TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Archive for the ‘iPhone’ Category

By Chris Meadows

Ben Kunz at Bloomberg Businessweek has an interesting post on Apple’s pricing practices. Kunz posits that Apple uses psychological pricing tricks such as reference prices and price “decoys” to boost sales of more expensive items. I can’t say I agree with all of his points, but he brings up some interesting things to consider.

Kunz first discusses price decoys, items that don’t really look like very good deals in order to make slightly better items look much better. He suggests that the rumored 7” iPad is such a price decoy, to make a 10”, more featureful version look like a bargain and defend against the impending tidal wave of lower-priced tablets from competitors.

Decoys explain why Apple often sells each gadget in a pricing series, such as the new iPod Touch’s $229, $299, and $399 price points for different storage capacities. You may gladly spend $229 to get a hot media player, thinking it’s a deal vs. the highest-priced version … and not blink that you could instead buy an iPhone 4 at the lower price of $199 with more features. The $399 "decoy" has clouded your judgment. Apple wins the best of both worlds—stoking demand for products that look like bargains and for all the decoys it sells at much higher prices. Yes, some people will spend $399 for a music player with slightly better technology—and Apple makes even fatter margins.

Here Kunz brings up a point he will hammer on a couple more times over the course of the article: that the iPod Touch is more expensive than the more-capable iPhone, therefore Apple must employ eeeevil pricing tricks to sell it. I’ll come back to that in a bit.

A couple of Kunz’s other points have to do with setting a reference price—introducing something at a high price, then discounting it quickly so that it looks like a bargain compared to its original asking price (as Apple did with the originally $599 iPhone). Of course, Apple is not alone in this; Amazon has done something similar with its Kindles, though over a bit longer period of time.

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By Chris Meadows

Steve Jobs had some interesting things to reveal today. In the iPod line, the Shuffle, Nano, and Touch get refreshes. No mention at all of the Classic line; I suppose they’ve had their day.

The Shuffle moves forward by taking a step back—the new one resembles a smaller version of the second in form factor, bringing back the buttons everybody missed from the third, but with the Voiceover and other nifty features that people did like from the third.

The Nano loses the physical controls and goes multitouch, looking like a smaller version of the iPod Touch (but without apps). Now we know what that mysterious small square touchscreen we mentioned in an Apple rumor post I don’t have time to dig up right now was for.

And the Touch is about as expected. Slimmer than ever, Retina Display, A4 chip, Facetime camera, and rear-facing HD video camera. No mention of photographic capability, so presumably it’s a video-only camera like the one from last year’s Nano. If it can’t take photos, that’s a bit disappointing (especially with the new HDR photo capacity in OS 4.1), but on the whole it’s still a considerable improvement over the previous generation. Price points remain the same $229/$299/$399; it is available for pre-order today and ships later this month.

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By Chris Meadows

Sometimes we get accused of becoming an Apple blog, we post so much Apple-centric stuff, but there’s a reason for that. Apple might be obnoxious in its app approval behavior, closed in its development platform, and prudish in its gatekeeping, but there’s no denying that they make some damned fine e-book reading devices. My iPod Touch was my sole e-reader for most of the two years I had it, and I still miss it badly.

Matt Buchanan makes a similar point on Gizmodo, where he says that if the rumors are true about the new iPod Touch that will (presumably) be revealed tomorrow and it ends up with the same retina display, Facetime camera, and 5-megapixel rear camera as the iPhone, it has the potential to be a device “serial killer”—replacing just about every gadget one would carry around (iPod, point-and-shoot camera, motion picture camera, notepad, gaming device, etc.) except the phone.

Buchanan says:

Inexplicably, there’s never been a credible iPod touch competitor. The Zune HD doesn’t run apps (the handful it’s got don’t count), so it’s limited in what it can do—it’s simply a very good music player. Android is still a miserable place to be when it comes to media, and on top of that, all of the Android "tablets" have been thoroughly mediocre. There’s nothing out there that’s remotely like the iPod touch. And obviously, there’s a demand for it, since it’s the only iPod whose sales are still growing.

The iPod Touch has basically taken over the ecological niche vacated when PDAs evolved into smartphones, in much the same way as rats or cockroaches might evolve to replace humans after we kill ourselves off. There haven’t been any real competitors, perhaps because most tablets are larger and most devices the same size are smartphones.

