Publishers talk about Apple's tablet
We had a chance to speak with a few friends in the publishing business last week. Both work in Manhattan for companies not previously quoted by the Wall St. Journal or Bloomberg but who were recently contacted by Apple with tablet information in the past two weeks. Here's what they've both corroborated:
- Apple has been moving very aggressively over the past month and has stepped it up since the event announcement last week. Both said they'd be surprised if Apple doesn't have a deal of some sort worked out by launch. This wouldn't necessarily be a nuts-and-bolts type of deal, but one where they agree to work together. Apple can say at the event we've signed up "all of the major publishers".
- Apple has been pitching itself against Amazon's model specifically to the publishers. Apple's "Agency model" gives publishers more control and freedom for pricing vs. Amazon who've recently restructured a small part of their publisher offering to compete with this surge by Apple. We received the exact same wording from both people so we think this is the type of thing that Apple is touting to all publishers. We might hear about "the Agency Model" vs. Kindle's at the event.
- Scrollmotion, the biggest current book contributor to the App Store, isn't part of this deal and Apple is dealing directly with the publishers who are already signed up with Scrollmotion. The deals would cut Scrollmotion out of the loop or as one exec put it: "The smaller outfits are going to get screwed". We've reached out to Scrollmotion for comment and will report back anything we hear.
- Apple was looking for content to bring to the event -- perhaps one example -- but doesn't expect to have large libraries of material in their book store until "mid 2010 at the very earliest"
- Separately, one source said that no prototypes were brought to the meetings, but the tablet was described as "a very-readable 10-inch glass screen smaller in size than the Kindle DX with a similar weight." The Apple people also mentioned that the "software was the key to the experience and it would be the game changer". Apple also made the analogy of the shift from B&W televisions to Color with respect to the Kindle vs. the Tablet.
- One other big thing: They say it isn't going to cost anywhere near $1000 as has been reported elsewhere.
Remember, the EBook reading functionality is just one part of this device. The tablet is also expected to be a game playing, media watching, netbook-competing powerhouse as well.
See you Wednesday!
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No matter how lovely the iPhone and iPod Touch are, the screen, like any light emitting display, leads to headaches and blurry vision after extended viewing in low light for a lengthy period.
The Apple tablet will need to use a technology that ensures the display is clearly readable with backlighting turned off, with an external (bedsite lamp?) light source providing the illumination.
I use my laptop all day at work. I read documents, pdf's, websites all day. I never get heaches or blurred vision. Maybe I am superhuman.
You ARE superhuman!
Oh my god this is SO exciting... I'm superhuman too!!
I had problems after-all day in front of my laptop. I went to a ophthalmologist last month and he recommend me special glasses. Now I can be all day long in front any computer and not problems at all....
JD
Try adjusting your contrast and brightness without the special glasses.
This will allow you to be in front of your laptop lcd monitor for weeks at a time!!!
I am SUPERHUMAN too!
I work more than 8 hrs a day using/reading Excel Spreadsheets mainly, with LARGE volumes of numbers and text, as well as Word and PDF documents.
THEN I go to school and have class for 2-4 hours, read my syllabus, read class notes, my own notes, powerpoint notes with lots of text.
AFTER class I read texts downloaded online for my given classes.
INBETWEEN all of this I read email on my iPhone.
NO HEADACHES
Give it a few more years.
No doubt. No doubt. It is good that a forum exists whereby two such super-beings can meet. I am also headache free. Perhaps this is how the X-Men discovered one another, by attending a "Laptop Owners Without Headaches" support group.
Perhaps you guys should form a super group and go beat the crap out of terrorists or something.
Or you're some type of lizard man... the type that is trying to take over/has taken over and now runs the world. I have done extensive research on your species. I know that you are impervious to the negative effects of light. If we can't find an anti-light ray to vanquish you back to the caves from whence thee came... God help us all.
