This reaction confuses me, because iBooks Author’s EULA says exactly what I expected it to say, namely that you can’t sell the books you make with iBooks Author through any distributor except Apple.

Why is this even a surprise? For one thing, iBooks Author is free. It’s obviously intended to ease creation of content for sale through iTunes, because Apple makes a ton of money on those content sales. Why would they make a free tool that would let users create content for other platforms? Why is not doing so “greedy” and “evil”?

On a more practical level, it’s frankly not that big a deal. If you’re formatting a traditional book (i.e. only words), then the process should mostly involve cutting and pasting those words from your .doc file. You will have to format your ePubs for other distributors separately, which is a drag mostly because ePub-formatting programs suck (when we publish books here at C4, we use Smashwords; it’s not perfect but it is better and easier than other formatting and publishing options we’ve tried).

So yes, Apple has not given you a free, easy, universal ePub creator. But iBooks Author isn’t geared toward creating plain old ePubs anyway, it’s specifically geared toward creating “Multi-Touch books for iPad.” In other words, this sort of thing. Because iBooks Author simplifies the formatting process, the rich-media interactive ebooks you make with it will almost certainly only work on an iPad. Even if you could export them to universal ePubs, they would look like garbage on all other devices.

Apple won’t own your copyright, your content, or the versions you make for all other platforms. You’re free to use that content however you please, even according to that reactionary ZDNet writer’s reading of the EULA. Claims that “only Apple can ever publish your work” are simply not true.

So everybody please calm down about this EULA. It’s not nearly as greedy or evil as they’d have you believe.

The new Nook Tablet looks almost exactly like the old Nook Color.

Barnes & Noble debuted their new ereader, the Nook Tablet, yesterday, and I found it entirely disappointing. It has slightly bumped specs from the original incarnation, the Nook Color, but those specs are largely unnecessary for an ereader, especially since the Nook Color can run all of its headline features.

I’m not disappointed in its specs or form factor, though. If anything, the similarities between these versions show just how solid a device the Nook Color was. Instead, I’m disappointed in Barnes & Noble’s continuing failure of strategy.

Here’s the official demo. Kate, the unnecessary tour guide, doesn’t mention reading until halfway through the video’s four-minute length. Hulu, Netflix, Facebook, web-surfing, Scrabble, Epicurious—all of these things get mentioned before books. These are bonus features. A bookstore’s flagship gadget should first attempt to demonstrate that it’s the best ereader in the world, and then, as a bonus, here are some cool extras like Netflix.

The Nook Tablet video is a structural copy of the Kindle Fire video. That’s another problem. Amazon showcased little to nothing of the Fire’s ereading capabilities. Instead of taking advantage of that oversight, B&N copied it.

The Nook Color/Tablet and the Kindle Fire appear to be more or less interchangeable. There are small differences, like the fact that parents can record audiobooks for their kids on the Nook Tablet. But from those videos, it’s impossible to tell which one is the better ereader, because both treat ereading as an afterthought. Right now, the clearest differentiator between them is their content providers. Barnes & Noble loses that matchup.

When there are signs that B&N isn’t all that interested in selling books anymore, how confident can you be buying ebooks from them? If you buy a Nook Tablet next week, are you still going to be using it in a year? Two years? Is B&N going to be around then? Are they still going to be a bookstore? Are they going to be interested in making sure their Nook Color ereaders keep up with Amazon’s Kindle Fires? The answer to any of these questions is a doubtful maybe.

(Side note: I haven’t had any personal experience with the Nook Tablet. I’m basing my impressions mostly on my own experiences with the first-gen Nook Color, which I bought when it first came out last year. I don’t use it anymore, because I’m afraid books I buy on it will expire in a couple of years, and partially because I got so frustrated with its wasted potential. Its version of the New York Times omitted most of the paper’s web content, like the blogs, videos, and picture galleries. The Nook Color never really had comic books or the New Yorker, cross-content interaction, or many other things I’d like to have seen.)

On the other side of the fence, you can be sure Amazon will still be here in 3 years. You can be sure your Kindle Fire will work well, will be safe and functional if not cutting edge, and will have a staggering array of content.

I said when I saw this little product card last week that B&N was heading in entirely the wrong direction. (I mean, from that sheet, can you even tell it’s supposed to be an ereader?) So sound the dirge trumpet, the B&N deathwatch has begun. Don’t buy a Nook Color this Christmas, I think you’ll regret it.

Specs and overview: The Nook Color is a 7-inch color touchscreen Android-powered ereader, retailing at $250. It will ship Nov. 19, and it’ll be in stores soon after that. It has WiFi, but no 3G, and an LCD screen instead of Pixel Qi or Mirasol (which would give it better battery life) because of price considerations and performance.

