Barnes and Noble recently announced their new e-book reader, the Nook. It looks pretty cool, and in some ways I think it really blows past the Kindle. There is another reviews from Technology Review.
There are two big features that make me think this is a great new product that blows past the Kindle.
The first one is the lend feature. If you haven’t heard, with this you can “lend” your book to a friend to use not only on their Nook reader, but on their smartphone or PC/Mac. Any device that has a B&N reader can see the book for 14 days. That’s cool as I can give others an idea of what I recommend.
I know Amazon has the share among Kindles, but they devices have to be on the same account. I don’t necessarily want my wife on my account, or vice versa as I don’t want to see her books, or even manage a budget between us.
I don’t think this is a big deal, and I can’t see it costing lots of revenue. It’s more a way to create community and interest people. It also sounds good, which is important to ensuring people are happy with the device.
The second thing that I like is that it has wi-fi built in. I did find it interesting that Amazon is no longer using Sprint, but moving to ATT, which is the carrier for the nook as well. However ATT has horrible coverage where I am, and I constantly hear people complaining about coverage from them. So if that’s the case, and I can’t buy a book when I want, like from bed or in an airport, then wi-fi is a great second solution.
I like the idea of e-reading. I’m mostly using my iPhone to read for now. I would like to get a dedicated reader again at some point, mostly for the ease of reading in bright environments, and the tremendous battery life. However until I get some insurance or other coverage, and I have an easy way to get books from multiple sources, I’m not sure I want to invest in one.
This is a great write-up that shows what is important in a phone. It's how you interact with it, not the features, not the specs, it's how you use it.
I tend to agree with that. With both the G1 and the iPhone, the interaction with the device for the most part, has not been on the phone. It's been twitter, web, reading, music, and the smoothness of those two devices is unbeatable.
I hope that more phone manufacturers realize this and they start to build up their networks of apps. The app store with Apple, and integration with a PC to allow me to manage things either on the PC or the phone, it's unbeatable. If I could have read books from Barnes and Noble or Amazon on my G1, I might not have moved to an iPhone, but I couldn't and that mattered.
I'm not sure how big a deal it is for everyone else, but I see more and more people doing things on their phones that aren't involving making calls.
People building SQL Server apps, especially BI apps ought to consider these markets and look to build small applications that ensure a smooth interaction with customers. As much as I like browser apps onthe desktop, they don't work on a cell phone, even one with as large a screen as the iPhone of G1.
I got a $25 app card with my iTouch, and forgot about it. However when we had guests over last night they had a great iPhone game, and Delaney loved it. He asked me to get it, so today when I was looking for a charger, I found the card, entered it, and bought Delaney's game. It's Flight Control, if you care.
Then I realized that I needed an expense application. I really liked the one I had for the G1, which let me take photos of my receipts and email them to myself. I figured "there's an app for that" on the iPhone, and started looking.
Mobile Receipt looks good, and there are a few more. I think I'll try that one after seeing a YouTube video if it in action. Nice to see how it works.
I'll entertain other suggestions, and I've asked for a few on Twitter.
I have an iTouch, and I recently downloaded the Kindle app to give it a try after I broke my Kindle device. It was kind of a knee jerk reaction since I was in the middle of Team of Rivals, War and Peace, and Wicked Prey at the time. My iTouch is much smaller, as shown below:
This is in the Apple App Store, and it's free, so you download it. Once you run the app, it asks for your Amazon.com account and password and then connects to Amazon. From there I immediately saw a list of "Archived Items" in the Home screen. I clicked it and all of my purchases were listed.
Pressing on Team of Rivals (it's a great book) downloaded that book to my iTouch and I could start reading. The device is intuitive, with a press on either side of the screen or a swipe of the finger across the device will turn a page either way. It's easy, and actually it's fairly unobtrusive. It's not as easy as clicking the buttons on the Kindle, but it's easy to do one handed. Plus it's a small, small device.
