working with publishers based on the strength of some cool interface ideas, so we settled with the "Classics" name and created this as essentially the first prototype of our reading engine.
Did you consider releasing this application for free?
Yes, for a moment. Then someone knocked on my apartment door and slipped in a rent payment notice letter. The reality of the situation was, we had gone basically broke over the summer working on a pretty cool desktop app, and had to halt development on that until we could find some income. At that point, we came up with the brilliant plan to develop an iPhone app in a few weeks to generate some income, to continue the aforementioned desktop app. Classics of course ended up turning into a serious passion project lasting months of development time, and we went extra broke due to it, so going free was hardly an option. We're rather painfully aware that free apps tend to gather something like 25-50 times the downloads of similarly charting paid apps, and we'd like to reach that audience someday, but most likely it'll be with a spinoff app, and not with Classics.
Are you still developing the desktop app? Does this app also focus on books/content?
I really can't (and shouldn't) talk details, because the app might never fly depending on how talks with some content publishers go, but no, it's not book related.
You're using Apple's built-in software update process to load new books into the application. How did you come up with this idea?
For a variety of reasons. One thing that drove us toward this was gentle but insistent prodding from Apple throughout the dev process to stay away from selling books through our app. We'll be transitioning to server-hosted books later on though, once the collection has grown further.
Did Apple explicitly guide you away from selling books?
They guided us away from selling books directly through our app, which is against the terms for iPhone developers. We're hoping we can figure out an elegant workaround that they are fine with, but I want to stress that overall, they've been very supportive of this app, and have even been showing it off in the ongoing iPhone tech talks around the world.
How often will books be added?
I would expect to see several new books with each app update, the first of which should come later this month or so.
Will updates be free?
Yes. The app may become more expensive later on as it matures, but updates will remain free for all existing customers.
Since the books update along with the software, will users be able to keep/archive titles previously loaded into the application?
We have no plans to remove any books we release. Once the library size becomes prohibitive, we are planning to shift to server hosted books.
Apple requires applications to be under 10MB for download over cellular connections. Does this restriction limit the total number of books you can make available through Classics?
Not really, in that we are already pushing 20MB. We're hoping that we can eventually transition to server-hosted books while retaining the user experience though.
How many people were involved in the development of Classics?
Beyond Kaz and I, there were four designers who helped with various parts of the app (including the cover art, interface, and even processing illustrations for the books), as well as a friend and Web programmer who helped us create some in-house tools for correcting and formatting these books.
The Classics bookshelf interface has a unique look. How much effort went into this design?
Probably more than most people would think! The bookshelf interface for book management was inspired by Delicious Library's visual shelves (an app that Kaz worked on when he was 14). So starting from there, we worked with David Lanham on realizing our own flavor of bookshelf, and slowly refined the look over the next couple months, experimenting with various levels of decoration, tints, etc.
Of course, the other half of the bookshelf view are the custom book covers. As I mentioned before, Classics ended up being a passion project for all of us, and the designers really went overboard with the covers. (In a good way.) We started with the idea of procedurally generating each leatherbound book cover with different colors, sizes and such, with a unique "cover image" for each book designed to look like they were embossed on this set of leatherbound novels. Unfortunately, this ended up looking extremely bland. So after literally weeks of going back and forth on this with Dan Goffin, who was drawing concept art for book covers from the start, we settled on a much more colorful, and less restrictive style of fully illustrated covers.
I think this is the point where it gets a bit crazy. At this point, the concept books were looking much nicer, but we began to feel that the slightly simplified style made them look more like icons than real books. They looked a little fake. So the designers ended up illustrating these in high res, as if they were real books. The user for now actually never sees the vast majority of the detailing, but I think this level of detail adds a really unique level of polish to the app.
Will you port Classics to other systems, such as Android?
We haven't even investigated Android at all yet, but it's certainly a possibility. For now though, this remains an app we just personally really wanted on our iPhones!
Have you used/seen some of the other book-based iPhone applications? What's your impression of these?
Yes. And I feel like you are leading me on a bit with this question, but I'll take the bait and bite. I've tried a bunch of the other book apps out there, and frankly, the overall quality of these apps (in particular the "one-offs") horrified us, and only further motivated us to go full out with Classics. The only other book app out there worth picking up is Stanza.
How many copies of Classics have you sold? Have book publishers or others approached you about including their material in the app?
We've sold over 20,000 copies so far, though there hasn't been so much in terms of profit yet due to our initial investment in the app. We're optimistic though, and we're hoping some leads work out with publishers. There are publishers who want to work with us and sell books on the store, but the main issue for now is that there aren't many viable options for them besides selling one-off book apps, which is not ideal. If there's a nice way to do this though, we'll find it.
