The Professor's Notes » Kindle

Are eReaders Robust Enough for Warfighters?

Steve Brady — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 13:39:40 +0000

I have been enjoying learning about the iPad and will have more recommendations to come about apps that I absolutely love. That said, I want to switch back to the discussion of iPad vs Kindle–not looking at features, and the like, but from the perspective of a “warfighter.”

Today’s soldier, airman and sailor (fine, and marine) carries around not only their weapon and ammunition, but provisions, body armor and all sorts of other sundries not dreamed of in past wars. Much is designed to ensure both success and survivability on the battlefield. But like soldiers through the ages, they like to have diversions and distractions through reading material during the “down” times.

Enter the eReader and digital books. The beauty of these devices is they can hold hundreds of books at weight that at most tips the scale at 1.5 pounds. This is quite attractive for the warfighter already hauling tens of pounds of gear.

An organization has formed to provide eReaders/eBooks to troops. Their vision is:

to build the nation’s leading non-profit organization dedicated to providing e-books and e-book technology to military personnel who are deployed overseas defending our country.

and by doing this they hope to support the men and women who serve our country, putting their lives on the line daily.

I have used this then to spurred some discussion on Twitter about the survivability of these devices in the field. Which would hold up better, an iPad or a Kindle?

Some of the considerations have included:

Susceptibility of the screen to cracking/breaking
Dust/Sand damage
Battery life
Ability to purchase/install books

One person on Twitter, @nutzareus, has commented on his experience in the field and noted that regardless what you use you must use an Name Your LinkOtterBox to protect your device. He commented that he used the OtterBox Defender Case for iPhone 3G, 3GS when he was in the field.

Other contributors to the discussion include:

@dpowensj, @obsidianspider, @iPeat

So what other things should be considered? What do YOU recommend for our soldiers? Please, share your thoughts.

Could Apple Actually KILL eBooks?

Steve Brady — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 18:57:16 +0000

Once again we can’t turn on a news reader on the internet without be reminded of the Great Steve (not me–Jobs) and how he always has the “right sense” for business. In addition to his design sense, and ability to time the introduction of products perfectly, many often credit him with “saving” the music industry by making music affordable at just 99 cents per song.

But could he have lost his touch? Could Steve Jobs and Apple not only missed it this time, but could they be responsible for bringing down a whole nascent industry with them?

On the heels of the introduction of the Apple iPad (and their announcement that books would cost between $13 and $15) we saw an emboldened Macmillan publishing house pressing their case against Amazon. For a brief moment Amazon seemed to be fighting the good fight for consumers, and went so far as to ban direct sales of Macmillan books.

Macmillan was simply “acting out” what Steve Jobs told to Walt Mossberg when he said that the prices would end up being the same (between Apple and Amazon), because the publishers are not happy (with Amazon) and are going to pull their books from there. It appears that Steve Jobs is doing the work of the Publishers, pushing the price points up, rather than down. Rather than being a champion of the individual, does this make Steve Jobs simply a big business “hack?”

The bottom line here really is that Amazon knew 2 years ago what Steve Jobs should know now. Verso Direct has conducted a book buyers behavioral study/survey, in which they discover that the magic price-point for digital books seems to be right at $9.99. According to the article “Amazon Flanks…” when Verso presented their study and broke down their findings, they reported that 3 out of 5 people will consider buying an ebook at or below $9.99. Raise the price, and that drops to 1 out of 5.

The article then goes on to identify the real “winners” as pirates.

Is it possible that, in his rush to kill Amazon, Steve Jobs may have instead spell the death of eBooks?¹

There are many other thoughts here, including the differences between music and books. I will discuss these over the next few weeks. ↩

Amazon vs Apple – pending App Store Wars?

Steve Brady — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:52:35 +0000

First, it was Apple’s delay in approving apps that was a problem. Then Apple actually started removing (oops, “failing to approve”) the Google Voice app. Do we see another App Store war coming with the Kindle App?

