Apple Event - Live Blogging/Streaming Coverage

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by nekokami

I believe this is false. Amazon takes a larger cut than 30% currently, both from paper and ebooks.

It is a different pricing model. The usual approach for physical book and ebooks is for the publisher to get a percentage of the list price. The iTunes model is for the publisher to get a (larger) percentage of the sale price.

I don't know how this will work out in the end, I guess Amazon would be perfectly happy to take 30% of the selling price if all publishers want to switch to this model. One issue is who sets the price. If the publishers set the iBook prices then what does a higher list price mean? The standard Amazon and MobiPocket contracts say that publishers can't set a higer price for Amazon than for anyone else.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by ZaZg

What's the difference between 16:9 and 4:3?

It seems quite the same to me...

You're thinking of 12:9, which would be the same as 4:3.

[Laurentiu]

Here is a giant leap forward, compared with Sony:

Dictionary support for English (US), English (UK), French, French (Canadian), French (Swiss), German, Japanese, Dutch, Flemish, Spanish, Italian, Simplified Chinese (Handwriting, Pinyin), Russian.

Hey, Sony... you there?

[freecia]

Originally Posted by MerLock

I think I'll wait and see what they come up with for the 2nd generation Ipad. $499 looks tempting but for only 16gigs? They would hold a lot of ebooks but I would probably fill it up too easily with videos and music, not to mention software and other apps.

That's a good point. I'm holding off on seeing what comes out for the iPhone OS 4.0, but 2nd gen iPad might be a lot more interesting. Or at least the price drop in 6-8 months if the iBooks store offers titles competitive to Kindle book pricing.

I guess if I did buy one, it'd be to make a lot of cases and manbags for sale. The kindle fits in my big purse but unless only students buy it and put it in their messengers/backpacks, some American guys will have issues toting this thing about. Too small for a laptop bag, too big for a pocket.

I was hoping for a tablet computer. As is, it seems like an enhanced eBook reader or a larger version of the touch with 3g...

Hope this encourages more people to read (more), though, with tie ins to free mind enriching material like iTunes U or high quality podcasts.

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by Crusader

It's strange that they didn't go for a widescreen format since the device is also aimed at multimedia.

Rotate it, it senses the tilt, and will automatically become widescreen, just like the iPhone does.

Originally Posted by gr8npwrfl

3. It is bad enough that many ebooks are more expensive than printed books. Apple is going to drive the prices of ebooks even higher. They have a 30% markup so a print book sells for $7.95, an ebook on Amazon sells for $9.95 and the same book on Apple will sell for $14.95. NOT GOOD.

Says who? No price information has been released so far. Only a little bit of info has been gleaned from the screenshots, which show that they look to be on par with Amazon's pricing.

[dadioflex]

Edit.

[tsgreer]

I just found a new replacement for my aging laptop. Was thinking of a netbook, but this will be my new device. And if they keep the Kindle app on this thing, then it'll be even better. I just figured out my savings plan so that I can buy one when it's available. Yay!

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

The iBook demo video is so smoooth on Apple.

What ibook demo video?

BOb

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

What ibook demo video?

BOb

Apple.com iPad demo has iBook as one of the portions, here:

http://www.apple.com/ipad/#video

[TallMomof2]

Go to iPad Demo

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

Apple.com iPad demo has iBook as one of the portions, here:

http://www.apple.com/ipad/#video

Why do they insist on not having downloadable movie. I don't have Quicktime installed on my PC...

BOb

[Crusader]

Originally Posted by Hellmark

Rotate it, it senses the tilt, and will automatically become widescreen, just like the iPhone does.

No, that's just landscape. Widescreen has a ratio of 16:9. If you watch a widescreen movie, then you loose a lot of screen real estate as can be seen on the Star Trek demo.

[kwjones]

I'm so torn.

Price:
I don't have use for anything 3G right now, so the prices are kind of tempting. Then I start thinking about othere things I could get for the same price and with a 2nd baby coming soon, it's hard to justify spending that much on personal entertainment.

Size:
The overall size is a little larger than anything I would want to cary in my backpack/on the motorcycle for my daily commute.

Functions:
My Sansa mp3 player is 4 GB, I use about 3 GB. I'm not even using half the internal storage space on my Sony 505 for ebooks. A 16 GB iPad almost seems like overkill for me. I'm sure I could load it up with pictures and still have used less than 8 GB of storage.

I dunno. I'd like to see a live in depth demo of the ebook reader functions before I put out that kind of cash.

[Moejoe]

Lucky me too, I've just been re-ripping my DVD collection to h.264/MP4. I was going to go with an MKV container, but chose MP4 and this device will be perfect to watch all my movies on, plus read books...damn, now I'm gushing

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

Lucky me too, I've just been re-ripping my DVD collection to h.264/MP4. I was going to go with an MKV container, but chose MP4 and this device will be perfect to watch all my movies on, plus read books...damn, now I'm gushing

The pool on when MoeJoe will pre-order an iPad is now open.

Put me down for... before the end of the day!

BOb