Or you're some type of lizard man... the type that is trying to take over/has taken over and now runs the world. I have done extensive research on your species. I know that you are impervious to the negative effects of light. If we can't find an anti-light ray to vanquish you back to the caves from whence thee came... God help us all.
Ditto, I've read more reports, worked on projects all day for work (6 to 8 hours worth, 4 hours+ at a time) and then go home and use my iMac for several hours at night. I have no issues with headaches period. I think it's just one more thing for people to bitch about. If they don't like it, buy a Kindle already.
No one is forcing anyone to buy Apple products with their color screens and glossy displays. If they bother you, buy something else, pretty easy choice. Complaining like a 6 year old won't change how Apple goes to market with products.
I don't suffer headaches so much, but I am constantly aware that text on screen just doesn't look as good as proper, printed text. It'll take a better quality display to persuade me to switch from books for any substantial reading period.
For other media uses, a 10" screen has no advantages over the whatever-it-is on my iPhone. Not large enough for use by a group, so not additionally useful.
Now let's see if I'm still saying this after the device has been available for six months...
I turn my brightness down to avoid that.
Don't say stuff like that. It's factually wrong. Reading a printed book in low light for an extended time can cause headaches and blurry vision--it has nothing to do with a light emitting display of any kind. It's eye fatigue from constant focus.
Screen is a big deal. I do not get headaches or blurred vision on reading from a computer screen. There is a reason why the ebook maket has not took off until the Kindle. I find it much easier to read from e-ink type of screen. I have read full on book pdfs before on ala iphone and pc it sucked. I have a much harder time to concentrate on backlit screen. For reference and short articles a computer type screen works great. E-ink is just more natural.
I am a macbook using mac nerd, but I also prefer my Kindle for reading books. I am guessing that most of those that are critical of it have not tried a Kindle (or similar device) for an extended period of time, say, read a book. One 'feature' of current e-ink devices is often downplayed, or even listed as a 'fault' and that is the fact that they cannot display color. However, the fact that they are monochrome is why they are so easy to read from.
I have read lots of comments such as "don't like reading from an LCD? Then don't buy a iSlate, quit whining and go back to your Kindle." The reason I feel the urge to 'defend e-ink' is that I fear it will be swept under the carpet as everyone responds to Apple. E-ink is an amazing single-purpose display, albiet a terrible mulitpurpose technology. Years ago, I was doing a lot of work editing black & white photos in photoshop on this amazing Radius Greyscale monitor. When I replaced it, it was cheaper to go with a colour monitor as they had become as cheap was greyscale units. What a mistake! Not too surprisingly the white phosphors in my greyscale monitor did a better job of displaying black&white images than my RGB phosphors in my new monitor -- each white pixel needed to be replaced with three colur (RGB) subpixels firing in tandem to 'simulate' white light. We normally read monochrome text -- that is what I am typing now and what most of you are reading. While it may be possible to make color displays that are as good at displaying monochrome info as a greyscale display, the general trend is that color comes at the expense of greyscale detail. As someone with a design background, 'greyscale detail' translates into 'easy to read' which translates into 'easy on the eyes'.
I will likely buy an iSlate, but I may buy a second kindle (OK, I borrow my wife's) before that.
Horsehockey, I've never experienced this mythical "headaches and blurry vision" nonsense even after sending hours in front of my computer with the room lights completely off.
It's all well and good that Apple is trying to get publishers on board with the tablet and giving them more control of the pricing on their books. But if the publisher think they can charge MORE than the paper book price for the ebook version, they're only kidding themselves and setting up a self fulfilling prophecy of failure. The publisher whine about amazon selling Kindle books at the prices they do. Well if the digital list price is $25 and the publisher gets 70% and amazon sells it to the customer at $9.99 the publisher STILL gets payed the agreed upon amount of 70% of the $25 price. They are not losing money. But these idiots think that they are going to force the Kindle owner to buy the Hardcover book then later the Kindle version. Sorry morons, but if the Kindle owner only buys books on the Kindle and you don't offer a better price on the Kindle or you delay the release of the Kindle version because you want to protect your hard cover sales, you just screwed youself out of a sale. We don't buy paper books anymore and the delay just pisses us off to where we find something else to read.