Mobile First, PC Second
Mac Slocum
November 17, 2008
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Over on Radar, Tim O'Reilly says the mobile tipping point is upon us:
I think about the web as experienced on a PC, and then about mobile as an add on. The tipping point has come; that notion has to flip: if we're trying to get ahead of the curve, we need to think first about the phone, and then think about the PC browser experience as the add-on.
Readius Rollable E-Reader at Frankfurt Book Fair
Mac Slocum
October 13, 2008
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The Readius rollable e-reader will be presented at this week's Frankfurt Book Fair, according to the Readius official blog. First announced in July, the Readius is a cell-phone-sized gadget that includes a five-inch rollable E Ink display.
New Sony E-Reader Has Touchscreen, No Web Connection
Mac Slocum
October 3, 2008
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Web connectivity has always been the key difference between the Kindle and Sony's Reader. With Sony's release of its third-generation e-reader, Web connectivity is still the big separator. The PRS-700 is faster and offers more storage than its predecessors, but it does not include a Wi-Fi or cellular option.
The PRS-700's most notable upgrades are an LED reading light and a touchscreen interface. From CNET's Crave:
Like the iPhone and other next-gen touch-screen phones that have been appearing lately, the Reader incorporates some gesture-based commands. You can swipe your finger across the display to page forward or back (you can choose between a left or right swipe to advance pages in the settings menu). Swiping and holding your finger down at the end of the swipe allows you to advance or rewind through pages at a fast clip.
The new Reader will be available in November for $399.99.
CNET Pops the Kindle's Hood and Takes Pictures
Mac Slocum
September 17, 2008
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CNET/Tech Republic cracks open the Kindle and takes an in-depth look at its hardware. Check out the photo gallery.
iPhone Not Hot in Japan
Peter Brantley
September 17, 2008
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The Wall Street Journal says iPhone sales are stagnating in Japan:
According to market-research firm MM Research Institute, Apple sold about 200,000 phones in Japan in the first two months [July and August]. Since then, however, demand has been falling steadily, and analysts now widely believe sales are unlikely to reach a total of 500,000 units. That is half the one million units that they previously thought Apple could sell. One big challenge is that Japanese users already have access to some of the most advanced mobile-phone technologies in the world. Models currently sold by Japanese cellphone makers typically contain a high-end color display, digital TV-viewing capability, satellite navigation service, music player and digital camera. Many models also include chips that let owners use their phones as debit cards or train passes.
A Vote for One-Use Gadgets
Peter Brantley
August 14, 2008
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Jeff Gomez, in his series on owning a Kindle, voices a preference for multiple gadgets each doing one thing well:
One thing that I don't mind about the Kindle is that it's an extra device. I used to think that I wanted an integrated device -- one thing that did everything -- and that I wouldn't want to carry around yet another device or gadget. But I actually like the fact that the Kindle is (more or less) just a device for the reading of content. Maybe this harkens back to the fact that every book is a destination; you get into bed and pick up a book because you want to read. You don't pick up a book to take pictures, record video or get your voicemail. So the fact that I don't use the Kindle to play solitaire is fine with me. True, that means I can't read something if I leave the house and have just my cell phone in my back pocket. But then again, a cell phone screen is too small, and most books are too big, so carrying a Kindle seems the right compromise.
TechCrunch Reports 240K Kindles Sold
Andrew Savikas
August 1, 2008
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TechCrunch is reporting that according to their sources, Amazon has shipped 240,000 Kindles since launch, suggesting a $100M business so far:
Doing a little back of the envelope math, that brings total sales of the device so far to between $86 million and $96 million (the price of the device was reduced to $360 from $400 last May). Then add the amounts spent on digital books, newspapers, and blogs purchased to read on the device, and you get a business that has easily brought in above $100 million so far. (Each $25 worth of digital reading material purchased per Kindle, add $6 million in total revenues).
Foldable E-Reader Launching in Europe This Fall, U.S. in '09
Mac Slocum
July 8, 2008
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The New York Times takes a look at the Readius foldable e-reader:
... the Readius, designed mainly for reading books, magazines, newspapers and mail, is the size of a standard cellphone. Flip it open, though, and a screen tucked within the housing opens to a 5-inch diagonal display. The screen looks just like a liquid crystal display, but can bend so flexibly that it can wrap around a finger.
A quoted company exec says the Readius will be priced higher than the $359 Kindle. The device will be available in Europe this fall and will debut in the U.S. in 2009.
Researchers Develop Dual-Display E-Reader
Mac Slocum
June 27, 2008
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Researchers from Berkeley and the University of Maryland have built a dual-display e-reader prototype that uses traditional book-reading navigation (i.e. page turns, flipping the cover under, etc.). From the New Scientist:
The two leaves can be opened and closed to simulate turning pages, or even separated to pass round or compare documents. When the two leaves are folded back, the device shows one display on each side. Simply turning it over reveals a new page.
