If the iPad was supposed to be a magic bullet for e-books, why hasn’t iBooks made more of a splash in the e-book market? Jason Bennett asks the question in an entry on Melville House Publishing’s blog, pointing to the much higher Kindle (24%) than iPad 1 (13%) ownership among those waiting in line to buy an iPad 2, and Apple’s overall cageyness about iBooks sales in its quarterly report.

Apple certainly hasn’t seen fit to go to some of the lengths Amazon or Barnes and Noble have for providing more avenues of sale for their books. There is as yet no desktop e-book reader for iBooks books, for instance. (Indeed, since iBooks requires OS 4, it’s not even compatible with all the Apple handheld devices that Amazon and B&N’s apps support—I can read a Kindle or Nook book on my 1st-generation iPod Touch, but I’ll never read an iBook there.)

For all that we have Apple in large part to blame for the agency pricing that now infects the e-book industry, they haven’t seemed to do much with it—except produce the fairly ominous pronouncement that all apps with content stores (which presumably includes e-book stores) are going to have to kick in a 30% cut to Apple. And that means Apple is effectively going to kick those stores out of its platform, making it that much less attractive to future would-be purchasers who already have an investment in Kindle or Nook books.

I find iBooks to be a pretty enough e-book reading app, for the EPUBs I’ve purchased elsewhere—but I would never buy an e-book from them. Not when I can read Kindle and Nook ones in so many other places. I wonder if Apple has any idea just how much it’s going to harm its devices’ market when it kicks the other stores out.

15 COMMENTS

  1. Personally, I don’t see why people like Kindle/Amazon media lock-in and run screaming from every other form of ebook drm.

    Anyway…

    Apple seems to take the long view on a lot of things. Things don’t have to be immediately successful ( though they don’t throw money away like Microsoft does trying to find something, anything, that’ll stick to the wall. ). Like AppleTV or MobileMe. And people forget that the iTunes store wasn’t an immediate success.

    IBooks appears to be one of those slow growth projects. Every month or so another publisher is added to iBooks, not that the media pundits notice since they’ve already given it up for dead.

  2. Quote from Andy: “IBooks appears to be one of those slow growth projects. Every month or so another publisher is added to iBooks, not that the media pundits notice since they’ve already given it up for dead.”

    Slow growth projects only succeed if there’s little other real competition. That was true with iTunes. People were buying iPods by the truckload and needed iTunes to manage them. And there was an important difference. If they had CDs–and most of them did at that time–they could bypass the iBookstore.

    But that isn’t true of the iBookstore. Few people have digital copies of books on CD and, in the time it takes Apple to add one feature to iBooks, Amazon is adding three to four new features to the Kindle and Kindle apps on every major platform. Amazon just added an enormously important feature, library checkout, to Kindles, even promising it’ll be on my aging Kindle 1. It’s clear that Amazon doesn’t have a slow growth policy. It’s in this fight to win.

    The only thing that’s keeping the iPad a major contender as an ereader are the third-party ereader apps. If their developers desert the platform rather than pay Apple’s 30% credit processing fee, Apple won’t be selling enough iPads to serious book readers to grow iBookstore into something larger. And keep in mind an important fact. If you want to sell digital books, you need serious readers on your platform. It matters not how many iPads you sell to gamers and web browsers.

    I had hoped that Apple would provide healthy competition for Amazon, so no one company could dominate the market. But it appears that Apple doing everything backwards. They’re devoting few resources to making their iBookstore competitive in features or titles (the ‘slow growth’ policy). And they’re attempting to win by using FUD–fear, uncertainty and doubt–about whether these third-party ereader apps will still be available on iDevices in June.

    That is a major mistake. It’d have been a trivial task for Apple marketing to issue a statement to clear up that uncertainty. Now, even if they do allow those apps to stay, they’ve shown that they’re not to be trusted. They have shown that playing brinksmanship games with competitors matters more than meeting customers needs.

    To be fair, Apple’s iDevices have some advantages.

    1. There’s still no Instapaper app for Kindles, despite the fact that it’d make an excellent Instapaper reader. Attempts to work around that by downloading documents to Kindles miss they fact that’s it’s the bidirectional synching and storage folders that makes Instapaper so marvelous.

    2. There are almost no useful, work-a-day apps for the Kindle. Most Kindle apps are word games and the like. The hysteria that greeted the arrival of a primitive, clumsy-to-use, note-taking app for the Kindle shows just how threadbare the Kindle app market still is. It needs as a bare minimum calendars, to-do lists, and a simple messaging system.