I tried the normal black text on which background, which was hard on the eyes. Just too much light coming off the screen. The sephia setting, which is an off brown text wasn't any better, but white text on a black screen worked well. It was easy to read, and didn't bug my eyes. Here's an image of the base screen and the options.
Amazon had copies of all my purchases, and selecting any of them downloaded the content to my iTouch. For a trip I had recently, I downloaded 5 of my old books, a couple that I wanted to re-read, and a couple kids books that I thought my daughter might read. They came right down over my wi-fi connection in a minute or two.
When I went to the Amazon site, my account now showed a new option for samples. As shown below, I had a send to "Steve's iTouch," the name I'd given my device.
I sent a few samples from the website and the process was as flawless as with the Kindle. I didn't need to sync with my computer. I could hit the "refresh" button from my home screen and the samples appeared.
Purchasing books was simple as well. On the home screen there's a "Get Books" button in the upper right that opens the Safari browser to Amazon's Kindle store. It's the mobile version of the store, so it loads fast, but it's optimized to work easily and let me look at recommendations, or search for books. I picked Finger Lickin' Fifteen and it immediately downloaded to the device.
I've been using this app for a few weeks, and have read 4 or 5 books on it. The reading experience is nice, and it has worked well for me. I've read during the day, in bed at night, and it's easy to use. The accelerometer is used, so if you turn the iTouch sideways the text rotates. I've tried both ways, and landscape is nice for two handed reading (sitting down), but portrait is better overall for me. Since you can accidentally lean the device too far when reading, there's a lock button in the lower right corner to prevent the text from rotating. I've used that often.
A few times I've been in the car or outside and that's where the Kindle device shines. If you've tried to read your iPod or cell phone in bright sunlight you know it doesn't always work well. I was sitting by the pool one day and it was impossible to read. I've done that with the Kindle device and it's as usable in bright sunlight as a paperback.
The other thing that stood out to me was battery life. While using the iTouch for just reading (no music/video), I could get a couple of good days of reading out of it. But barely. I had to charge it pretty much daily. Since I run with an iPod as well, this isn't as big a deal as I thought it would be, but it's something to be aware of. I'm not sure how well the iTouch would last on a trip. I've easily read multiple books, across 4 or 5 days on the Kindle device without charging it. I rarely had the wireless on, so that helped, but it's something to think about.
I like this application, and it works well for me. It definitely means that I can delay the purchase of a new Kindle for awhile as I try this. It also means that I realize that the thing I love most of all is the Kindle platform.
It surpasses the device itself, which I really liked, but the platform is something I love. Being able to access content almost anywhere, buy books as I want them without needing a trip to the bookstore, is amazing. I've still wandered in the bookstore a few times over the last few months, spending some money on kids books to support the stores. I'd be sorry to see brick-and-mortar bookstores disappear and I like walking around. I really wish that Amazon would open the platform and allow me to buy a book in Barnes and Noble as well and get it onto the Kindle. Or that publishers would allow a download a the store.
I searched for a Kindle app on Android for my Google G1 phone, but there isn't one. I think because Amazon is worried about Google Books. However the Amazon platform, delivering content easily from their store, is a huge win, and would grow their market share quite a bit. I'd like to see this application ported to the PC, OS X, *Nix, as well as the various cell phone OSes.
Would everyone read on their devices? Maybe, maybe not, but I know that the porting can't be that hard and I'd like to be able to access some books on my PC (like technical ones). I'd like to be able to read if I only had my cell phone, or just my laptop. It's not a great way to read, but it works for short periods. Or in a pinch.
I saw yesterday that Barnes and Noble released their e-reader for iTouch/iPhone, Blackerrys, Mac, and PCs and at the same time opened up their ebookstore online to more than 700,000 books.
I think it's a great move, and I downloaded it right away. I'll sync up my iTouch and see how it compares to the Kindle reader.
One downside of this device, the formats used by the application aren't compatible with other devices directly, like the Kindle. They do support the epub format, so that's good, but it's disappointing that someone can't move content easily from the Kindle to the B&N application.
I also heard that they will be sending their books to the Plastic Logics reader, which is due to come out later this year.