The following video shows the e-reader in action:
Publishing Industry Not Prepared for "iPod Moment"
Mac Slocum
June 6, 2008
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From Times Emit:
... in the light of consumer demand, there is actually very little [ebook] supply - then surely an "iPod for books" moment could actually be a disaster for the publishing industry, forcing keen and hungry consumers to find their electronic content from other (possibly illegal) sources - as with happened with the ipod moment for, um, music?
Content Owners and Consumers Need Digital Quid Pro Quo
Mac Slocum
May 28, 2008
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Recent comments from Jeff Gaspin, president and chief operating officer of NBC Universal Television Group, illustrate the one-step-forward / one-step-back mindset plaguing mainstream media organizations.
First, the step forward:
On-demand viewing is a key component of the increase in viewers, Gaspin asserted. "I believe the ability for consumers to sample content elsewhere, whether it's VOD [video on demand], DVD or [online] streaming, helps build a new fan base. So when hit shows come back, I believe more people come back than in prior seasons. That has all contributed to growth in cable."
Using VOD and other technologies to increase awareness and woo viewers to an established platform -- such as a TV show -- is a progressive perspective. Incorporation of VOD and online access also builds good will with consumers because it works with their usage patterns, rather them forcing them into specific programming at specific times.
But then there's the step back:
"I think it's [VOD] a smart offering for the [cable] operators and for us," Gaspin said. "But a couple of things have to happen: Fast-forward has to be disabled, we have to have dynamic ad insertion, and we have to have legitimate measurement of the viewership."
Flexible advertising and reliable measurement tools are reasonable requests, but disabling the fast-forward button contradicts the consumer-friendly perspective in the first quote (hence, "step back"). Granted, the same article containing the Gaspin quotes also notes a VOD pilot program that disabled fast-forward and was still well received among consumers, but the overall inconsistency in these messages is what's troubling. Gaspin seems to understand the value of consumer empowerment to an extent, but the old command-and-control mindset creeps back in when it comes to the details.
That said, the success of digital efforts -- whether it's video-on-demand, online access, or distribution of free ebooks -- does require concessions from content owners and consumers. But these concessions need to be marked by consistency. If a content owner, such as NBC, wants to use VOD to drive viewers back to its primary platform, then the VOD material should have all the functionality consumers have grown to expect (i.e. keep your paws off my remote ... and my computer ... and my e-reader). But in exchange for easy access and availability, consumers shouldn't be offended by in-episode advertising, visible sponsorship branding, or requests for demographic data (with opt-out options, of course). Ultimately, a reasonable amount of quid pro quo -- defined by consistency -- allows both sides to take advantage of digital platforms.
Ergonomics and Ebook Success
Mac Slocum
April 22, 2008
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Lee Gomes of the Wall Street Journal discusses the pleasant surprise of reading ebooks on his BlackBerry:
Your thumb doesn't fall off turning teeny-tiny digital pages thousands of times to get through even the most fleeting novella. In fact, the ergonomics almost beats that of books.
Some will argue that mobile screen sizes don't encourage extended ebook experiences, but there's something to be said for the convenience of flicking through pages with your fingers or zooming along on a track ball (or if you're old school, a click wheel). In fact, e-reader manufacturers might want to look at popular handheld devices for design inspiration -- and by "handheld" I mean anything that can be held in your hand, not just mobile gadgets.
Take the TiVo remote. In 2004, the New York Times did a feature story on this device:
Because of the nature of the TiVo video recorder, the remote is held for long periods as users continually choose shows to record, skip commercials, fast-forward and rewind recorded shows, rate programs by pressing the thumbs-up or thumbs-down buttons, and even pause live TV. Designing a remote that consumers would find comfortable was a high priority.
An e-reader doesn't have much in common with a TV remote, but that's not really the point. It's all about core use. The TiVo remote works because the oversized pause button -- embodying the essence of a DVR -- is impossible to miss. The iPhone works because the touchscreen gives you maneuverability in a small space, thereby narrowing the gap between a mobile device and a PC. And the BlackBerry works because the track ball lets you fly through menus and information. Moreover, each of these design elements is now second nature to users, so manufacturers can safely incorporate similar (not stolen; similar) functionality while avoiding user-interface re-education.
It could be that touchscreens and intuitively placed buttons/wheels/balls don't enhance the ebook experience (although I think they might), but the current insistence on meshing traditional books with ebooks isn't a design nirvana, either. As Gomes notes, the book-ebook connection isn't really necessary:
Until a few weeks ago, my assumption had been that a useable electronic book would need to resemble a Gutenberg book as much as possible, with, for example, pages of screen text about the same size as pages of print ... The Sony Reader, however, turned out to be a gateway device. Once you've experienced its great rush of convenience, choice and portability, you just have to have more. It's then that you cross the line and start downloading British novels onto a BlackBerry. [Emphasis added.]
If "convenience, choice, portability" and other core ebook attributes define e-reader hardware design, then the resulting ergonomics could be the key attribute that reinvents the established market.
(Via Teleread.)
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