A friend of mine lives in Singapore, so he can't use a Kindle or a Nook. He does use Kobo apps on devices, but he is thinking about getting an e-paper ereader. He would like it to be able to read PDF, and a browser would be good. And he would like one which is not bound to a single store, unlike Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and Sony. At least it should be able to show ePub books with generic protection, from various stores.
Any recommendations?
(Maybe the Kobo device would be the thing, even though I personally couldn't get it to work with Google Books via my Mac and Adobe Digital Editions, that was probably just my machine.)
Friday, July 27, 2012
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
UX Write review, and why write on an iPad? (updated)
UX Write: A First Class Word Processor for iPad, review.
I think I must have bought more text processors for my iPad than I have written stories with any of them! But even though UX Write is amongst the more expensive ones (amongst iPad apps, which admittedly are cheap), I got that one too. What sold me was the touch pad it introduces when you press a special key on the virtual keyboard. Finally a solid attempt at solving what I have said even recently, that one of the big weaknesses of the iOS is cursor insertion and text selection. It's embarrassingly tricky, really, and sort of negates Apple's postulate of the iPad as a production device.
UX also works in HTML 5, which I think is a wise choice, lets face it, text these days is electronic, and HTML is basis for so many things, including the standard ebook format ePub.
Admission: I've only started with the app myself, but read John M's review above, he knows his stuff and then some.
Why would one write on an iPad instead of a laptop? Well, it's a judgment call. But say you're carrying your iPad anyway, as an ereader, web browser, entertainment center, navigator, gaming device, etc etc. If the iPad were to be a powerful word processor, you could save a lot of money and weight by not having to carry a laptop also. And the iPad certainly has the screen and all the power anybody needs for word processing. And now it seems the software is coming along also. (Rumor has it MS has Word in the works too for iPad.) For some people like me, an external, physical keyboard might be needed, but that's just a fraction of the price and weight of a laptop. (There are many options, from Apple's own beautiful aluminium model to very light and cheap knock-offs. Here's a (slightly outdated) article of my own on that.)
There's also the "toaster-fridge": Brydge. I may get that one, I'm not sure. They are right in that the quality of the many keyboards for the iPad has never quite been up to snuff. That might be nice, and it might be nice to be able to carry them as a unit, and to not have to bring a case or a stand.
I think I must have bought more text processors for my iPad than I have written stories with any of them! But even though UX Write is amongst the more expensive ones (amongst iPad apps, which admittedly are cheap), I got that one too. What sold me was the touch pad it introduces when you press a special key on the virtual keyboard. Finally a solid attempt at solving what I have said even recently, that one of the big weaknesses of the iOS is cursor insertion and text selection. It's embarrassingly tricky, really, and sort of negates Apple's postulate of the iPad as a production device.
UX also works in HTML 5, which I think is a wise choice, lets face it, text these days is electronic, and HTML is basis for so many things, including the standard ebook format ePub.
Admission: I've only started with the app myself, but read John M's review above, he knows his stuff and then some.
Why would one write on an iPad instead of a laptop? Well, it's a judgment call. But say you're carrying your iPad anyway, as an ereader, web browser, entertainment center, navigator, gaming device, etc etc. If the iPad were to be a powerful word processor, you could save a lot of money and weight by not having to carry a laptop also. And the iPad certainly has the screen and all the power anybody needs for word processing. And now it seems the software is coming along also. (Rumor has it MS has Word in the works too for iPad.) For some people like me, an external, physical keyboard might be needed, but that's just a fraction of the price and weight of a laptop. (There are many options, from Apple's own beautiful aluminium model to very light and cheap knock-offs. Here's a (slightly outdated) article of my own on that.)
There's also the "toaster-fridge": Brydge. I may get that one, I'm not sure. They are right in that the quality of the many keyboards for the iPad has never quite been up to snuff. That might be nice, and it might be nice to be able to carry them as a unit, and to not have to bring a case or a stand.
Bruce said...
