Archive for December, 2009
Large Format eReader Shipments to Increase by 300% in 2010; eReaders Becoming Popular in China no comments
Digitimes is reporting that shipments of 9.7-inch ereaders are expected to increase by 300 – 320% in 2010. Prime View International, which recently purchased e-Ink, may not have enough manufacturing capacity to keep up with the increased demand.
The article goes on to say that shipments of ereaders are expected to reach 3.5-4 million units globally in 2009.
The Kindle DX is the primary larger format ereader at the moment with its 9.7-inch screen, but the DX will be joined shortly by the Plastic Logic Que and no doubt others will be making their debuts soon.
Ereaders are apparently becoming popular in China as well, with a number of new models being introduced recently. According to C114.net about 5 million Chinese read ebooks on mobile devices. So far these have been smaller format devices, but Hanwang plans to launch a 9” ereader soon.
Hanwang is the current market leader, but new Chinese ereaders are being announced frequently. The Founder Group, a Chinese IT company, introduced an ereader that very closely copies the Kindle’s physical design. BenQ has also released a new ereader that should ship to the Chinese market in January 2010.
We probably won’t be seeing many of the ereaders meant for the Chinese market in the West anytime soon.
The C114.net article referenced above also notes that it is estimated that 95 per cent of the Chinese who read electronically download pirated ebooks. Perhaps this is one reason that China is not on the Kindle Global list.
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Lenovo eReader Rumored; Paradigm Shift – Not; Third Party nook Covers no comments
Lenovo, which is the fourth largest computer maker on this planet, is rumored to be working on an ereader. Supposedly the new ebook reader is in internal testing and will soon be ready to hit the market.
Paradigm Shift
Electronista is reporting another new ereader, this one to be unveiled at CES by Paradigm Shift Sourcing and Manufacturing. Rather than using an e-ink display, this device will use a color LCD screen.
There will be both a 5 inch and 7 inch model. The more capable 7 incher will run Windows CE and have a touchscreen, and will be able to read MS Word documents, view YouTube videos, etc. Both models will be able to play MP3 files.
It appears that the 5 inch model, which will be $150, will support PDF, FB2, PDB and non-DRM’ed EPUB ebook formats, while the 7 inch version at $200 will add the ability to read DRM’ed ebooks (presumably ADE).
To me this looks more like an internet tablet that is being repurposed to take advantage of the hot ereader market.
Third Party nook Covers
There are already a handful of third party nook covers
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After Christmas Sales on eReaders & eBooks no comments
There are some good prices to be found out there on both ereaders and the ebooks that they crave. Below are a few things that I’ve found.
eReaders on Sale
Best Buy Has some good prices on Sony’s ereaders. This includes a discounted price of $359.99 with free shipping for the Daily Edition which is on backorder. Best Buy’s price for the Pocket Edition is $179.99 and the Touch Edition is $269.99. These also get the free shipping treatment.
Newegg.com has the Ectaco 5” JetBook-Lite for $139.99, and the Foxit eSlick for $199.99. Both of these come with free shipping.
Fry’s.com has the Sony Touch in silver for $159.99 plus shipping. Other colors seem to be $199.99. Fry’s also has the Foxit eSlick for $179.99 plus shipping.
eBooks on Sale or Free
Barnes & Noble has three pages of ebooks on sale . Hopefully their servers are up again so that you can actually download your purchases. B&N is also having a 50% off after holiday sale on selected paper books and calendars.
Kobo has a few free ebooks:
- Sway by Jennifer Gibson (4 stars from 49 ratings)
- Wit’ch Fire by James Clemens (4 stars from 24 ratings)
- Already Dead by Charlie Huston (3 stars/36 ratings)
- Star Wars: Lost Tribe of The Sith #1 (4 stars/12 ratings)
Kobo also has the usual public domain suspects now as well.
Fictionwise is giving 100% Micropay rebates on selected titles. Fictionwise also has some free ebooks.
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nook eReader Owners get More Coal in Their Christmas Stockings 1 comment
Yesterday while Amazon was busy selling more Kindle books than paper books for the first time ever, things were not quite as cozy and copacetic over at the Barnes & Noble campsite.
On the morning of the first day that nook demos became available at B&N stores I went in to my local store and got to take one of the new ereaders for a test drive. One of the sales staff (I think he may have been the store manager) let me actually download a paid book to the demo nook. The download worked as advertised and the new book was available for “formatting” within a few seconds.
