iPad What will iPad do for e-books?

[Yoshi 1080]

Originally Posted by Pardoz

If Jobs has his way, put pressure up on e-book prices (to the tune of around 50% more).

Maybe Apple just didn't want to get in the fight Amazon and the book industry have over the 9.99$ price. It's not something the publishers are very fond of; some have even put their eBook releases on hold because of that.

I can hardly imagine Jobs saying: ”Whutt, 10 bucks is way to cheap! Let's make it more expensive for no apparent reason!” Apple fought very long to get the price of music down to .99$ a song and eventually they lost and had to price chart music higher (1.29$).

[Catire]

As long as they don't include DRM in their ebooks I don't mind the 12-14.99 price tag for hardcover bestsellers.

[thinkpad]

Originally Posted by Pardoz

Apple wanting to drive e-book prices up? Hardly a secret, they want to move the price point up to 14.99 from Amazon's 9.99, they've said so repeatedly. Here's the Wall Street Journal on it: Apple's business model for books, which the company has kept under tight wraps, shifts the focus away from the bargain-basement prices Amazon has made popular, according to publishers that have met directly with the company. Apple is asking publishers to set two e-book price points for hardcover best sellers: $12.99 and $14.99.

The same article notes "The Apple model would bring in less revenue per title for publishers and authors...But there is nevertheless a strong draw: In adopting the Apple model, the balance of power would shift at least partly back to publishers, which regain control of pricing. In setting higher prices, they could provide a level playing field for all e-book retailers." (emphasis mine).

The question is if the iPad owners will be happy with paying $5 bucks more for the same book, seems to me users will just use the Kindle app (if available) on there iPad and thereby support Amazons pricing indirectly.

[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by Catire

As long as they don't include DRM in their ebooks I don't mind the 12-14.99 price tag for hardcover bestsellers.

They're not only including DRM, they're including their own DRM, which isn't compatible with anybody else's DRM.

[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by thinkpadx

The question is if the iPad owners will be happy with paying $5 bucks more for the same book, seems to me users will just use the Kindle app (if available) on there iPad and thereby support Amazons pricing indirectly.

Which is why I'm currently betting against the Kindle/Kobo/B&N/anybody else apps being allowed to run on the iFap.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Pardoz

Which is why I'm currently betting against the Kindle/Kobo/B&N/anybody else apps being allowed to run on the iFap.

Apple would only be shooting itself in the foot by refusing to allow apps from major corporations that are already demanding them (and therefore losing income gained through corporate licensing). If they don't allow it, the apps will simply end up on competitive devices (some of which are right around the corner), losing Apple all of that business.

No: Apple will agree to the apps. And at least some of the apps will allow owners to read independently-purchased e-books as well. People unhappy with the iPad arrangement will simply use other hardware and buy elsewhere. So Apple will not control the market, they will simply be one more influential factor among others.

[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Apple would only be shooting itself in the foot by refusing to allow apps from major corporations that are already demanding them (and therefore losing income gained through corporate licensing).

On the other hand, if they're serious about their e-book strategy as laid out to the publishers (raise ebook prices to 15 bucks for an e-book bestseller, Apple takes a smaller cut of the price) they'd be cutting their own throats to open the device to anybody else. If I can buy the book for $9.99 by clicking 'Kindle', why would I pay 14.99 by clicking 'iBook'?

At this point we just don't have any solid info. Last week, lots of people 'knew' that Apple's e-books would be DRM-free, and the more realistic ones figured they'd be using Adobe DRM. This week we 'know' that they'll be opening the app store to competing bookstore/reading apps. I certainly hope they will, just as I hope that somebody cracks their new DRM quickly, but it's just hope and guesswork at this point.

[TallMomof2]

If you go with the argument that Apple is a hardware company versus a software or an apps company then I can see them allowing all of the reader apps. And if you look at Apple's sales figures, the hardware far outsells the software and the apps. Check out this figure:



As you can see Apple makes most of their revenue from hardware sales so it would make sense for them to allow as many apps as possible in order to sell more hardware.

I wonder how much pull the publishers have in this?

[kjk]

Originally Posted by Pardoz

Last week, lots of people 'knew' that Apple's e-books would be DRM-free

Oh, come on. Link me to a lot of people who claimed Apple's eBooks would be DRM free. Seriously, I understand your enduring skepticism about Apple. But you don't need to exaggerate to make the point-we get it.

[kjk]

Originally Posted by TallMomof2

If you go with the argument that Apple is a hardware company versus a software or an apps company then I can see them allowing all of the reader apps. And if you look at Apple's sales figures, the hardware far outsells the software and the apps. Check out this figure:



As you can see Apple makes most of their revenue from hardware sales so it would make sense for them to allow as many apps as possible in order to sell more hardware.