    3. The keyboard on Kindles is so dreadful, I’d rather type on my iPhone’s tiny screen. One of the reasons I’m keeping my Kindle 1 is that its keyboard at least has number keys, unlike the Kindle 3. Amazon is pushing the Kindle platform’s excellent book-note features. But note-taking on a Kindle is still a giant pain. The Kindle needs what iDevices have, the ability to attach a Bluetooth keyboard.

  3. Apple’s DRM is the only significant ebook scheme that has not been circumvented. This means that any ebook buyer wishing to keep ebooks for more than a year or so is avoiding iBooks, because the ability to strip DRM from ebooks you bought is the only guarantee of longevity. It also helps for multi-device use, which is again a problem for iBooks if the device isn’t from Apple.

  4. A lot about the iPad was unfinished. I have the sense that some areas the big boss Steve Jobs cared about, and those areas were finished and well-made; areas he didn’t care so much about were punted, in order to get the thing out the door before anybody else had a tablet.

    Jobs had some quotes a few years back about reading; basically he said, ‘Nobody reads anymore.’ So why should he care about iBooks? It’s an afterthought for Apple. They are far more interested in periodicals and newspapers on the iPad, where continuing subscription pricing means Apple will get paid ‘rent’ on all the magazines and newspapers you read on your iPad.

    Amazon on the other hand has put Kindle apps on iOS, Android, PC, Mac, as well as all the Kindles. This makes Amazon the Netflix of books. It will be interesting to see what happens should Apple kick the Kindle app off iOS devices, and whether Google would follow suit on Android should they ever get Google ebooks going.

  5. “If the iPad was supposed to be a magic bullet for e-books”
    Who exactly made this prediction ? Because I don’t believe anyone expected any such thing, making much of the whole article moot.

    “. . much higher Kindle (24%) than iPad 1 (13%) ownership among those waiting in line to buy an iPad 2,” That says to me that Kindle owners are more keen to get the iPad2 than iPad1 owners. That iPad1 owners are happy with the performance and use of the iPad1 seems to be the obvious reason, while Kindle owners find the limitations of the Kindle disappointing. So all in all a big win for Apple.

    “Apple certainly hasn’t seen fit to go to some of the lengths Amazon or Barnes and Noble have for providing more avenues of sale for their books. ” Well Apple do other stuff ! have you noticed ? It is hardly suprising, and making a big deal out of it makes me wonder about the knowledge and veracity of the person making those comments. It is clear Apple have many priorities. They have been making gazillions in profits from revolutionising the phone and tablet market as well as expanding the Mac market. eBooks have probably slipped down their priority list, and as such it really doesn’t impact on users who can use the iPad and iPhone and their own computers to acquire eBooks and read them on those devices with ease.

    “For all that we have Apple in large part to blame for the agency pricing” I think it takes quite a lot of naivete to believe that had Apple not gone Agency, Amazon and other would not have been forced to . . .

    I also don’t buy the ridiciulous attacks on Apple for taking 30% of sales through their device. Do Amazon allow ANYone else to sell through their device ? Does anyone else allow it? The answer is no.
    And it doesn’t have a big impact on iPad users anyway, who are free to buy from other sources and upload to the iPad anytime they wish. I use Stanza on my iPd and iPhone and love it. All of these supposed problems are a fiction.

    To Allen – I immediately remove ALL DRM from ALL eBooks I buy, whether from Amazon, iBooks or independent sources. I bought it. I own it. I remove any cr@p in it from any company that wants to interfere with my ownership.

  6. Well, Apple always seems to know what they are doing in the end. But if I can’t use Kindle on the iPad, I won’t buy one. I agree the ebook is pretty from ibooks, but I don’t usually buy from them for two reasons. 1 – not enough selection and 2 – when the book is in stock, it’s usually 3 – 4$ more expensive.

    Fingers crossed Apple has a plan to make this all work.

  7. I think to be fair to the article the ensuing media frenzy surrounding the launch of the iPad did much make of it’s ebook capabilities and the launch of the iBookstore with the suggestion that the iBookstore would do for eBooks what iTunes did for music downloads.

    I think the 30% in app purchase charge levied by Apple is entirely sensible from their point of view. It’s their platform and other companies are making a lot of money from Apple’s platform without any of it going to Apple. I can’t use iBooks on the Kindle and buy from iBookstore so why should the same be true in reverse. There’s nothing to stop people still using Stanza etc on their iphones / ipads they will just having to download to the desktop first and upload across, a slight niggle and against the “spirit” of instant ebook purchasing but hardly a major barrier.