As the first wave of nooks to be shipped out began arriving and owners of B&N’s latest and greatest began reporting in to the Barnes & Noble forums it began to appear that my painless experience with the nook’s wireless ebook purchase and delivery system might be more of an exception than the rule. It was becoming apparent from the complaints and reports of ebook purchasing snafus that B&N had probably underestimated the content server capacity needed to support their new ereader.
Buying ebooks on an ereader with a wireless connection is so easy. So easy to click on a few books and add them to your library to be read later. If you are not careful, before you know it you have more to read than you can get to in the next year or so. Once the novelty wears off a bit, ereader owners usually become a bit more judicious with their purchases; realizing the need to pace their buys with their reading speed (and thickness of wallet) and making fewer impulse buys.
It doesn’t take rocket science to figure out that when a huge pack of new customers get their eagerly awaited new ereader toy that is already way sold out in pre-order they are going to want to buy a bunch of ebooks to put on it, and so there needs to be an adequate content server system in place to cover that demand.
On Christmas Day Barnes & Noble once again demonstrated their seemingly willful
unpreparedness. Nook owners who tried to purchase and download books to their new ereaders yesterday either received error messages or a “Queued: Will complete shortly” message which didn’t go away until early this morning when downloading started working again. Those who tried to download ebooks from B&N to their PC’s and then sideload to their ereaders had the same problem.
One has to wonder how many sales B&N lost due to this latest failure, not to mention adding to their customer’s frustration and angst. To make matters worse there was zero communication from Barnes & Noble to explain or apologize for the glitches.
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eBooks Outsell pBooks at Amazon on Christmas Day no comments
Amazon announced this morning that Kindle ebooks outsold paper books for the first time ever on Christmas Day.
Amazon also says that the Kindle has become the most gifted item in their history, and that the Kindle store now has over 390,000 books.
Amazon’s press release then went on to describe sales of some other items, a few of which are much less appetizing than Kindle ereaders. For example, Amazon sold enough fruitcake to equal the weight of a 1967 Volkswagon Bug.
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More Apple Tablet Rumors 1 comment
There are more rumors swirling around the mythical Apple Tablet over the last couple of days.
First of all, the Financial Times is reporting that Apple has reserved a stage for several days in late January at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. Apple has used this venue previously when announcing new iPods.
MacRumors.com has found evidence that Apple registered the domain name iSlate.com, which seems to provide some confirmation for other speculation that the rumored tablet could be named the Slate. TechCrunch has found evidence that seems to indicate that Apple may have registered iSlate domains elsewhere on this planet as well.
MacRumors also describes an Apple patent filing published yesterday that describes mechanisms for providing tactile feedback for a keyboard on a smooth touchscreen. From the filing:
Disclosed herein are four arrangements for providing tactility on a touch surface keyboard. One approach is to provide tactile feedback mechanisms, such as dots, bars, or other shapes on all or at least many keys. Different keys or groups of keys may have different feedback mechanisms, e.g., a first feedback mechanism may be assigned to “home row” keys, with a second feedback mechanism assigned to keys adjacent the home row, with a third assigned to peripheral keys, which are neither home row keys nor adjacent the home row. Alternatively, an articulating frame may be provided that extends when the surface is being used in a typing mode and retracts when the surface is used in some other mode, e.g., a pointing mode. The articulating frame may provide key edge ridges that define the boundaries of the key regions or may be used to provide tactile feedback mechanisms within the key regions. The articulating frame may also be configured to cause concave depressions similar to mechanical key caps in the surface. In another embodiment, a rigid, non-articulating frame may be provided beneath the surface. A user will then feel higher resistance when pressing away from the key centers, but will feel a softer resistance, which may be enhanced by filling the gaps with a foam or gel material or air.
A New York Times article of a couple of days ago quotes a recent Apple employee as saying “You will be very surprised how you interact with the new tablet.”
The Apple Tablet as an eReader
All of this is very interesting, and I can’t wait to play with the iSlate or whatever Apple’s tablet is called, but how will it function as an ereader? Of course all we can do for now is speculate, but there are a couple of points that seem rather obvious to me:
- Display Technology: If the iSlate turns out to be like a large iPod Touch, then it will be best suited for casual reading. If you read for several hours a day you will want a non-backlit transflective type of display such as e-ink. Pixel Qi displays provide the capability to switch between reflective and transmissive (like an LCD) display modes, but so far we don’t know what devices they will be used in. Pixel Qi is now in production, and we can expect to see new devices utilizing it announced at CES.
