Will Apple Allow Other eBook Reader Apps on the iPad?

Publishers are all a-buzz about the iPad, because it provides a new possibility for reading e-books. No more will readers have to put up with the poor contrast of the Kindle. No more will readers have to buy a dedicated device that does little more than just display e-books. The iPad, for just a few dollars more than the Kindle DX, offers a host of features, from web browsing and e-mail to gaming and productivity apps.

However, it’s not clear yet whether Apple will allow other e-book apps on the iPad. There are many such apps for the iPhone, but Apple’s conditions for accepting apps in the App Store require that they do not duplicate the functionality of built-in applications. For example, one e-mail program was refused because it “duplicates the functionality of the built-in iPhone application Mail,” another because it “duplicates the functionality of the Podcast section of iTunes.”

Now that there’s an e-book app on the iPad – it’s called iBooks – will Apple allow others to provide or sell similar apps? Will they nix the Kindle app for the iPad? The Kindle app is available for free for the iPhone and iPad mini (or iPod touch), but there is no built-in Apple functionality for those devices. And will Apple eventually make a version of iBooks for the small-screen devices, thereby eliminating existing e-book apps for the iPhone and iPod touch?

This may get more complicated outside the US. For now, Apple is only providing the iBooks app for users of the iPad in the US. They haven’t said when they will be selling e-books in other countries (and that will certainly depend on agreements in each country, so will not happen for all countries at the same time). Will they therefore allow e-book apps outside the US?

My guess is that if Apple were to disallow e-book apps on the iPad, there would be a movement from Amazon and others to attack Apple on anti-trust grounds. I have no idea of what legal footing Apple would be on to prohibit such apps, and therefore the commerce of ancillary products, on their device. But I would be willing to bet that it would be a big fight, because the future of publishing is playing out on these new portable devices.

Kindle DX Now Available Internationally

I’ve written about the Kindle, how I ordered one and why I didn’t like it, but it’s worth noting that Amazon has now released an international version of the Kindle DX, the larger model with a 9.7″ screen. While I didn’t like the contrast of the device, I do feel that the screen – of the basic model I got – was a bit small. It worked okay for books, but I truly believe that the future of e-book readers is with magazines and newspapers.

Of course, I’m waiting for the Apple tablet…

What are the Best-Selling Kindle Books? Guess What? They’re Free

Amazon trumpeted the sales of Kindle books this Christmas, saying, “On Christmas Day, for the First Time Ever, Customers Purchased More Kindle Books Than Physical Books.” Note that that was on Christmas day, not during the Christmas season, as many press outlets suggested.

But what’s selling for the Kindle? A glance at the best-seller list of Kindle books this morning showed me something surprising. On this page of Kindle best-sellers, the top ten books were, when I checked, all free. 17 of the top 25 books were free, 32 of the top 50 were free, and 59 of the top 100 were free. (There are also a few books priced from one cent to a quarter.)

So this makes me wonder, first, just how many Kindle books are sold for money, and second, whether Amazon’s press release takes into account only those books that were actually sold, or also includes the free ones. When Apple touts iTunes figures, they use the term “downloads”, to include freebies, but does Amazon do the same?

My Christmas Present: Albert Camus’ Complete Works

There has been a lot of talk about Albert Camus having his remains moved to the Panthéon in Paris, where a number of famous French people are interred. This has caused a bit of a controversy in France, in part because it’s a president on the center-right who’s suggested it and Camus was staunchly on the left.

But the debate reminded me just how important Camus’ works are. When I was in my 20s, I read many of his books (in English), and L’Etranger (The Stranger) was the first book I read in French. (And it’s the best-selling paperback in French history, with over 6.7 million copies currently sold since it was published in paperback.) So I’ve decided that, for Christmas, I would get a set of his complete works.

Camus’ works are published by Gallimard, publisher of the famed Pléiade series of books. These books are small, about the size of a mass-market paperback, but are printed on bible paper and are leather-bound. With usually 1,500 – 2,000 pages each, they are collections of complete works by great authors, both French and foreign. They come in two sets: the first two volumes cover the period from 1931 to 1944, and the third and fourth volumes cover 1949 – 1959. Together, the four books come to about 6,000 pages.

These books are not cheap, which is why I only buy them on special occasions (I own about a dozen of them, including the complete A La Recherche du temps perdu, by Proust). Individual volumes in the series run about EUR 60 – 70, or around $100 (the two sets are EUR 260). But they are beautiful books, with excellent notes and introductions, and for great authors I like to have nice books. I’ll look forward to reading them in the coming months.

If you’ve not read Camus, do so. Whether you can read him in the original French, or in another language, his works are honest and penetrating. He was one of the 20th century’s great thinkers.

More Thoughts About the Kindle – Where It May Go, and What May Be Better

I’ve been writing recently about Amazon’s Kindle. I wrote an article when Amazon announced the International Kindle – important for me because I live in France – and another when I got my Kindle, and quickly realized that it wasn’t for me. But today, sitting in a hospital waiting room, waiting to have a test, I was reading a book on my iPod touch using Amazon’s Kindle app, and I started thinking about the device.