With Apple’s release of the iPad, and their move into eReader book sales through the iBook, some have argued that Apple has just rung the bell, tolling the death of the Kindle. Others argue that, among other things, the Kindle meets a certain “niche” (just as the iPad serves a niche) and thus will not only survive but thrive. In fact, an Amazon spokesperson said, in that NY Times article:

Customers can read and sync their Kindle books on the iPhone, iPod Touch, PCs, and soon BlackBerry, Mac and iPad. Kindle is purpose-built for reading. Weighing in at less than 0.64 pounds, Kindle fits comfortably in one hand for hours, has an E Ink display that is easy on the eyes even in bright daylight, two weeks of battery life, and 3G wireless with no monthly fees — all at a $259 price. Kindle editions of New York Times best sellers and most new releases are only $9.99.

This is a key strength of the Kindle –the portability of reading. As I have written before, in several places, a move to ubiquitous reading seems to be the greatest opportunity facing publishers. Make reading your books, or magazine, tied to the reader, not the device. With the Kindle publishing/software reader business unit Amazon is heading down that road. I can move from Kindle-enabled device to device, and when I pick up a device, it will automatically sync to where I last was reading in any of the other devices. This actually makes having several different devices quite attractive, so that I can use the device that is most convenient for the task (or location) at hand.

So that brings us to the “Kindle reading experience” on the iPhone. I personally like the Kindle app for the iPhone. In some ways it is superior to the Kindle itself, specifically in how it handles highlighting and notetaking.¹ This makes the iPad a very attractive device to me, as a Kindle reader for those tasks when I want to highlight and take notes, generally for work-related reading. I can even see Amazon enhancing the app on the iPhone/iPad even further, perhaps blending the Kindle App with Stanza for a better reading experience.

Even the author of the article in the NY Times that put forward “Three Reasons why the iPad WILL kill the Amazon Kindle” has conceded that the Kindle app has significant draw:

Kindle’s store and its reading application for the iPhone are both excellent, simple experiences for purchasing and consuming books. Amazon understands this market better than anyone and could easily sell more books on the iPad than Apple could through its new iTunes bookstore. Amazon also offers an excellent recommendation system, and I can envision some users opting for the Kindle application on their fancy new iPads.

I can actually envision more than “some users” opting for the Kindle application–especially if they are able to develop a similar flashy interface for showing your bookshelf, and helping you “buy” books from Amazon. Don’t forget–a significant number of people have already heavily invested in the DRM’d (copy protected) books sold by Amazon, and they will not want to leave that investment behind. Will they opt then for what will be (most likely) another DRM’d book format? Say what you will about the fact that the Amazon books aren’t portable, there is some comfort in having all the books you purchased available for download from a single repository. Avid Kindle readers may not want to leave that behind.

So the question becomes: will Apple now “ban” the Kindle App (and possibly Stanza) for the same reason that it banned other apps, including the Google Voice app? The reason, as you may recall, was that the app “duplicated functionality” that the phone provided. Other apps have been rejected (er, “not approved” — sorry) for the same reason. Clearly, by entering into the eBook sales business they are seeking to directly compete with Amazon in this “space.”

What do YOU think? Will Apple ban the Kindle App in the near future?

I still prefer the eInk display over an LCD display for long-term reading, since it is easier on the eyes ↩

“Killer” products or “Transformative Devices?”

Steve Brady — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 21:49:47 +0000

My brother and I had a recent discussion over the word “Killer” as it is applied about, or to, Apple products. I am sure you have heard it before. “The iPhone will kill the Blackberry.” Or, “the Android phones (or Palm Pre, or…) are iPhone Killers.” Each of these instances the word killer is used specifically to invoke a sense of removing the competitor from the market place. ¹

Killer Products?

It seems clear that when people (generally the pundits) refer to a product as “a ____ killer” they usually mean that it is all over for that other product. Pack it up, it’s gone. ² In fact, in a recent Mac Break Weekly Leo LaPorte specifically talked about driving RIM (makers of the Blackberry) “out of business.” ³

Rarely have we seen a product enter an existing product category and “kill” all the competitors. I am sure we can find a few examples (the iPodiPod itself comes to mind). That isn’t to say that a product can’t enter into what appears to be one category and completely define a new one in the process.