It’s difficult to get good hard spec numbers right now, especially processor speed and memory capacity, but it has micro SD expandable storage, and it comes with an 8 Gb card (16 Gb cards run about $30). It supports Adobe ePub and “boasts” an 8-hour battery life with WiFi off (I’d say you shouldn’t hope for more than 3-4 hours with WiFi on). Battery life is its weak point, without a doubt.

That said, there’s a whole lot to like here. Despite tech blogs keying on the word “tablet,” this is not a tablet computer, it’s a (possibly excellent) color LCD ereader. Real tablet computers of decent production value are very expensive, like the iPad starting at $500, and the new Samsung Galaxy Tab starting at $600. Anything much cheaper than the Nook Color, like the Pandigital Novel at $180, is too crappy to use. So do not expect the best Android tablet out there, expect a great magazine/newspaper reader, with a few perks.

Weird/cool bonus features: You can now take your Nook to a Barnes & Noble store, and read any part of any ebook in their catalog, for up to one hour a day, at which point, you presumably have to get up and go find the paper copy. With the Nook Color, you can also share passages from books via Facebook or Twitter, and lend (or evidently request to borrow) ebooks from friends.

You can also still get library ebooks, and read your ebooks on your phone or desktop via Nook apps available on most platforms (the Nook apps are quite nice, much better than Kobo in my opinion). However, I have little hope for the dedicated, curated Nook Color app store. Nook apps will not challenge iPad apps anytime soon.

Thoughts on content: One of the things I learned this summer after publishing our fiction anthology is that Barnes & Noble does its content right. I’ve been very skeptical of their ereader endeavors in the past, but they are clearly committed to ebooks, and committed to providing content. The same simply cannot be said of Apple and its lackluster ebookstore. If the hardware holds up, the Nook Color will be outstanding for readers.

The bottom line: If you want a tablet to play games, watch movies, email, Twitter, etc., get an iPad. But if you want a tablet primarily to read—especially to read magazines, newspapers, kids’ books, etc.—then the Nook Color is your clear front-runner. I don’t hold out any hope for a competitive or even decent app store, but the content will be there, in a way it’s not on the iPad.

Feel free to wait until you can lay your hands on one in stores to test its interface; that and its battery are its obvious potential weak spots in the early running. Basically, for the right user, this device makes a whole lot of sense.

Things I’m unsure of: How well will its interactivity work? Will it be able to highlight and note-take in a useful manner, as no E-Ink reader currently can? Will my grandmother be able to use it? If so, the Nook Color could be even better. I initially assumed the Nook Color would have lots of comic books, but haven’t seen confirmation; if no, that seems like a big oversight.

Some more links: Here’s a hands-on video at Engadget. Engadget says it’s sluggish, but the video has me sold. TeleRead has a video of the release event here—I usually hate product launch events, but some crazy dancing pageantry makes the first 3 and a half minutes pretty watchable indeed. (Second half here and Paul Biba’s write-up of the event here.) Various other impressions by ZDNet, Salon, publishing Twittersphere reactions. And the Nook Color page at B&N.

One: TeleRead nailed the prediction. I mean, by a matter of hours.

Two: this wi-fi-only Kindle is a contender. It’s only $139 (ships Aug. 27), making it the cheapest E-Ink ereader on the market. Our problems with Amazon and Kindle still exist: the proprietary Kindle format means that you can never completely trust that you’ll always own your books; there’s always a chance that they’ll pull a Yahoo! Music and your ebooks will simply disappear. Of course, this is true of all DRMed formats, but with Adobe DRM, you can borrow library ebooks and not spend money you might never get back. To make matters worse, Jeff Bezos is kind of a jerk, and he frequently does things that are either stupid or just kind of bullyish.

All that said, $140 is a great price—that and the presence of Kindle apps on computers and smartphones makes the whole package quite tempting these days.

As for Kindle 3 (3G version), it’s the same as the old Kindle 2. It’s black now, I guess. A touch smaller. Buttons are a little different. Otherwise the new Kindle is nearly identical to the old, and still not our first choice for an ereader.

and this is just rad:

]]> http://chamberfour.com/2010/02/24/wednesday-links-2-24-10/feed/ 0 http://chamberfour.com/2010/01/27/wednesday-links-1-27-10/ http://chamberfour.com/2010/01/27/wednesday-links-1-27-10/#comments Wed, 27 Jan 2010 14:13:16 +0000 Sean Clark http://chamberfour.com/?p=6022 pricing strategies and the coming battle between Apple and Amazon ]]>