Of course, it does get a boost from being an iPod, given that the original iPods rapidly became the 800-lb gorillas of MP3 players, but it’s nonetheless interesting that not even Palm who first made the PDA format successful has tried to make a wifi-only pocket device since the Palm TX. The iPhone might be only one of many smartphones, but the iPod Touch stands alone. (I made a similar point in a post exactly one year ago today, in fact.)

And depending on what gets unveiled in less than six hours, it might just stand more alone than ever.

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By Chris Meadows

Well, this is a first.

Rather than waiting to post the video until several hours after the event, Apple will be livestreaming its presentation this morning…at least, to those with Macs, iPod Touches, iPhones, or iPads.

Apple® will broadcast its September 1 event online using Apple’s industry-leading HTTP Live Streaming, which is based on open standards. Viewing requires either a Mac® running Safari® on Mac OS® X version 10.6 Snow Leopard®, an iPhone® or iPod touch® running iOS 3.0 or higher, or an iPad™. The live broadcast will begin at 10:00 a.m. PDT on September 1, 2010 at www.apple.com.

I really like how in one sentence they say it’s “based on open standards” and then in the next say that viewing requires one of their devices. That’s Apple for you. Non-Apple-device-owning Windows users are apparently going to have to make do with the liveblogs.

I don’t usually get up until about 1:00 these days, but I’m going to be setting my alarm an hour early so as not to miss this.

(Found via Engadget.)

By Chris Meadows

The iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad make great educational platforms for youngsters; we’ve run many stories on their potential in that respect. But Danial Donahoo from Wired’s “GeekDad” blog wonders if there may now be too much of a mediocre thing.

The iPhone app development model, Donahoo notes, has led to a kind of “gold rush” mentality, in which everyone develops obvious apps as quickly as possible hoping to be the first (or fifth, or twenty-fifth) to market and “strike it rich.”

Consequently, there are a lot of apps for kids that are not well thought through, not developmentally appropriate, or simply way too generic! And, in my professional life and personal life having reviewed and played a lot of these games I think it is time to ask developers to start focusing on quality, rather than quantity.

He points to a screenshot of “News & Noteworthy” education apps, 19 out of 20 of which teach ABCs. Do we, he asks, really need that many alphabet apps?

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By Chris Meadows

If you’re interested in a used iPhone or iPod Touch for e-reading, you’ll soon have another option to buy it. Target is rolling out a trade-in program for mobile electronics such as iPhones, iPod Touchs, or other cell phones—or used video games. (As Engadget notes, its timing is remarkable considering the current controversy over used game sales.) In return, customers get Target gift cards that range from "a few dollars up to more than $200 per item depending on the product and its condition."

Target already has an online service through its website where customers can trade in DVDs or used electronics. As for the store trade-in centers, it has opened them at stores in northern California but plans to expand to 850 stores by the end of the year.

Between single-use codes and DLC, it’s hard to imagine that the used video game market has more than a few years left. I suppose Target and other big-box retailers starting to offer similar programs think they should get in on it while they still can.

By Paul Biba

From The Literary Platform:

The Man Booker Prize has just unveiled its new iPhone app – a first for UK literary prizes. The app, created by award winning digital agency Vexed Digital, will be free to download and will offer access to the Man Booker Prize archive – offering a full chronological history of the prize including information about the judges and the longlist, shortlist and winning authors and books. App users will be able to access exclusive author interviews, video content and audio and text extracts from selected Man Booker Prize titles.

Push notification functionality will let users know about every stage of the Prize, with up to date information on the shortlist and winner announcements. In addition, a unique GPS service allows users to search for their local book shop or to buy directly from online retailers’ websites.

By Chris Meadows

Bill Stiteler at our sister blog Appletell has posted a piece looking at the possibility of Apple adding Facetime to the next generation of iPod Touch (as I did here).

He does mention a couple of points that I didn’t consider. One is that turning the iPod Touch into a wifi VoIP phone would allow Apple to offer phone service of a sort without having to put up with the complaints about AT&T’s service or the external cell phone antenna.

Another is the possibility that the iPod Touch will only have the front-facing FaceTime camera and not the rear-facing photo/video camera. I hadn’t thought of that; I’d just assumed it would come with both. On the other hand, having just the Facetime camera would lower the manufacturing cost, and might also placate phone companies who might not be too pleased about Apple moving to make them less necessary.

I still wish that it was possible to get an iPod Touch with iPad-like 3G data connectivity. Of course, people would use it as a voice-over IP phone, which is less convenient to do with the bulky 3G iPad.