    The iBookstore does seem to be considerably behind others in terms of pricing and availability, I read daily new about new publishers, new deals and features been added by various retailers whereas the iBookstore seems to be a lot quieter.

    However I think Apple know exactly what they’re doing. They can’t compete on price (agency model) and they can’t compete on range (Amazon) but what they do have is millions of customers that can be walled in and will use iBookstore by default. Let’s face it nobody who is going to buy an iphone or ipad will choose not to simply because they can only use iBooks and not Kindle / Stanza etc, so it will have no effect on the sales of these devices. Eventually the only ebooks app available on them will be iBooks, and then they will have successfully created a walled garden and those millions of device holders will use iBookstore.

  8. Staffchoice – while I agree with much of what you say, you make the assumption that other eBook reading apps cannot stay on the iPad/iPhone if they cannot sell through them. This makes no sense to me. I see all/most of these apps staying on the devices, but possibly without direct in-app purchasing capability.
    Imho this ‘instant purchase’ thing is enormously over hyped. reading is not something I do in a massive hurry. Nor is buying a book. Reading is about relaxing, to me. It is about taking the time to pick the right books, and then at the right time, reading them at leisure.

  9. Howard: perhaps the act of reading is not something people do in a “massive hurry,” but people become quite sensitive to time related issues when they are trying to pay for something. Apple (and Amazon and other resellers) really ONLY care about that. Book quality and reading experience are absolutely lower priorities to them.

    Honestly, your constant defense of everything Apple makes me curious how much AAPL stock you have in your portfolio.

  10. Anon – I use PCs and Apples and Blackberries and other devices in my work and home life – one of my work computers uses Windows and my second phone is a Pearl. I do find Apple products superior. If that is objectionable to you then fine. Your problem with it makes me curious about your own motivations….. so where does all that get us ?

    “..people become quite sensitive to time related issues when they are trying to pay for something”
    This is not relevant to what I was saying. I was referring to the need to buy a new book ‘now – this instant’ rather than at my leisure in the evening after browsing Amazon and Indie web sites etc and mulling over the decisions. I personally believe most people will take that approach rather than demand instant purchase.

  11. Howard – As you say, these apps would still be on the iphone / ipad however as you say they’ll be there in a non-purchasing way which for your purchasing habits may not be an issue however I think the instant purchase feature is important for 2 reasons.

    Firstly a key part of the instant purchase is ease of purchase rather than a decision about which book to actually purchase. At the moment, once I know what book I want to buy I can click on my iphone stanza / kindle app and buy and download a book, anytime, anyplace, easy. However if these apps remained on the iphone without a direct in app purchase then I would have to purchase from my desktop computer and sync with the iphone. Something I can’t do for instance if I’m on holiday or travelling or my internet is down at home etc…..

    Also, I think you underestimate that amount of buyers that do want instant purchase. Not all book buyers buy at leisure after mulling over decisions, many books are bought out of impulse or because someone has just read / heard a good review. I think the ability for someone to be able to read a review on an iphone on a news site, a review site, facebook etc or to see an advert for the new James Patterson (not my personal choice but a good example for here as I doubt people put serious thought into buying the new James Patterson, they just buy it because they like him and it’s the new one) whilst sat on train / metro and then immediately switch to an app and purchase is hugely important and something that does and will drive ebooksales. If the only app I can do this on is iBooks….then Apple have succeeded in creating a captive audience of millions of iphone / ipad users….and as was the original discussion point of this article, iBooks will become a far more prominent player than it currently is.

  12. Two factors that severely hinder my usage of iBooks is the fact that .pdf files and ibooks are read differently. Any pdfs don’t have the same options as actual books. That and the fact that the shelf system is pretty limited in its customization. While the Kindle iPad app isn’t a whole lot better in terms of categorization (really, I hope they add at least some more options here), it just has a whole lot slicker feel to it. As for books themselves, anything with DRM on it goes through a remover script here first. I buy it, it’s mine, simple as. Using Calibre I just convert everything to .mobi format so Kindle can pick it up. Personally, I love Kindle as a reader app. The only real disadvantage the iPad has as a reader is the terrible screen that makes it impossible to read anything outdoors. Means I still have to bring books when I go on holiday for example, which is exactly what I had hoped to avoid.

    I also agree with Staffchoice. Personally, I dream of a Spotify equivalent for books (and movies, TV, etc. for that matter). A flat monthly fee, easy creation of ‘playlists’ that can be shared with others, availability of books anywhere at any time, and so on…

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