For example, the iPhone didn’t “kill any other product. It entered the “smartphone market” and has done remarkably well with the iPhone OSX operating system owning 28% of the smartphone market. But…

RIM has continued to rock their BlackBerry success (39% manufacturer market share)
The Android has rocketed to second place for preferred OS.

Not “Killer” but “Transformer”

What’s important to note here is that while the iPhone wasn’t a “killer” product (it didn’t really drive anything out of the marketplace) it certainly was transformative. That may seem obvious, since all of the latest smartphone products are now emulating many of the features of the iPhone. But it is not just the look, and feel, of the iPhone that I mean.

The SmartPhone market space has been expanding significantly since the introduction of the iPhone. Remember 2007, before the iPhone? What phone did you have, or even want? Was it a smartphone? Unless your phone was for business use, then probably not. Smartphones were the playtoys of the professional–the person who had to stay connected to their workplace. The iPhone took the smartphone and made it personal.

In a sense, the Kindle has been transformative as well. The Kindle hasn’t “killed” the paper book. Many (probably most) people still prefer the sensory experience of paper in their fingertips.⁴ The Kindle has opened the path for people to find other ways to read more, and take more reading with them. Time once was we referred to the number of partially read books on our nightstand. We literally meant books that we would read as we went to bed. That was “the place” for books and for reading. The Kindle has transformed that experience.

The Kindle has transformed reading from one book carried at a time, to many books carried at all times, with the ability to add more books at any time. I have read more since getting the Sony e-Reader and then Kindle a little over 2 years ago, than I had in perhaps 10 years.

Perhaps even more “transformative” is that the eReader has allowed us to simply co-mingle personal with professional. With these devices we can now have, in one highly portable, easily accessible place, our professional documents (pdfs, word documents, and the like) and our personal reading (SuperFreakonomics, or Tolkien anyone?).

Remember, a few posts back I mentioned that Jeff Bezos talked about two Kindle product lines–the hardware and the reading experience. Amazon has already produced Kindle Reader applications for the Mac, Windows, and the iPhone. I even wrote that if an Android Kindle reader is developed, could we be that far from reading Kindle books on the Nook? The point here is that Amazon, through their leader Bezos, has already talked about transforming the digital reading space, shifting the view away from a loyalty to any medium, and fostering a loyalty to the written word.

That said, the Kindle and other eInk readers are not without faults.

Tablet Transformation

So this brings us to the latest “killer” product (rumored to be) set to enter the stage. If Apple introduces a tablet PC (where I use PC in it’s generic, original meaning of “Personal Computer”) then I suspect we can continue to hear about the iSlate being the latest “killer product” introduced by Apple. Already we see the headlines, here, here, and back in April 2009. ⁵

Will a (still only rumor) iSlate “kill” any product? Probably not. Some firms may make a mis-step or two, but that would be their own failings ⁶ Can we expect it to be transformative? You bet. And here is why.

Given the history of Apple and their ability to innovate and create new market spaces, it is now no longer a stretch to imagine a world where eReaders, and Windows Tablet PCs continue to flourish, while an Apple tablet-like device carves some market away, all while creating a new dynamic environment. So what would we see here?

The Windows tablet PC hasn’t been an abysmal product (it just hasn’t had significant market share.) It has traditionally been a niche product. It has specific uses and thus a group of niche users. Typically the uses for a tablet PC have been focused in the business world, used for those applications where handwriting has made sense. The eReaders have been designed (and marketed) predominantly at the what I will call the “avid, voracious reader” base–those people that love to read for the pleasure of reading. Whether it is for knowledge or fun, they consume the written word. That is also a niche market. These consumers, these “readers” are less interested in marking up and writing on their text than they are about devouring it.

So in steps a (mythical) Apple tablet product. Imagine a device that is able to merge these two “spaces” into some new area. Just like the iPhone created new spaces beyond the traditional “business oriented” smartphones, this mythical beast may be able to create a new, hybridized use-case blurring the lines yet again, only this time by taking two products from two very different worlds, and blending them in a new way.