I'm keeping an eye on the Android Netbook category, which is promising in the long term. Right now you can buy a crummy one that runs Android 2.x for around $100.00, but that's about it. There are quite a few of these for sale at Amazon. A decent one that runs Android 4 for $200 would be very interesting. With a netbook, you always have the keyboard, but sacrifice the touch screen for a trackpad.
Making a netbook with Android, manufacturers save money on a Windows license, can use a less powerful ARM processor instead of Intel, and customers still have a huge ecosystem of apps at the Google Play store. Manufacturers also save money by eliminating the touch screen, and have a larger case in which they can use larger, less expensive parts.
None of the big names are making these, but if some off brand in China or elsewhere can step up their game just a little bit I think they could sell quite a few of these things.
Eolake said...
Yes, that's a quite interesting idea. It might make for some quite interesting machines.
If there are enough good apps.
I don't know if they'll save a lot by eliminating the touch screen, if not I wouldn't mind keeping it along with the trackpad, for many things it's a good interface.
A good keyboard would be important. Not too short travel. I have an old Psion NetBook (before "netbooks" arrived). It's a solid portable word processor. With that as a model and progress since then, it could be interesting.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Book pricing
Publishers are always arguing that print and distribution are very small parts of the expenses of making a book, so they have to price ebooks not far below the prices of paper books.
My first comment to this is that if print and distribution, which are a lot of money, are insignificant expenses to big publishers, then their expenses are wildly out of control. To make a good book you need the author's time, and a few thousand dollars for editing and design. You don't need a host of staff in an overpriced highrise on Manhattan. Then comes promotion, but publishers don't do that that anymore anyway.
My second is that the argument, very oddly, totally overlooks the fact that when you lower the price of something, you sell more of it. And in many cases you sell so much more of it that your profit grows. It's a whole science.
In fact it's impossible that the publishing industry is not aware of this simple fact, which tells me that they are using a disingenuous argument to try and keep their prices artificially high, like the CD industry managed to do with CDs for many years (15-20 bucks for a CD, woa).
I heard that many authors who have a book published by the very biggest houses (Random House for example) and who gets ads in NYT and the book in every Barnes And Noble in the country, still don't manage to sell even a thousand copies. So something is broken about the traditional model, they only survive on the few bestsellers, less than one in twenty I think.
The Net age is favouring the lean-and-mean independent. I'm a webtrepreneur and I am making a really good living, but only because I'm doing everything myself. I only work about half time, and I work from my office in my smaller bedroom. If I had had the idea that the only way to run a business was to have an office in town and acquire staff, then I'd be more stressed and very probably have less at the end of the day.
My first comment to this is that if print and distribution, which are a lot of money, are insignificant expenses to big publishers, then their expenses are wildly out of control. To make a good book you need the author's time, and a few thousand dollars for editing and design. You don't need a host of staff in an overpriced highrise on Manhattan. Then comes promotion, but publishers don't do that that anymore anyway.
My second is that the argument, very oddly, totally overlooks the fact that when you lower the price of something, you sell more of it. And in many cases you sell so much more of it that your profit grows. It's a whole science.
In fact it's impossible that the publishing industry is not aware of this simple fact, which tells me that they are using a disingenuous argument to try and keep their prices artificially high, like the CD industry managed to do with CDs for many years (15-20 bucks for a CD, woa).
I heard that many authors who have a book published by the very biggest houses (Random House for example) and who gets ads in NYT and the book in every Barnes And Noble in the country, still don't manage to sell even a thousand copies. So something is broken about the traditional model, they only survive on the few bestsellers, less than one in twenty I think.
The Net age is favouring the lean-and-mean independent. I'm a webtrepreneur and I am making a really good living, but only because I'm doing everything myself. I only work about half time, and I work from my office in my smaller bedroom. If I had had the idea that the only way to run a business was to have an office in town and acquire staff, then I'd be more stressed and very probably have less at the end of the day.
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Loathing Adobe and DRM
[Warning: rant.]
I don't know what I hate most: Adobe installation problems, or DRM.
In any case, they come up in a neat little package whenever I have to use Adobe Digital Editions, trying to read a DRM-protected non-Kindle ebooks.
