Apple is going to announce an ebook reader next week

[CyGuy]

Originally Posted by tyche

iTunes is their ace. Ipod and then iPhone are popular because of iTunes integration not because "everyone else has one so I should". I think tech savvy people fail to realize they are a minority and there are millions who just want to point and click and get their music, movies, tv shows, apps and....books on their portable devices.

itunes is one of the huge fails on their part actually. Having a package like that as an option for people who are not computer savvy might be okay, but don't lock the device so it does not perform like it should. Copy/paste to/from the device is a must, not an option.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by tyche

iTunes is their ace. Ipod and then iPhone are popular because of iTunes integration not because "everyone else has one so I should". ....

That's very much a negative for me.

[Penforhire]

iTunes is what enabled Apple's tremendous rise in PMP market share. How can you call that a failure? iPods + iTunes is the very definition of financial success. You don't like it so that means you're in a minority that view it as a negative. You are entitled to believe what you like but don't call their success a failure because you won't buy one.

I mentioned elsewhere, if you are PC savvy then there is alternative 3rd party software for managing iPods or treating them as USB drives.

[kjk]

Actually, it isn't iTunes the App as much as the credit cards associated to every user, that makes Apple's eCommerce so effective...as we'll see when Apple moves iTunes from a desktop app to the Web.

[calvin-c]

Originally Posted by tyche

iTunes is their ace. Ipod and then iPhone are popular because of iTunes integration not because "everyone else has one so I should". I think tech savvy people fail to realize they are a minority and there are millions who just want to point and click and get their music, movies, tv shows, apps and....books on their portable devices.

'point and click to get their music' etc. You mean like purchasing music from Walmart.com & downloading them to the Removable Disk in my music player?

As far as I can see (and I've helped several people who use iTunes) all iTunes does that other places don't is 'manage' their purchases in a way that makes it difficult for them to upgrade to anything other than an i device. So no, I don't think people buy iPods or iPhones because of iTunes-I think they use iTunes because they bought an iPod or iPhone. But we're trying to dig into buyers' motivations here, always a speculative thing, even if you have a survey to back you up. (Surveys reveal what the respondents want them to reveal-and few people will admit buying something due to peer pressure.)

[kennyc]

Or like mp3's from Amazon.com?

and no lock-in, no issues if you want to do something else with them...

[kjk]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Or like mp3's from Amazon.com?

and no lock-in, no issues if you want to do something else with them...

What lock-in/issues do Apple's iTunes songs have again?

[Penforhire]

All earlier music had Apple-specific DRM ("FairPlay"). Look up PlayFair (now HYMN) for someone's answer to that. There is non-DRM music available at a premium price but I haven't bought any.

[kjk]

Originally Posted by Penforhire

All earlier music had Apple-specific DRM ("FairPlay"). Look up PlayFair (now HYMN) for someone's answer to that. There is non-DRM music available at a premium price but I haven't bought any.

Apple doesn't sell any DRM music anymore-not just the premium songs-none.

iTunes Plus songs are available at one of three price points. In the U.S. the pricing is 0.69 USD, 0.99 USD, or 1.29 USD each.

Can I still buy music encoded at 128 Kbps with Digital Rights Management (DRM)?
Music on the Store available in iTunes Plus will no longer be available as 128 kbps and with DRM.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1711

[93terp]

Originally Posted by TallMomof2

I'm betting on a tablet with strong reader capabilities. Itunes store integration and apps for the Touch/iPhone are also very likely. As long as it doesn't include exclusive deals on books this can only help everyone. Just look at Amazon's new proposal to compensate authors/publishers. If there weren't a strong possibility of Apple entering the ebook market do you think Amazon would do this?

Completely agree. I wouldn't bet against Apple on this one. I think Amazon's dominance of the ereader world is about to end. Whatever it is, it won't be perfect out of the gate, but look at what the iPhone did for the smartphone market. As far as I can tell, there has yet to be an iPod/iPhone killer, although many have tried. Say what you will about Apple & their fanboys, they put out products that people flock to. They didn't invent the portable music/MP3 player, but it didn't take them long to capture that market and the same is true of the iPhone.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I would be astounded if Apple came out with an E-ink reader. I don't see it happening.

Me, either.

There's a good article on Apple's design vision at http://gizmodo.com/5452501/the-apple...&autoplay=true.

Basically, the contention is that Apple's devices after the iPhone are moving toward a kind of morphing device. That is, by changing the interface, Apple changes the device from one device to another: from a phone to a mp3 player to a camera &c.

There's no reason to suppose that Apple would go from this to a dedicated device.

[calvin-c]

Originally Posted by kjk

Apple doesn't sell any DRM music anymore-not just the premium songs-none.

And that change, being fairly recent, would have nothing to do with whether or not iTunes pushed Apple's sales or not. (It might have pushed their sales since the change was made-but is anybody seriously suggesting that iTunes, the current 800-pound gorilla in online music sales, was a 10-pound monkey prior to it?)

[yvanleterrible]

No dedicated devices from aPple. They will never have them anymore. This will be a netbook type device in a tablet format with touch interface and -10"+ OLED display.
Can any one say magazines?

[kjk]

Originally Posted by calvin-c

And that change, being fairly recent, would have nothing to do with whether or not iTunes pushed Apple's sales or not. (It might have pushed their sales since the change was made-but is anybody seriously suggesting that iTunes, the current 800-pound gorilla in online music sales, was a 10-pound monkey prior to it?)

I never said it was. I was referring to the "lock-in" comment.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by calvin-c

The only thing new about the iPhone, AFAIK, was the multi-touch capability. All other 'new' features were variants of features that had been available on other cell phone/PDA's for several years. I'm not denying that Apple did a good job, but if people had *really* looked around a lot of them would have opted for the cheaper phones that had the same capabilities-but that wouldn't have been 'cool' because the iPhone was what was 'hot'.

It was the interface, not the applications. It takes about two seconds to learn how to get to and start up an iPhone app. You don't have to dig through menus, or worry about what folder something is in.

Apple changed the way we interfaced with computers, then it changed the way we interfaced with PDAs (which category includes cell phones.)

I'm hoping that they are about to change the way we interface with tablets. I expect the change to include ebooks, but I don't expect the ebook aspects to be primary. I expect the tablet to be an entertainment device - games, movies, music, books, magazines. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that it will interface somehow with TVs. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that it can be charged by placing it on a charging pad. I wouldn't be surprised to find that it streams Netflix.

It won't do anything that isn't already being done. It will just be done more easily, and more expensively, and, as you say, with more "cool."