The Register’s verdict on the U.K. Kindle is mixed: “A competent e-book reader that lets you buy and download your books wirelessly. But you won’t get the same level of service that US users get and format support is limited.” Alas, the U.K. Kindle lacks a Web browser, so useful for downloads from mobile-hip sites like Feedbooks.
Amazon’s stubborn insistence on a proprietary main format, rather than ePub, didn’t score well: “If you ask us, an e-book reader that doesn’t support ePub is a bit of a three-legged nag. Despite what Amazon may think, ePub is now the e-book standard with even Sony—never a company to relish the adoption of technologies it didn’t invent – recently converting its entire DRM e-book library to the format.” While ePub with Adobe DRM is proprietary in effect, nonDRMed ePub very definitely isn’t, and the Sony and Nook on the whole work just fine with that despite some rendering issues.
Where I’d disagree with the Reg: “The Kindle also has a text-to-speech function that works on both purchased and non-DRM content, but unless you fancy all your books read out in a dreadful American monotone—you can chose male or female—you are best advised to steer well clear of this facility.” Actually, to this Yank, the speech synthesis is much better than none at all and certainly adequate.
Just playing right into the content providers/publishers plans. Here we go again. Record companies can’t get Apple to screw their customers with a price hike? Go to the “open format” and turn up the pressure higher and higher until they cave. Anybody seen any 69 cent songs on iTunes? Meanwhile, prices for most songs go up 30%.
Now come book publishers and ePub. Sony has zero interest in low ebook prices and Barnes & Noble is matching some Kindle prices but less than half of the time.
I’m not understanding your logic here, Aaron. Competition tends to lower prices over time.
IIRC, iTunes started out with 99 cent songs. If you don’t like those prices, go check out eMusic.
As to ebooks, it’s the new thing right now, the market is still forming. I’ll take ‘open’ over ‘closed’, even if the price is temporarily higher. Competition is good.
Most songs on iTunes are now $1.29. After several years of Apple refusing to raise prices, the record labels eventually figured out the way around Apple’s iPod dominance was “open” formatted MP3, DRM-free music. It devalued the retailers and device makers and gave the labels back the power.
They squeezed Apple by giving all its competitors low-priced, DRM-free music and got Apple to cave and agree to a 30% price hike in the midst of a pretty severe recession. Then the labels yanked the low-priced music from everybody else. Now there’s plenty of “open” music available at much higher prices.
Emusic is fine if you buy a lot of music — you can’t pay per song — you have to sign up for a minimum monthly plan. And after Sony or one of the big labels agreed to put their catalog on eMusic, didn’t they force eMusic to raise prices too? And how does their catalog compare to iTunes or Amazon as far as the most popular mainstream stuff?
Book publishers are going the same route. Amazon has the best prices on ebooks but in a proprietary DRM. Publishers are going to turn up the heat with an “open” format and then get higher prices.
"There is always something better coming ... sometimes it arrives on time, sometimes its delayed, sometimes it never arrives. (We're still waiting for the iPhone ..."
The Register’s verdict on the U.K. Kindle is mixed: “A competent e-book reader that lets you buy and download your books wirelessly. But you won’t get the same level of service that US users get and format support is limited.” Alas, the U.K. Kindle lacks a Web browser, so useful for downloads from mobile-hip sites like Feedbooks.
Previous
SUBSCRIBE TO RSS
Comments:
Just playing right into the content providers/publishers plans. Here we go again. Record companies can’t get Apple to screw their customers with a price hike? Go to the “open format” and turn up the pressure higher and higher until they cave. Anybody seen any 69 cent songs on iTunes? Meanwhile, prices for most songs go up 30%.
Now come book publishers and ePub. Sony has zero interest in low ebook prices and Barnes & Noble is matching some Kindle prices but less than half of the time.
I’m not understanding your logic here, Aaron. Competition tends to lower prices over time.
IIRC, iTunes started out with 99 cent songs. If you don’t like those prices, go check out eMusic.
As to ebooks, it’s the new thing right now, the market is still forming. I’ll take ‘open’ over ‘closed’, even if the price is temporarily higher. Competition is good.
Most songs on iTunes are now $1.29. After several years of Apple refusing to raise prices, the record labels eventually figured out the way around Apple’s iPod dominance was “open” formatted MP3, DRM-free music. It devalued the retailers and device makers and gave the labels back the power.
They squeezed Apple by giving all its competitors low-priced, DRM-free music and got Apple to cave and agree to a 30% price hike in the midst of a pretty severe recession. Then the labels yanked the low-priced music from everybody else. Now there’s plenty of “open” music available at much higher prices.
Emusic is fine if you buy a lot of music — you can’t pay per song — you have to sign up for a minimum monthly plan. And after Sony or one of the big labels agreed to put their catalog on eMusic, didn’t they force eMusic to raise prices too? And how does their catalog compare to iTunes or Amazon as far as the most popular mainstream stuff?
Book publishers are going the same route. Amazon has the best prices on ebooks but in a proprietary DRM. Publishers are going to turn up the heat with an “open” format and then get higher prices.