I used all the instructions and tips I could find, and still I have used over 90 minutes of my Saturday night (there went my date with Sarah Chalke) trying to get a book onto a Kobo or my Iriver reader. (Both are supported, according to Adobe.) But I've just been going through a long string of having to update the app, otherwise I'm not allowed to use it, and then the app refusing to install in various entertaining ways. I finally got it updated, and launched. The I waited half an hour while it apparently had to download three copies of all the books (five!) I have in it. (It does not allow local storage!!!) And then the ereader device, both of them, did not appear in the app like they're supposed to. I tried everything.
Then I read that on Mac I have to reboot the app after connecting the reader. I smelled trouble! And I got it. On re-launching the ADE app, it again told me I had to either quit it or update it. And I had just updated it!
I just can't get it to work.
I experimented with this to see if I could get it to work, if I could I might buy a Nook with SlowGlow (or whazcalled). We can't buy Nook books outside the US, hurrah, but if I could at least read Google Play books on it... But it seems that's a hopeless dream. I'll just have to hope that a Kindle or a least a Kobo with frontlight is on the way.
Computers! Can't live with them, can't take a shotgun to them without alarming the neighbors.
I don't know what I hate most: Adobe installation problems, or DRM.
In any case, they come up in a neat little package whenever I have to use Adobe Digital Editions, trying to read a DRM-protected non-Kindle ebooks.
I used all the instructions and tips I could find, and still I have used over 90 minutes of my Saturday night (there went my date with Sarah Chalke) trying to get a book onto a Kobo or my Iriver reader. (Both are supported, according to Adobe.) But I've just been going through a long string of having to update the app, otherwise I'm not allowed to use it, and then the app refusing to install in various entertaining ways. I finally got it updated, and launched. The I waited half an hour while it apparently had to download three copies of all the books (five!) I have in it. (It does not allow local storage!!!) And then the ereader device, both of them, did not appear in the app like they're supposed to. I tried everything.
Then I read that on Mac I have to reboot the app after connecting the reader. I smelled trouble! And I got it. On re-launching the ADE app, it again told me I had to either quit it or update it. And I had just updated it!
I just can't get it to work.
I experimented with this to see if I could get it to work, if I could I might buy a Nook with SlowGlow (or whazcalled). We can't buy Nook books outside the US, hurrah, but if I could at least read Google Play books on it... But it seems that's a hopeless dream. I'll just have to hope that a Kindle or a least a Kobo with frontlight is on the way.
Computers! Can't live with them, can't take a shotgun to them without alarming the neighbors.
Are You Getting the Bandwidth You’re Paying For?
Are You Getting the Bandwidth You’re Paying For?, article. I certainly wasn’t expecting my Internet connection — which is generally quite reliable — to require so many phone calls and truck rolls to my house, but I’m glad I stuck with it in the end, since I appreciate actually getting the full bandwidth that I’ve been promised. It’s easy to imagine someone who’s not particularly network-savvy suffering with a lousy Internet connection, just because they don’t realize what they should be getting.
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Friday, July 20, 2012
Ebook revenues double in a year
Ebook revenues double in a year, article.
... To over $2 billion, this report says. Now that's not chicken food in anybody's eyes, except maybe Apple, who continue to apparently view their iBooks service as the stepchild of the family, not getting much attention from either Apple or customers, and still has nowhere near the selection which Amazon or B&N have. It seems Apple still sees their hardware as their cash cow, unlike almost everybody else who is in the content market.
Apple may see the iBooks store as the same as the camera in the iPad: "it don't mean sheet to us, but people will complain if they ain't there, so we put them in."
... To over $2 billion, this report says. Now that's not chicken food in anybody's eyes, except maybe Apple, who continue to apparently view their iBooks service as the stepchild of the family, not getting much attention from either Apple or customers, and still has nowhere near the selection which Amazon or B&N have. It seems Apple still sees their hardware as their cash cow, unlike almost everybody else who is in the content market.
Apple may see the iBooks store as the same as the camera in the iPad: "it don't mean sheet to us, but people will complain if they ain't there, so we put them in."
