Prediction: Apple Will Announce a new ebook reader near the end of February

[Eutychus]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Given Mr. Jobs' obvious "hostility" to the idea of eBooks, I seriously doubt that this will happen. Reading is also probably not "mass market" enough for Apple to be interested.

Harry, I do not believe Mr Jobs' was hostile to eBooks. He was doubting the business sense of a dedicated eBook reader when the market would be relatively small.

My son just got an iPod Touch. It is a good iPod. It also is adequate, in spite of its small screen, for watching TV shows and movies. I was most shocked by how good the web surfing is and the calendar and email. I went to Bartleby.com and started reading one of the books there. The print is much clearer than my Palm TX with the upgraded fonts. As soon as the SDK is released I would expect there to be an eBook reader that will the best experience of multi-use devices in that size.

There is a rumor of a coming device which could be a larger Touch or perhaps a Touch with BlueTooth. If a larger Touch came out, it could be significant competition for dedicated eBook readers in spite of the superiority of eInk for reading. I think many people would rather spend their money for a media and internet device which can be used for a good eBook reader. Returning to Mr. Jobs' comment, I believe it should be interpreted to mean, if the people who read a lot were the majority, Apple would would make a dedicated device for it is the best way to read eBooks.

[RWood]

If Sony, Amazon, Cybook, and the rest are already exhausting the current supply of e-ink screens, it would not seem hat Apple would introduce a product that they know they cannot supply in the volume that it will be demanded.

[Darqref]

Originally Posted by Gideon

I think the "Apple is all about fashion, an the last thing I need is a fashion ebook..." is such a straw man it isn't even funny.

I won't deny there are apple fan boys. There are. But a lot of us who are very enthusiastic about our Apple products are enthusiastic not because it is stylish or cool but because it works intuitively and well. I ignored Apple for over a decade as a PC user, it simply wasn't an option. But last year I got a Macbook, and after a few months, picked up an iMac as well and they were the best decisions I ever made regarding how I deal with technology. Not because they were pretty (in fact, I liked how my PC's looked more) but because it was so damn usable and what's more, a pleasant experience to use.

The same goes with the iPhone. My Windows Mobile phone did just about everything an iPhone can do, but it was a giant pain in the butt to do it, ever.

Apple is good at UI. And UI is a very, very important part of how we deal with tech... dismissing what they do as just pretty is insulting. It's not about being pretty, it's about being USABLE. I swear, everytime I hear this stuff it's like listening to Linux fanboys complain... People don't seem to get it, it doesn't MATTER how "powerful" your product is, what matters is "do people want/like to use it." Linux is not user friendly (though it is slowly getting better) and so people don't use it.

I fully admit that my opinions are my own, but they're based on two personal datapoints.

1. I used to test a software product that shipped in both Windows and Mac versions. I had to test the same product on both machines, side by side, and we shipped both products on the same day. This was a buncha versions ago of both win and mac OSs, but I HATED the mac systems. And my first two computers were Apple 2s.

2. A couple of years ago, I spent an evening trying to extract photos from a half dozen different digital cameras, and attempting to assemble a slide show for a church youth group event. We were at a rented camp facility, and the only laptop I could get on short notice was a mac. I wasted hours doing something that should have been fairly easy. Mouse targets didn't do what I expected, and I was constantly having to figure out how to go back to where I made the mistake. I didn't finish in the time available.


Mac products just use a different way of doing things. They are fundamentally neither better nor worse than computers using other operating systems, but if they don't fit the methods by which you work, its just painful. I know I could "get used" to a Mac, but it would be time consuming, painful, and I'm not motivated to do it. I don't own an iPod, and the only reason I've even considered one is that the controls are likely to be the easiest for my mother to understand, since she's legally blind. (other brands that I've seen so far have very tiny controls that don't work very well if you can't see the tiny little screen.)

An apple electronic book would have to be obviously and significantly better than the competition before I'd get over my prejudice and try it.

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by Darqref

I don't own an iPod, and the only reason I've even considered one is that the controls are likely to be the easiest for my mother to understand, since she's legally blind. (other brands that I've seen so far have very tiny controls that don't work very well if you can't see the tiny little screen.)