The power of market space transformation.

(What are your thoughts on this? Do you see these products as transformative? How would you envision the blending of the work oriented tablet with the pleasure oriented reading devices? Leave your comments!)

Some argue that this is a rather recent use of the word. Perhaps, but I have found instances of this usage dating back to at least 2004, and in tech terms, that is ages ago! ↩
My brother argues this point, positing instead that when they refer to a product as “a ___ killer” they simply mean that it will provide a strong competitor for the existing products. While that is in fact the more likely outcome, I argue that the intent of the writers in more than hyperbole. ↩
Pundits believe these products to be killer products, I believe, because for them, the old products cease to exist. I have heard a few who seem genuinely surprised to learn that the competitor not only survived but has thrived in their own niche. ↩
In fact, my Sister-in-law said that very thing this weekend. She prefers the tactile experience. ↩
All those stories were only Apple killing the Kindle. A Google search for “kindle killer” will reveal a number of products that are going to “kill” the Kindle. For even more fun, Google iSlate killer and see how many vaporware products are being discussed that are poised to kill the vaporware product iSlate! ↩
Perhaps similar to the failings of Apple in the 1990s. ↩

We are sooooo close…

Steve Brady — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 15:32:04 +0000

We are so close.

I have decided it is time for me to talk about my vision of portable or handheld devices. But first, a little history.

I came that reluctantly to the computer world. My father was an electrical engineer and computer scientist, and I was a political scientist. I read paper books, listened to music, and generally avoided all things digital. Of course, that was easy to do in the early 1980s. But then I got a TI 99/4a. I started becoming a user. The power user. The networking kind of guy. I went from the TI, to the commodore Amiga 1000, and then it was windows-where I am still today, along with linux and the Mac. Along the way I owned and Apple Newton, Handspring Visors, and have used a few tablet-pc’s.

This brings me to my point: we are so close to the dream I had when I first held my Apple Newton, and it is amazing to think that we have come this far in only 20 years.

My vision was at the time (and remains) for a device about the size of a sheet of paper and a no thicker than a pencil. Of course, I wanted to treat it like paper, and be able to write on it, have it recognize my handwriting, have a color display, and full connectivity to the world. I wanted a pad like they had in Star Trek.

The 1990s.

The Newton came the closest at first with handwriting recognition, the ability to add a modem, and the ability to create applications. Unfortunately, the Newton was large, heavy, and expensive. [1 The Newton was introduced in 1993, but development began over 20 years ago, in 1989.]. Next came the Palm and Visor PDAs. These devices made carrying your information far more convenient. The Palm and Visor screens were too small, not connected and not in color. And most importantly, they left behind the “natural language” handwriting recognition pioneered by Apple with their Newton. But at least the Palm and the Newton started us down the road of having personal handheld devices.

The 2000s.

The Handspring Visor was the first to have a cell-phone and wireless capability with the Visor-Phone (adding email to your pocket–quite the innovation in 2001!) This later morphed into the Treo and the smartphone market was born! I was one of the early adopters here, as well, having been one of the lucky few to get my purchase order in with the first wave! [2 The supplier "ran out" of the units within the first hour of making the item available for sale through Sprint. Apparently they failed to consider appropriate qualitative forecasting techniques such as analogy when predicting demand--but that's another story, for another blog (the supply chain one!)] When the Treo 300 was released, we now had a PDA with all our information in it, connected to a cellphone data network, and it was in color! The screen was small, and the device rather large/clunky with the clamshell design, but hey–we were CONNECTED!

The iPhone came late to the party, arriving in mid-2007, but brought several new innovations, not the least of which was the touch-screen interface on the solid glass face. Alas, the screen is too small for my tastes, but the iPhone is in color and fully connected with a “real” browsing experience on the web. Oh, and it has apps.