Thursday, July 19, 2012
My Nexus Seven
OK, so I caved! I bought a Nexus Seven! It was my duty as a blogger. :-)Basically you can just read what the major reviewers say: it's great. One of the best 7-inch Android tablets you'll find, and one of the cheapest too. Kudos.
A major downside is the smallish and non-expandable storage. (And less content and apps than on iPad.) But otherwise it's mostly upsides: the battery life and speed are top-notch. And amazingly, the screen is actually as good as the iPad 3's, except half the size. Same sharpness and color fidelity.
I've been trying it out as ereader, and chosen difficult subjects, meaning Zinio magazines and full-layout scanned art books where you have to zoom in on the text to read it. (See my article.) And yes, it can be used even for this, at least if you have good eyes or good reading glasses.
The Kindle application is good, it seems to me. Very similar to the iPad's Kindle app. Though both of them suffer from the odd weaknesses of only one font, and too large leaps between text sizes. (I don't get these choices, surely it can't be because these things are hard to program in, for years small-developer apps have had lots of fonts and much finer size separation.)
In short, I'm reminded of an old joke from the early days of the mini-car, 30 years ago: "Oh yes, my new mini car is great. I get great mileage, it's easy to find parking, the taxes are less... In fact, the only downside I can think of is actually that it's so small!"
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Here's a review with some useful viewpoints, including some very varied experiences in the comments. For example this created some heated debate:
When compared to iOS, Android sucks. It is much harder to use and not at all intuitive. I have more than one non-techie friend who have absolutely no problem using their iPads and they simply cannot figure out how to use their new Nexus. Very few people call me for iPad advice, but they do call for Android advice.
I am not sure myself what to think of Android. I can figure out most things, but it does not seem as fun or inviting as iOS. Though the latter still has some grave weaknesses, for example it can be very tricky to select text.
Here is an interesting comparison-style review (video) from GeekBeat.tv. I like geekbeat.tv, they are usually entertaining, though their usually short formats prevent all that much crossing. But they find a lot of interesting things.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
"Reader's block" and the racing bike
In this episode of Kindle Chronicles, one of Len's listeners writes to him about an interesting phenomenon: She is and has been an avid reader all her life, but in periods, slowly getting worse, suffered from what she calls "reader's block", meaning she'd get stuck reading and couldn't make progress in a book, sometimes just staring at a page for hours.
Now that's a grim fate, but the most interesting part is that once she started reading on an ereader instead of paper books, the problem disappeared! She's read a good many books on her Kindle, and there's no sign of it returning.
Now what would cause that? I have no idea, but I think it's an interesting counter-balance to the idea that even I used to have, that e-reading would struggle to get just nearly as good as paper reading, when in fact it turned out that I'd only been e-reading (after iPad came around) for a couple of months when I found that I now greatly preferred it to paper reading. That surprised me.
It's not that I have any problems as such with reading on paper (except if the type is very tiny and I don't have my reading glasses). But I'm just more attracted to e-reading. I don't know why, it just feels more "alive" to me.
I'm reminded of when in my twenties I got a quality racing bike instead of the traditional solid, heavy bicycle. The lighter weight and the nimbleness of the racing bike simple made bike riding fun, it had never been that in my life. Further, distances seemed about 40% shorter. For a couple of summers then, I rode the bike to work, about 25 minutes each way. With my old bike, it'd have been 40 minutes I think, and it would have been a dreadful chore.
I think that when you take out several small delays and annoyances from something, the transformation in the experience can be much bigger than you'd foreseen.
Now that's a grim fate, but the most interesting part is that once she started reading on an ereader instead of paper books, the problem disappeared! She's read a good many books on her Kindle, and there's no sign of it returning.
Now what would cause that? I have no idea, but I think it's an interesting counter-balance to the idea that even I used to have, that e-reading would struggle to get just nearly as good as paper reading, when in fact it turned out that I'd only been e-reading (after iPad came around) for a couple of months when I found that I now greatly preferred it to paper reading. That surprised me.
