Apple Tablet eBook Reader rumours

[orwell2k]

Not sure if anyone haas already posted this or not, but a friend of mine brought this to my attention today. The articale has a rather grandious title (Apple Tablet To Redefine Newspapers, Textbooks and Magazines), but that's par for the course.

http://gizmodo.com/5370252/apple-tab...-and-magazines

As a Mac user I'm all for Apple getting into the eBook Reader game, because they know how to make ultra-sexy devices and do great human-machine interface design. But an obvious issue with this rumoured device for MR readers will be the backlit colour screen versus an eInk. Of course, some users swear by their iPhone for reading, others can't stand backlit displays - to each his/her own, I guess.

Another troubling aspect for a non-US person will be the content restrictions inherent in iTunes. Even though the Stanza app and eBooks are being made available via the iTunes Shop for the iPhone and iPod Touch, access is region restricted. On the one hand this is a real pain, on the other, if Apple gets into the eText/eReader game for real, a lot of hackers/enthusiasts out there will no doubt come up with workarounds for the iTunes restrictions (much like development of DRM liberation tools) - so this "limitation" is probably only an initial problem.

But as a die-hard FB2 advocate, I tend to convert everything anyway so as long as the platform is sound - and I trust Apple to come up with something nice there.

Time will tell, I guess...