Concurrent with the advent of the iPhone was the introduction of the “NetBook” in 2007 providing limited computing capability for those “on the go.” [3 2007 wasn't the first time we saw portable micro-notebooks. I had seen some from Toshiba in the mid-1990s. But this was first time they cost far LESS than notebooks rather than far MORE.] This was a step beyond a smart phone–it was a whole computer. Of course, this didn’t slide easily into your pocket, and wouldn’t make a very nice phone, but it brought to the table the notion that we can have some serious computing power available to us in a highly portable device. And the computing power embedded in these devices has continued to both grow in power and shrink in size–in just 3 years since it’s introduction!

Not soon after the iPhone introduction we saw the Kindle pushed to market. This truly was the “next great thing” building on the success of earlier eReaders such as the Sony PRS505. A great device that lets one read books and other “written documents” on a portable device, with a larger screen and a much longer battery life. While the Kindle isn’t in color, it is thin, has some network connectivity, and with the introduction of the DX has a larger display. Competition to the Kindle is emerging in the narrow “eReader” niche, and innovation is beginning to rear it’s head here.

So we come full circle to my dream. we have large displays. We have touch interfaces. We have powerful portable CPUs.

When will someone pull it all together? When will we have the ultra-thin, color device that enables written input, while fully connected, all on a device the size of a sheet of paper? Perhaps this month. Could this be the game changer that Apple is going to introduce?

Let’s set the bar this high. If it isn’t the size of a sheet of paper, and if it is thicker than a pencil, then alas, we have once again missed the mark.

But, if it achieves all this, and more, then all I can say is… “I’m in!”

Digital Book Readers (Kindle?) in Academia (an outline of thoughts)

Steve Brady — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 13:06:33 +0000

This post is from my “Archives of Incomplete Thoughts” but I wanted to share them with you all…

I have been pondering for a while the use of the eBooks (and specifically the Kindle) in Academia. Ever since I considered purchasing my first eReader (the Sony eReader 505) I have found the convenience of having several books at my finger tips, without weighing me down, to be the most obvious benefit. That said, I believe there are many others, and some which can result in the elusive “win-win” situations for producers and consumers alike.

Affordability of textbooks
Desk Reference/Review copies
Physical size/weight relief
notetaking and highlighting

Need to rethink old views:

why see “a page”?
how do I “flip” through a book?
what is the focus/purpose of an “illustration”?
are there other ways to “illustrate”?
How do we do “citations?”

Challenges:

How to compare two separated pages (i.e., pages 57, and 106) (side by side?)

Issues I want to see if they have added/changed:

Highlighting: does the menu appear next to where I clicked? How is that interface changed?
can we move/sync highlights/notes between devices?

Have you given much thought to the changes we can see with Digital Textbooks? What are your thoughts? Please share them in the comments.

Nook Hacked — can Kindle App be Far Behind?

Steve Brady — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 14:59:47 +0000

Several weeks ago I wrote that Jeff Bezos has said the reading of Kindle books, and the hardware we know as the Kindle, are separate businesses. In that post I posited the idea that in addition to having Kindle apps on the iPhone, the Mac and Windows platforms, they might expand into Android based platforms, including the Barnes and Noble Nook.

Well, it didn’t take long before the Nook was hacked, and the possibilities are, while not quite endless, quite broad. Wired Magazine reports:

If you tear open a Nook (which the team has done) you’ll find that the Android operating system is contained on a microSD card (separate from the microSD expansion slot). From here, it’s a simple matter of using a card reader to mount this card on your computer and changing a single word in the init.rc file (the file that’s in charge of which services are begun at startup, similar to a Linux boot).

This single hack will let you plug the Nook into your computer (once you have reassembled it) and access the OS, using the freely available Google Android developers kit.

The short article goes on to point out that, while for now the possibilities are limited to only a few hackers, it does mean that you have a device, with a fully capable Android operating system, running (for free) on a wireless (cellphone) network. Imagine the possibilities!

Well, I have.

Kindle, on the Nook. Anyone want to predict when?

Can Barnes and Noble Nook be used with Kindle?