I wonder how much pull the publishers have in this?

Hey, I don't see AppleTV in there!

[stustaff]

Originally Posted by kjk

Hey, I don't see AppleTV in there!

Its represented by the grey line running along the bottom.

[TallMomof2]

Originally Posted by kjk

Hey, I don't see AppleTV in there!

[emellaich]

Originally Posted by calvin-c

One of the major reasons Microsoft became the dominant force it did is because they realized that growing the market gave them more sales than cornering the market. IOW, they marketed PC's to non-PC users (in the generic sense of PC).

Apple, I think, is attempting the same with the iPad.

Sorry that I'm responding late to this, but I don't have the same opinion that you do Calvin-c. Apple was in the game before Microsoft and the IBM PC and the reason that apple lost was the same reason that (I hope -- no bias here - grin) they will lose the current market.

Apple has always had more polished products because of their tight control of their products. But, as much as people like to bash Microsoft about its closed system, MS's openness is what won it the market. You could buy any hardware from any manufacturer and run windows. There were many more app's available on Windows machines.

When we go to the iphone, the closed system got even tighter because of the restrictive app store approval process. Frankly, Steve Jobs had a telling moment in the interview posted on the net with Mossberg.

Jobs was asked about the comparison of ibooks for the ipod with the Kindle. Jobs defended ibooks and said it was better. I have no problems with that as far as it goes. However, I would have preferred him to say something like this: 'We believe that iBooks will be a superior choice with its interface, book selection and prices; however, the ipad is an open device and we would welcome an upgraded Kindle app customized for the ipad so you can purchase an ipad and have your choice of book reading applications.' Instead, i expect them to do everything they can to squash competition on the ipad.

This is all speculation, but my prediction is that android will be the long term winner in the field because of its openness. I'm watching the same thing I saw with the Apple/Mac versus IBM-Dos/Windows. Android is cruder, there is fragmentation in the Android market, but there is choice. For example, where is the iphone with a keyboard (for my kids)? I believe there will be a Android/Chrome or possibly a Windows7 tablet from (Acer/HTC/HP/Dell/Archos/Toshiba/Samsung/LG/Sony/Hanlin/Netronix/Someone) that is better for me than the single solution from Apple. Although, no doubt, Apple will be near the top.

Reemphasizing that last point, I think that Apple will be at the top, but I don't think that it can always deliver the absolute best from among the dozens of competitors for the next twenty years. A solution, such as Android, that invites participation from many manufacturers will have a better chance of producing a device that satisfies me.

MLH

[RedHeadPeter]

Great discussion. Seems to me serious readers have either already bought an e-book reader or decided they will never buy one (lots of people in that camp). So I don't see that the people who are going to buy this (and there will be lots of them) are going to massively change the e-book market because, in the main, they aren't book readers. I don't see that the Apple-DRM issue is an issue for these people - the few books they will read they will read only on this device because they won't have any other e-reading hardware or software.

The newspaper/magazine market is interesting. There is a war underway already between those newspapers (like all those owned by Rupert Murdoch) who want to charge for e-access and others (like the Guardian group in the UK) who don't and (in a 3rd camp) those like the BBC who aren't a newspaper but still provide enormous amounts of news and journalism through their licence-fee funded operations. (Time we took steps to stop all those from outside the UK accessing for free stuff I have paid for. ) Until the dust settles on that little conflict no telling what is going to happen to the paid for model which seems to be central to the iPad.

On the hardware front I think its clear that the ipad will force the price of e-readers down. Some of the comparisons made here aren't necessarily valid (the $499 model is clearly limited because of tiny memory and no 3G) but the e-reader makers will respond to avoid their business model being savaged.

It is, though, just an iPod on steroids. I want a device that size (but preferably 16:9) that is a proper computer. But it would have to be significantly better than my netbook to make it worthwhile.

I'm getting more and more curious about this idea of reading technical books and journals etc on e-readers. I've said it elsewhere but as a researcher I find e-readers are useless. You can't flick backwards and forewards between index and main text. You can't stick little labels in pages (different colours to tell me different things). Now - if there was a device that allowed to to mark a section of text and drag it into one of several folders, and take with it any references in this bit of text, and kept with it all referencing material. Then we'd be on a winner - but the market would be tiny. So my e-reader is for novels. But maybe I'm missing something, or just being useless (no surprise )

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by TallMomof2

As you can see Apple makes most of their revenue from hardware sales so it would make sense for them to allow as many apps as possible in order to sell more hardware.

And yet it seems so many of their design decisions (such as forgoing SD card slots) are driven by content.