The ebook concept is something I’ve been interested in for more than a decade. For a while, I worked with Les Éditions 00h00, a French ebook publisher and distributer of the early Rocket ebook reader. I did some writing for them, and translated a few books from French into English. The company is gone, having gotten into the market a bit too early, but the experience was interesting. I saw how books could be dematerialized, and realized that part of the future of publishing would involve ebooks.

Fast forward a few years – nearly a decade – and we’ve finally reached a place where ebooks are a part of the standard publishing arsenal. The Kindle is reportedly selling very well (Amazon does not release sales figures), and Amazon’s Kindle app for the iPhone and iPod touch allows users to read books without a dedicated device. (Other ebook readers exist, but in my opinion they don’t have the most important feature: content. Amazon has a lock on that for now.)

My brief experience with the Kindle highlights the device’s weaknesses: the lack of a backlight means that the contrast between the gray (why isn’t it white?) page background and anti-aliased fonts makes it hard to read for those of us with poor vision. (I see with only one eye, and the good one isn’t great.) Reading was a chore, and it gave me a headache.

But compare that with the iPod touch I was reading this morning in the hospital waiting room. It’s got a backlight with adjustable brightness, you can set the font size to suit your eyes, and “turning” pages is actually more attractive. On the Kindle, pages flash negative as the e-ink resets and the new page is rendered. On the Kindle app, the current page swipes to the left and the new page is displayed, with no flash or other disturbance.

The future is not with single-use devices, alas, and the Kindle, while popular, is likely to be so with a certain public. Since you can buy books directly from the device, you don’t need a computer. (Buying Kindle books from the iPhone requires passing through another application.) My guess is that a lot of Kindle purchasers are people who don’t have computers, or who don’t use them much, and for whom the idea of a single-use device actually does make sense. For those of us who use computers regularly, however, logic dictates devices that have multiple, even unrelated uses.

Amazon is soon to release a Kindle application for Mac OS X and for Windows, which will increase the usability of Kindle books. And, if the much-rumored Apple tablet comes out, that’ll be the perfect place to read them, because the screen will be backlit, and contrast will not be an issue. I think, however, the Kindle device will not die out quickly. The fact that a computer is not needed with that device, and the screen is fairly large, should keep it as a player. An Apple tablet won’t be competitive in price: at $259, the Kindle is about the price of an iPod touch, but a tablet with a larger screen will cost more; I’d guess Apple is aiming for a $500 price point. For those who find the Kindle acceptable, it will remain an option. But for the rest of us, either today’s handheld or tomorrow’s tablet will be the real beginnings of ebooks in the general publishing landscape.

Looks Like the Kindle Is Not for Me

Well, I wrote the other day how I ordered my the Kindle from Amazon. I got it yesterday, and I was immediately impressed by the device: it’s well designed, and its interface, while a bit minimal, works well. Unfortunately, after reading for a while, I started getting a headache. I stopped, worked a few hours, then list night I read in bed for an hour; headache again. Same thing this morning reading in a doctor’s office.

The Kindle, which uses e-ink, has a gray background, and the letters have very poor contrast against the background, because of anti-aliasing. Since the device is not backlit, that background is far too dark for me to read. This is certainly not the case for everyone; I have poor eyesight, and see with only one eye. But for me, it just doesn’t work. While my iPod touch is much smaller, the backlit screen – even at low brightness – is 100 times more readable. I’ve already read several books on it with no problem. With the Kindle, however, I couldn’t even read a couple of chapters.

So, it’s returnable, but now I’m waiting to see exactly how the return process – from France to the US – works out.

So I’ve Ordered my Kindle…

I wrote extensively about Amazon’s Kindle recently, and I finally decided to buy one. Apple didn’t release a tablet today – though they did upgrade the iMac, Mac mini, MacBook and other hardware – so I figured I’ve got at least a couple of months to use the Kindle before Apple comes out with a Kindle-killer.

Are any Kirkville readers Kindle users? If so, any thoughts about the device?

Stephen King’s Forthcoming Novel 74% off at Amazon

I ordered Stephen King’s soon-to-be-released book In the Dome some time ago, at the “usual” 35% or so discount that Amazon gives for hardcovers. Looking at my open orders today, I see that the book is down to $9.00, or 74% off the list price of $35. My guess is that this is a mistake, but I think if you order it, Amazon will have to honor the price. If you’re interested in this new book, get to Amazon right away and pre-order it.

Here’s the blurb:

On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester’s Mill, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener’s hand is severed as “the dome” comes down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when–or if–it will go away.

Dale Barbara, Iraq vet and now a short-order cook, finds himself teamed with a few intrepid citizens–town newspaper owner Julia Shumway, a physician’s assistant at the hospital, a select-woman, and three brave kids. Against them stands Big Jim Rennie, a politician who will stop at nothing–even murder–to hold the reins of power, and his son, who is keeping a horrible secret in a dark pantry. But their main adversary is the Dome itself. Because time isn’t just short. It’s running out.

Follow-up: looking at the best-sellers in books, I see a number of new and forthcoming hardcovers at $9. I wonder what’s going on… These are really, really low prices…

Follow-up 2: So it is a price war.