It's not that I have any problems as such with reading on paper (except if the type is very tiny and I don't have my reading glasses). But I'm just more attracted to e-reading. I don't know why, it just feels more "alive" to me.
I'm reminded of when in my twenties I got a quality racing bike instead of the traditional solid, heavy bicycle. The lighter weight and the nimbleness of the racing bike simple made bike riding fun, it had never been that in my life. Further, distances seemed about 40% shorter. For a couple of summers then, I rode the bike to work, about 25 minutes each way. With my old bike, it'd have been 40 minutes I think, and it would have been a dreadful chore.
I think that when you take out several small delays and annoyances from something, the transformation in the experience can be much bigger than you'd foreseen.
More apps on an ereader
Here's a tip to run Android apps on a Nook Simple Touch e-ink reader (no backlight). Requires a bit of geek work, but a very good idea. Though it can't run all Android apps by far, some of those it can makes it much more versatile for reading RSS feeds and such. The lack of those things is one of the bigger limits of ereaders (as opposed to tablets). In fact I think it's silly that nobody has made an ereader which does all that stuff. Perhaps they are all afraid of cannibalising their ebook sales?
ereader holder
Thanks to Stephen for pointing to this DIY small-tablet holder.
The clamp goes on the lamp head, only the lamp shade has been removed. No screwing required. (That sounds familiar.)
Nook and Kobo in browser
B&N has released Nook for web, an ebook reader in your browser.
And just yesterday I found Kobo reader as a plugin for the Chrome browser. The interface seems good.
I like Kobo. The reader itself is nice, for example the rubbery surface is one of the nicest I've tried for an ereader/tablet device. And unlike Nook, Kobo is available in many countries outside the US, like UK and Singapore. The latter I know only because I have a friend in Singapore, and even Kindle is not available there, but Kobo is, and a good selection of books. That's well done by Kobo, getting all the rights and such sorted is surely by far no trivial task!
I think their market share is tiny compared to Kindle+Nook, so it's pretty amazing how well they are doing in so many areas, including various quite nice devices. It'll be interesting to see if they are still around in ten years, I hope so.
And just yesterday I found Kobo reader as a plugin for the Chrome browser. The interface seems good.
I think their market share is tiny compared to Kindle+Nook, so it's pretty amazing how well they are doing in so many areas, including various quite nice devices. It'll be interesting to see if they are still around in ten years, I hope so.
Most popular book by FAR
This is from the Google Play store... Good grief. And some people think I am a dirty old man because I have a site with cute nudie girls...
Monday, July 16, 2012
Pick up milk, bread, iPad
Now they're selling iPads in the supermarket?
I know nobody like Apple to able to stretch the market vertically. A premium brand. That you can buy in the supermarket.
I know nobody like Apple to able to stretch the market vertically. A premium brand. That you can buy in the supermarket.
New Android prices
I must say the pricing development in Android tablets has been swift. Although it was also necessary! Two years ago the normal price for a good 7-inch tablet was about $600 if one didn't get a phone line contract. And it seems like now the new standard level is going to be around $200! One-third in two years, that's pretty amazing.
And starting with the Google Nexus 7, these tablets will be much less feature-scraped than the Kindle Fire 1 (except still low storage). Meaning they will begin to put more competitive pressure on the iPad for the first time.
OK, they also don't have cell phone net connection, but I never had that and never missed it. If I need to connect in the wild, I just go through my iPhone's hotspot.
Hey, does anybody know about the plans for 4G network in Europe and UK? It sounds like valuable technology, super-fast connection out there, but so far it seems it's really only extant in the US?
And starting with the Google Nexus 7, these tablets will be much less feature-scraped than the Kindle Fire 1 (except still low storage). Meaning they will begin to put more competitive pressure on the iPad for the first time.
OK, they also don't have cell phone net connection, but I never had that and never missed it. If I need to connect in the wild, I just go through my iPhone's hotspot.
Hey, does anybody know about the plans for 4G network in Europe and UK? It sounds like valuable technology, super-fast connection out there, but so far it seems it's really only extant in the US?
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