- Pricing: Apple devices tend to be high-end, especially in the early iterations. Rumors have priced the Apple tablet at anywhere from $500 to $1500. Obviously at these prices the iSlate will probably appeal more to users wanting multifunction devices capable of performing varied tasks in addition to reading books.
At this point I’m going to guess that the iSlate will not be so much direct competition to dedicated ereaders such as the Kindle or the nook which are best for hardcore readers, but rather will join the ever-expanding list of devices one can also read ebooks on. Reading books will no doubt be a capability of the iSlate, but that does not mean that it will be the best device for doing so.
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Merry Christmas no comments
Here’s wishing for a great holiday season for all! Have fun with your families and with all of your new toys!
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Nook Update no comments
Nook ereaders began receiving the first of Barnes & Noble’s promised firmware updates on Sunday.
So far users report experiencing faster page turns and less time spent with the infamous “formatting” screen. Some comments on the B&N forum also claim improved responsiveness from the touch screen as well as a few other small improvements. The in-store WiFi connection has been enabled and nook owners who bring their ereaders to a B&N store should find a coupon for a free cookie.
The update (v1.1.0) does seem to have caused a new problem with Adobe Digital Editions however. The ADE software which you need to load ebooks in this format onto the nook places your books in the Adobe folder. To read them you need to move the books to the My Documents folder so that the nook can recognize them.
Some nook pre-orders that were originally supposed to ship by Dec. 18 may not make it for Christmas (big surprise). B&N is offering a $100 gift certificate to some of these customers:
All customers in the original Dec. 18 group will receive an email tonight (12/18) with information about their orders.
Most of these customers will be told that their nook will arrive by Dec. 24, as originally promised.
Some customers will receive an email indicating that we are aiming to deliver your nook by Dec. 24. Because we know that some of these orders are gifts, we are sending all of these customers a nook Holiday Certificate that they can use if they need to.The Holiday Certificate will be delivered by Dec. 24. If we cannot get these nooks to you by Dec. 24, we will ship them for overnight delivery by Dec. 29. If this happens, we will email you on Dec. 23 with updated information, and a bn.com online gift certificate.
We apologize for the delays, and thank you for your patience and understanding. Please check your email for full details. And, as always, check with customer service at 1-800-THE-BOOK if you have further questions about your specific order.
I wanted to get a nook ereader myself, but I procrastinated and didn’t place my order when the nook was first announced. I did place an order on November 8, with an expected shipping date of Dec. 11. After reading all of the negative reviews, playing with a nook demo myself, seeing the shipping date slip several times and finally reading about all of the problems people were having when they did receive their nooks I cancelled my order. So far I have to say that I have not seen much to make me regret jumping ship. Well, on the other hand, there are those free cookies.
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Sony Daily Edition eReader Shipping no comments
Sony announced today that the Daily Edition ereader is now shipping. Customers who pre-ordered from SonyStyle.com through December 20 should receive their new ereaders within the next 48 hours.
The Daily Edition is now backordered and new orders will not ship until
sometime after the new year.
A few days ago Sony announced agreements to add several newspapers to the Reader Store. More newspapers should be arriving soon. You can subscribe on a monthly basis or buy single editions. The Daily Edition will receive newspapers through the wireless connection, while the Touch Edition and Pocket edition ereaders will need to sideload via a computer.
Sony has agreements in place with a host of additional magazine and newspaper publishers. Subscriptions to the following newspapers and magazines will be available soon:
- Barron’s
- The Boston Globe
- The Dallas Morning News
- International Herald Tribune
- The New York Times
- The Providence Journal
- The Washington Times
- The Baltimore Sun
- The New York Observer
- The Denver Post
- The Salt Lake Tribune
- San Jose Mercury News
- Christian Science Monitor
- The Columbus Dispatch
- Reason
- New York Review of Books
More will follow in the coming weeks and months.
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December 23 Kindle Orders get Free One-Day Shipping no comments
Amazon just announced that Kindle ereaders
To receive the one-day shipping upgrade on Dec. 23, you will need to add your Kindle to your shopping cart and select One-Day Shipping.