Steve Brady — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:38:39 +0000

The attentive reader of Kindle News knows that the Kindle (much like the Apple Mac) seems to imply hardware, or software, or both. By this I mean we first heard about the Kindle as the digital ebook reader now known as the Kindle 1 (and then the Kindle Wireless Reading Device (6Kindle 2 and Kindle DX Wireless Reading Device (9.7Kindle DX) Then Amazon announced the Kindle app for the iPhone, separating the Kindle reading experience from the Kindle hardware device. That was recently followed by the release of the Kindle reader software for Windows PCs. A Mac version is coming soon.

Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, said essentially that the reading of Kindle books, and the hardware that we know as the Kindle are separate businesses. In that article Bezos specifically described the competitive environment inside the Kindle world:

The device team has the job of making the most remarkable purpose-built reading device in the world,” Mr. Bezos said. “We are going to give the device team competition. We will make Kindle books, at the same $9.99 price points, available on the iPhone, and other mobile devices and other computing devices.

Jeff Bezos saw the need to create a competitive environment inside Amazon for the Kindle device design team. As we all know, there are now more outside competitors, with the Barnes and Noble Nook making a strong run towards toppling the Kindle as the preferred eReader. Many have called it “Kindle killing,” or a Kindle incinerator (cute play on words there) and suggest Nook will “eat Kindle’s lunch.” All strong words, and so far most of the reviews seem to indicate the Nook lives up to the hype.

One interesting feature of the Nook is that it runs on the Google Android platform. So what, you might ask? Good question.

So far we have noted that Kindle books are able to be read not only on Kindles but on iPhones and Windows PCs (and soon the Mac). Clearly Amazon has developed a strong skill set at writing software to run on other platforms that can buy and read their eBooks.

The Nook runs the Google Android and the President of B&N has suggested that they may release an SDK (software development kit) for the Nook. An interesting move, and one that the author of the article noted above thinks might spell trouble for Amazon’s Kindle. I disagree.

Opening up the Nook with an SDK could mean that Amazon can slide in with another software based eReader, allowing Nook owners to choose between bookstores and selecting the copy of the book that provides the price and features they want most. (“Features” you make ask? Yes, some may trade a higher price in exchange for no copy protection, for instance. Just one of the “features” that could added as competition increases.

I see this as a great opportunity for consumers. Competition now exists on price-points for books between digital and paper. Add the possibility to choose between book retailers for digital versions and possibly to choose between features including DRM-free books, and a whole new world opens for avid readers.

Read On!

Amazon Updates Kindle Firmware for K2 and DX

Steve Brady — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:06:07 +0000

Amazon has announced a firmware update for the Kindle 2 and the Kindle DX that enhances battery life, provides native PDF support for the Kindle 2, and improves the PDF support of the DX. You can read more about it from Amazon directly here.

The biggest downside? That this doesn’t help the Kindle 1 owners at all. Needless to say, those of us that weren’t convinced that the few features added to the Kindle 2 were worth the full purchase price for the upgrade are not too pleased with the lack of support (read the comments in the above link.)

On the other hand, perhaps this is a good reason to consider the Barnes and Noble Nook (if they can keep them in stock.)

Refurbished Kindle 1′s for only $150 (okay, $149.99)

Steve Brady — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:06:12 +0000

UPDATE: Apparently Amazon is no longer selling the original Kindle even as a refurb. They are selling the Refurbished Kindle 2 and the Refurbished Kindle DX though, and so far everything I have read says that this is a GREAT deal. Check it out.

I have just found on the Amazon site that they are Name Your Linkselling the original Kindle for only $149.99. (see update above)

If you are interested, check it out. It’s “almost” as good as the Kindle2. I have the original, and haven’t felt the need to upgrade, since the only really new features are the ability of the Kindle 2 to read to me (with a computer generated voice) and more esthetically pleasing buttons. In fact, I personally like the ability, with the original Kindle, to add a memory card, thereby having unlimited storage (and I can remove the card–with my books–before I ship it out if I have problems). Also, the original Kindle has a removable/replaceable battery, so you won’t have to send the whole unit off to Amazon if your battery dies.

Anyway–just wanted to share this with you.