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By David Rothman

“Tyrese Gibson’s Mayhem is the first digital book for sale on iTunes 9—perhaps an early sign of Apple’s desire to take on Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s Reader in the digital book market.” – Fortune, via Techmeme roundup.

image Details: Fortune goes on to say: “Take a look at the Mayhem comic iTunes LP ($1.99), and it’s easy to see the potential of book or magazine sales over Apple’s digital store. For starters, Apple has amazing reach—there are more than 100 million iTunes accounts connected to credit cards, which is a sizable audience. In the Mayhem iTunes LP itself there is a beautiful flow to the action; new panels zoom into the foreground as others fade away.”

So what do you think, gang? I strongly doubt that Apple will do dedicated e-reader hardware, but from video to podcasts, it’s always offered a variety of goodies through its store, so e-books would be a natural. I just hope that Apple won’t crimp other vendors to the point where they back off from the iPhone and iPod Touch platforms. Needless to say, I’ll also be wondering about Apple’s ‘tudes toward the ePub standard and DRM, given its relationship with, say, ScrollMotion. Come on, Steve. You made sounds against DRM for music; now treat books the same way.

 
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