In an article mainly covering the new features of the Nook’s firmware update (which we already mentioned here), CNet lets slip this interesting tidbit about a forthcoming iPad version of its eReader app, which could be available as soon as May:
Barnes & Noble reps said the new iPad app is completely redesigned from the ground up. Interestingly, the company is also working on a totally new iPhone app, but it will come out after the iPad app and be offered as a separate download for iPhone and iPod Touch users. Unlike Amazon’s Kindle iPhone/iPad app, the B&N eReader will not be a universal app (you’ll have to download the specific version for the specific device).
Perhaps the prediction I made in my eReader review a few days back will not end up being true after all—if the iPad app is “redesigned from the ground up,” odds are it will not include the “bnereader://” method of sideloading books, since that was an invisible holdover from the original Fictionwise-owned version B&N reskinned.
Like Amazon with MobiPocket, Barnes & Noble likely doesn’t see any percentage in letting the e-book stores it engulfed take any business away from its main one. This doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, given that as part and parcel of B&N any profit eReader and Fictionwise make is profit for the corporation as a whole, but that just seems to be the way the corporate bean counters think.
Pity.
Not sure if any B&N beancounters are Teleread fans but FW customers with big libraries are likely to continue to read. BN is making a mistake if they don’t cater to this important group of early adopters. I’m not giving up on them–I think BN wants to do it right and hope we’ll see full availability of FW libraries on the new reader.
Rob Preece
Publisher
Like we saw the easy ability to load our Fictionwise libraries into the prior Barnes & Noble version of eReader?
Remember how B&N casually (briefly) changed its own e-book format away from eReader to EPUB without giving notice, causing problems with those who were using eReader on their old Palms to read the books they bought?
Remember what they say about spots and leopards.
spots and leopards = leopard print? 😉
I so want B&N to do the right thing by the old ereader/Fictionwise crowd. I will settle, however, for side loaded content on my Nook if they will just get the darned iPad app out the door.
I want my cake, and leopard print cases for all my toys, too.