But then, in this era of high-speed Internet data service, charging separate rates for voice, text messaging, and Internet data is making less and less sense. Unlike with landline phones, where voice is analog and DSL is digital, everything that goes over a cell phone line is data. The only reasons cell phone companies continue to charge for these things separately are tradition and that they can.

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By Chris Meadows

ReadWriteWeb has an interesting piece about a German newspaper pairing an issue of its paper with an “augmented reality” iPhone app, so that when the iPhone is held over certain places on the paper it displays content related to the stories in the paper.

I tend to think of “augmented reality” as being what you get when you hold the iPhone up and an app superimposes something over the camera view—but then again, this German paper’s app is also location-based, in a sense, so I suppose that’s fair. It’s a clever idea, and reminds me of the “digital footnote” QR codes I mentioned one publisher adding to a public domain book a few months back (and, subsequently, another developer implementing without needing QR codes).

The RWW headline asks if augmented reality can help “save” the print publishing industry—though oddly enough, the article text doesn’t really follow up on this beyond a vague comment at the end that it “is perhaps a hint at how augmented reality can help the dwindling print publishing industry.”

The headline put me in mind of an editorial I’d seen just a few minutes before on Techdirt, that asks if we should really be interested in “saving” any industry. Mike Masnick writes that whenever you hear someone using that term, you should pay a lot closer attention to what it is they really mean:

The truth is, whenever anyone seriously (not mockingly) refers to "saving" an industry, invariably, they’re really talking about saving a few legacy companies in that industry from whatever disruptive innovation is shaking things up. It’s never actually about "saving an industry," because the "industry" almost never actually needs to be saved. The industry may be in the process of being changed (often radically), but that’s not the same thing as needing saving.

It led me to consider writing a satirical column on how the industries going through radical changes were actually the ones that were being “saved”—in the sense that they’d found a new religion and were making radical changes to their entire system of beliefs as a result. But I don’t think I could carry the joke quite that far.

It’s not too surprising we should keep seeing headlines like that right now, given how many industries are being disrupted by the digital revolution—e.g., music, movies, books, newspapers, etc. “Can X be saved?” is just another way of asking “is X dead?” and we know just how many people have been asking that lately.

By Gary Price Founder and Senior Editor of Resource Shelf

Take a print title and add an iPhone-based walking tour of the many locations mentioned in the book. If you can’t make it to London in the near future the app will likely still prove interesting and informative.

New from the Wellcome Collection and Library.

From a Blog Post:

Wellcome Collection have produced a free iPhone app to accompany the Medical London: City of Diseases, City of Cures book. The app offers an audiovisual tour of Bloomsbury and the surrounding area, delving into the medical heritage quite literally on the Wellcome Library’s doorstep.

The original work by author Richard Barnett drew heavily on the Library’s holdings. Subtitled Blood, Guts, Brains and Babies, the tour begins at Lincoln’s Inn Fields and covers approximately three miles. On average it should take around two hours to complete, but of course depends on your pace – and how sidetracked you get.

If you can’t get to Bloomsbury to hit the pavements for yourself, we would still heartily encourage you to check the free app out (or indeed, viewing the content online).

 

See Also: Access iPhone App (Free)

See Also: No iPod, No Problem! Web-Based Materials for Walking Tour (mp3 and PDF)

Source: Wellcome Collection & Library

Via Resource Shelf

By Chris Meadows

On the Daylife blog, Rachel Sterne posts about a new iPhone app (submitted to Apple but not yet approved) called the Accidental News Explorer, that uses the Daylife API to create a “Pandora for news.” (Referring to Pandora.com, the streaming music service that presents you with a channel full of music similar to given artists or songs you selected.)

As seen in the demonstration video (embedded below the jump), the app is really simple in concept: a reader searches on a particular keyword, producing a list of stories. Then while reading any given story, he can tap a button to bring up a list of keywords related to the article. Tapping on one of these searches on it, bringing up a whole new list of article.

It looks like an interesting app to play around with. The weird thing is, I’m sure I’ve seen something like it before, but can’t remember what or where. Or maybe I’m just thinking about the similar random navigational tendencies evinced by sites like TVTropes or Wikipedia.

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By Gary Price Founder and Senior Editor of Resource Shelf



From an App Store Description:

This app is free to download and use. Very impressive.