Note to Tor, you delaying The Gathering Storm until November 2010 has lost you 12 sales. I will NOT buy any of the books from that series because of this. I found them elsewhere on the internet, for free, now I would have purchased all of them if book 12 was not delayed by over one year.
Do completely agree with the first comment. I am also spending quite a lot of ours in front of my computer screen. This has nothing to do with the reading of a novel or any text with literary purpose : Amazon was right in looking for a state of the art device with monochrome electronic ink but completely wrong with a tablet at 500 dollars. Hopefully the price will significantly decrease in a near future.
Wow, sounds like Apple is screwing over some of their app developers. I wonder if they're going to start competing with other developers who have created apps for their system. As a developer that's just starting out, it's never a great feeling to be under the threat of a behemoth entering your market....especially when it's the creator of the platform you're developing for. I've been thinking about shifting to Android. I think in the long run Android will be the dominant platform in the market anyway.
Just keep thinking that and you will be out of business in no time. The android market being all "free" and "open" is going to allow for so many exploits and garbage that it will be unusable within a year unless someone steps in.
I don't know if I would call it "screwing over". Apple is bound to step on a few toes as they add additional functionality to the iPhone, but that is just business and it should be expected. What about when they released their own Voice Memos app last June; at that point there were already a lot of Voice recording apps in the app store.
I fear that Google will be far worse in this respect, since they seem to want a Google version of every application on earth. I am sure Google Books will "screw over" anyone doing a book app on the Android platform once it has similar publisher deals.
I bet you were criticising Apple for rejecting apps too. You can't have it both ways; your app may be replaced with Apple's own version at some point. That's life. However, there are plenty of weather apps in the store, despite a weather app coming bundled with your iPhone to cite one example, so perhaps all is not lost.
I have to agree with you. For so long, APPLE touted itself as the system for the innovative developers. The iTunes App Store would be NOTHING without those guys. Now all of a sudden, APPLE will now cut these guys out. If I was a developer, I would not even consider producing any product for the iPhone. Why bother if Big Rotten Apple will just come along at any time to steal the business right out from under you? All those developers should just jump ship and develop for GOOGLE. At this point, APPLE makes Microsoft look like sweet little kitten.
A tabslate is a handheld computer Larger than an IPHONE and Smaller than a Laptop. Apple's tabslate certainly fits the description and what a game changer it will be..I forsee this as the product that Steve and Company had in mind back in the original days of developing the First Apple Computer. It's almost here and YES, this "tabslate" will change forever how the average family will gather information, knowledge, and entertainment.. By the way, if you can get a hold of Steve...tell him tabslate.com, mytabslate.com, and itabslate.com are available....
I've heard that the tablet's going to sell for $1000. that sounds like a lot to me. i'm not sure where this is going to fit in for most people. i'm okay with buying an e-reading device for $250 or so....but what am i going to do with a laptop, this tablet and a smartphone. i already have a netbook which is pretty crappy...i'm going to go back to buying real fully-functional laptops with real keyboards and a real processor that i can play real games on. i'll leave the casual games to my smartphone.
Did you bother to read the article, which said that it was going to be much less than the $1,000 rumors? Disagree? Anyway, I know what I'm going to do with a laptop (photoshop), an iPhone (calls, email and just about everything else except Photoshop and any extensive writing when I'm away from home), and the Apple slate (everything except phone calls and photoshop when I'm home away from my desktop -- and that amounts to just about half of the computing/reading I do). I can't say yet if I'll write on the tablet -- have to see the interface first. I don't know if I'm typical but I'm sure I'm not the only person who can see a use for this.
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