Try an iPod shuffle it has no screen and is very easy to learn to use.

Shame you don't have time to learn to work on an aPple. For some things it's better than a PC. I have both and I wouldn't have it any other way. Best of both worlds you see.

[nathantw]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

I think Apple is going to announce a new ebook reader at the end of this month. Here's why:

Steve Jobs already said nobody reads anymore. He should know because HE'S ALL KNOWING and book stores are only there for window dressing.

[mores]

It takes a certain desire to re-learn some things to get acquainted with MacOS X. Because the reason it feels different, is because you learned the Windows way of doing something, and the Apple way is different.

@Darqref, you mentioned slideshows and image imports. Did you by any chance use Powerpoint for Mac? That's the worst you can do because it just behaves totally different.
Slideshows with iPhoto are a breeze, even better if you use Keynote (part of iWork).
And I too notice total confusion when I use both systems (Win/Mac) side-by-side. Once you concentrate only on one OS, you learn it pretty quick.

But, I don't believe in an Apple ebook reader. Maybe a device that can read ebooks too, but no dedicated device.

[rmeister0]

A dedicated device makes no sense for Apple.

Adding eBook software to a device you already own...let's say, an iPhone or an iPod Touch, is something Apple could easily do, but I'd honestly rather they left this to third party developers.

FictionWise could port eReader, Mobipocket could port...Mobipocket, Adobe could port Digital Editions (though I suspect they'd work on Flash first), and GowerPoint would port uBook. There's no reason Apple has to do this.

I for one wouldn't buy a $500 eBook device from Apple. But I would spend $50 to put a good text reader on the iPhone I already bought. The screen, battery life and storage capacity on this thing all work in its favor and shame every PDA I'd even owned. With WiFi and Edge, you could even do book buys "over the air" same as the Kindle does.

[stustaff]

I think in the next six months we will see an apple 'mini tablet'.
6" size touch screen, wifi, web browser, google maps, with GPS(maybe as a seperate plug in), stylus for writing/drawing, mp3 and movie player, 64 GB ssd, reduced down version of OSX, ability to read E-books of course, USB to upload pics files on the go, on screen iphone style keyboard.
Cost $1000 $1200 Apple will have see what the ASUS is doing and may even target it slightly lower than this however.

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by stustaff

I think in the next six months we will see an apple 'mini tablet'.
6" size touch screen, wifi, web browser, google maps, with GPS(maybe as a seperate plug in), stylus for writing/drawing, mp3 and movie player, 64 GB ssd, reduced down version of OSX, ability to read E-books of course, USB to upload pics files on the go, on screen iphone style keyboard.
Cost $1000 $1200 Apple will have see what the ASUS is doing and may even target it slightly lower than this however.

Hmmm... The description you give is quite... elaborate. Can you quote this, blame it to being rumo(u)r or is it a wish list?

[europas_ice]

Originally Posted by stustaff

I think in the next six months we will see an apple 'mini tablet'.
6" size touch screen, wifi, web browser, google maps, with GPS(maybe as a seperate plug in), stylus for writing/drawing, mp3 and movie player, 64 GB ssd, reduced down version of OSX, ability to read E-books of course, USB to upload pics files on the go, on screen iphone style keyboard.
Cost $1000 $1200 Apple will have see what the ASUS is doing and may even target it slightly lower than this however.

That would be totally cool. Unfortunately, I also totally couldn't afford it.

[HarryT]

So what did the Feb "event" turn out to be? I must have missed any announcements made.

[Nate the great]

It was bumped to the first week of March, and is only the Iphone SDK. I'm surprised. I didn't think it was that important.

Conspiracy theory: It's a cover story. aPple is actually going to announce a tablet. But you didn't hear it from me.

[HarryT]

I'm not sure I'd say an iPhone SDK is an "only" thing. If they open it up to 3rd party software developers, that could be a huge boost. Might even make it as good as a Windows Mobile phone one day!

[mores]

@nate: what's with the "aPple" spelling?

[Nate the great]

It started as a joke back when the mAcbook aIr was announced. It's a reference to Ipod, Imac, Iphone. etc. Capitalizing the second character in a product name bugs me. Since aPple does it with most products, I do it to aPple.