The Museum of Modern Art in New York is home to the world’s finest collection of modern and contemporary art. Now you can carry MoMA with you wherever you go. Use the MoMA App to find out about current exhibitions, plan a visit, browse or search tens of thousands (approx. 32,000) of works in the collection, take multimedia tours, or learn about artists and art terms. Take a photo through MoMA Snaps and send it to a friend, or choose your playlist to create a soundtrack for your MoMA visit.

MoMA is a place that fuels creativity, ignites minds, and provides inspiration. Dedicated as we are to the conversation between the past and the present, the established and the experimental, our mission is to help you understand and enjoy the art of our time.

Access the App

Source: iTunes (via App Scout)

See Also: Here Are a Few More iPhone Apps from Museums. They’re all free.

+ Musee de Louvre

+ Graphic Design Museum

+ American Museum of Natural History

+ Dinosaurs: The American Museum of Natural History Collections

+ Brooklyn Museum Mobile

By Paul Biba

Well, the article below inspired me to try out my “new” microscope with my iPhone 3GS and 4. Here is some text from the Kindle application at 10X magnification.

3GS at 10X

4 at 10X

After the break see them at 60X
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By Chris Meadows

Remember the rumor I mentioned about the upcoming iPod Touch having front and rear cameras? John Gruber has given it a boost with an offhanded comment about the Dell Streak. He refers to the $550 ($300 with 2-year AT&T contract) Streak costing “almost twice as much as a good iPod Touch, and if you wait a few weeks to buy the Touch, you’ll get one with a Retina Display and dual cameras.”

Gruber has a reputation for getting inside scoops from Apple, so when he drops that kind of comment people tend to pay attention. Of course, there’s no guarantee he’s speaking from inside sources—he could simply have seen that photo of the iPod Touch’s faceplate and come to the same conclusion as everybody else—but if Gruber even just believes it’s plausible, that’s almost as good.

Of course, there were widespread rumors that the iPod Touch was getting a camera last year, and we all know that didn’t happen. But with Facetime providing a new camera “killer app”, there’s a lot less reason to leave them out this time around.

(Found via Engadget.)

By Chris Meadows

A few days ago, I mentioned the WordPress plug-in PadPressed, which makes blogs resemble Wordpad documents when read on the iPad. Now our founder and editor emeritus David Rothman has put that plug-in into use on his own blog about his book, The Solomon Scandals, with an emphasis on the availability of sample chapters and other material from the book in that format.

Visit it from a desktop web browser and it looks perfectly ordinary. But go there via the iPad’s Mobile Safari, and the interface becomes essentially the same as an iPad app. You can even tap the “+” in the status bar to add an icon for it to your desktop, and thus pretend that it’s “just another iPad app”—only the presence of Safari’s status bar gives away that it’s still a webpage.

When reading ordinary blog entries, you can swipe the screen from left to right or right to left to move to previous or next entries (though it does take a second or two to load the new entry). About the only thing you can’t do is widen, pinch, or double-tap to zoom in or out.

David writes that the plug-in may be a little rough now, “but look, in effect, I’m giving you a preview not just of the book but also of the future. To think that I wrote the first draft of Scandals on an electric typewriter.”

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By Chris Meadows

Our sister blog Gadgetell reports on a Digitimes story that Asus is planning to release an 8” 64-greyscale e-paper reader at “under $599”. (E-Reader Info and Engadget also have coverage.)

When I saw this story, I had to glance at my new wristwatch, which helpfully provides a display for the year as well as month and day, to make sure that I hadn’t accidentally slipped one or two years back in time. (The watch synchronizes by radio with the atomic clock in Fort Collins, Colorado, so I can know for certain that it’s still 2010—the atoms say so!) It’s been at least that long since anyone seriously tried to list an e-reader of that size at that price range.

The 9.7” Kindle DX is $379. The 9.7” color iPad starts at $499. That kind of overpricing is what has presumably killed the Plastic Logic Que, which was supposed to cost $649 for a slightly larger e-paper screen. Meanwhile, the Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and Sony are priced between $100 and $300 depending on model, and mostly between $100 and $200, for 5” or 6” screens. And as the Digitimes story points out, Asus doesn’t have any content distribution deals in place the way Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Border, and Apple have.

Of course, the article only said that the e-reader would be “under $599”. It didn’t say how far “under” it would be. In most commercial cases, “under $599” generally means “exactly $598.99”, but it doesn’t necessarily have to. After all, you could also truthfully say that the iPad costs “under $19,999”, because it certainly does (unless, of course, it’s this one).

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