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iPad apps: books and comics galore
Reading on the iPad is something that is part of the device's DNA. Whether or not you think that LED-backlit display is a killer or a cure for the world's third favorite bedtime activity, you can't deny that Apple has pushed the idea of the iPad as e-reader pretty heavily. So, if you've got one you must be thinking about what kinds of reading choices you really have. Unlike a lot of platforms, you're not just locked into Apple's iTunes-integrated iBookstore for getting your textual kicks -- you can also utilize Amazon's Kindle service and a handful of other distribution channels for the books and comics of your choosing. So, which ones stand out? Take a look beyond the break and see our picks for reading on your magical new device. Oh, and be sure to check out our other app roundups right here.
Cynergy's magazine kiosk concept serves up digital content a la carte (video)
Not that we've never seen Surface-like touch tables interacting with mobile devices before, but now that the whole thing is being repackaged as "the magazine stand of the future" and those trendy tablets are involved, we might as well have a look. Cynergy is demonstrating a seamless method for purchasing digital content from one of these kiosks using your e-reader or tablet pc. It's just a matter of plopping your device -- which already knows your identity and available credit -- atop the display table and then flicking the particular magazine or newspaper you want onto your storage. It looks effortless and all, but it also requires that you have the "custom designed and built" software from Cynergy, which you'll have to pump funds into in order to get the seamlessness going. We don't know how we feel about yet another proprietary ecosystem floating about, but you can make your own mind up after watching the video after the break.
Plastic Logic QUE proReader pre-orders halted?
We're not going to engage in too much wild speculation on this piece of information, but there are certainly a few raised eyebrows in Engadget-land right now. Apparently Plastic Logic is no longer offering pre-orders of its QUE proReader, as a tipster of ours discovered while trying to push through his order of the $799.99, 8GB / 3G version of the large-screen device. According to the order page "Pre-orders are sold out. QUE will be available online and in select Barnes & Noble stores this summer." This of course comes on the heels of news that the company would be further delaying the ship date from mid-April to summer related to "fine-tuning" and "enhancing the overall product experience." So our minds aren't exactly at ease, as we're trying to understand why a company wouldn't just caveat pre-orders by letting people know there's been a run on supply -- though it's possible that Plastic Logic is doing separate batches for mail order and in-store, and just needs to pace themselves. We've reached out to the company for comment, and we'll let you know as soon as we hear back. [Thanks, Clive]
Plastic Logic QUE proReader delayed: time to reevaluate that pre-order?
Did you by any chance get in on the early QUE proReader pre-order? Well, we've got news for you that might be good or bad depending upon your perspective. A pre-orderer just forwarded us an email received from Richard Archuleta, CEO of Plastic Logic, detailing a shipment delay from mid-April to sometime in the summer, a date echoed by the QUE product site at Barnes & Noble. According to the email, the delay is due to a desire to "fine-tune the features and enhance the overall product experience." Now the good news: credit cards have not been charged leaving disgruntled hopefuls either $649 (for the 4GB WiFi model) or $799 (for the 8GB WiFi + 3G model) to spend on something else. There are certainly more e-reader choices available now than when the QUE proReader went up for pre-order on January 7th -- though not with the same sophisticated business-use approach or big 10.5-inch display... for that, you'll have to wait for Skiff to ship. Or maybe you'd prefer a full color LCD tablet instead? Regardless, you do have choices. Full email after the break. [Thanks, Anonymous Tipster]
Barnes & Noble promises B&N eReader app for iPad near launch
Need a bit more evidence that the e-book download business is a whole lot different than the music download business? Then look no further than Barnes & Noble, which has just announced that it plans to make its B&N eReader app available for the Apple iPad "around the time" of the device's launch. Details are otherwise a bit light, but the app will be free, and is apparently "designed specifically" for the iPad, giving you access to all of the books, magazines and newspapers available in Barnes & Noble's eBookstore. Could a Kindle app be far behind?
Pixel Qi has 'several more' partners since CES, is working on new form factors
There's nothing, nothing, we love more than talkative CEOs. And though this may not be a case of some brash smack-talking, we still appreciate Mary Lou Jepsen giving us a fresh update on the development of those delectable Pixel Qi displays. As you already know, CES provided us with our first opportunity to see one in person (in the shape of the Notion Ink Adam) and we were left highly impressed with the versatility and responsiveness of the hybrid display. Since then, Mary Lou and company have recruited a few more partners and, while production of the 10-inch units is ramping up as expected, new form factors are also being contemplated. She still won't tell us any names, but we're excited by the possibility of (relatively) pocketable Pixel Qi devices -- how does a Dell Mini 5 with a 40-hour battery life sound?
Notion Ink to have competition to encourage development for Adam reader, might release two versions
Back at CES, we were pretty excited to get our hands on Notion Ink's far out, Pixel Qi display-boasting reader, Adam. Well, Notion Ink is on the move, and encouraging development for the Tegra-powered little devil is apparently a top priority. The company has unveiled plans to hold an App Competition with one million dollars in prize money for the development of Adam-compatible software. There are no final details about the contest yet, but we think we'll probably be hearing more about it next week at MWC. Slashgear's got some interesting renders Notion Ink sent over which give us an idea of what a final production model might look like -- and it's definitely different than the prototype we saw in Las Vegas. The company also told Slashgear that it's considering having two retail versions of the Adam -- but has only said that one might measure 12.9mm thick, and the other 11.6mm thick -- so we're not sure what other differences might be in tow. We'll let you know when we hear more details about that million dollar prize money, though.
Neonode lives: zForce e-reader touchscreen gets pumped into Koobe Jin Young reader
We're not surprised anymore when another company jumps on the ever-fattening e-reader bandwagon, because really, pretty much everyone is making one now... including, apparently, companies we thought had basically ceased to exist. That's right folks, Neonode is seemingly back from the dead (though truth be told it looks like the company was never actually fully cold), pumping its touchscreen tech -- called zForce and made specifically for e-readers -- into Taiwanese company Koobe's just announced Jin Young reader. We don't have fully specs on this bad boy by any means, but we know that it's going to be a 6-inch e-paper styled affair with 2GB of memory (and up to 16GB by way of microSD). The reader claims to be the thinnest device boasting a touchscreen ever made, and should make its way to retail in April (in Taiwan) for somewhere between NT10,000 and NT13,000 (that's between $312 and $405), depending on the content agreement. Full press release is after the break.
iPad vs. Kindle: Which way to go?
In my post yesterday I touched on the likely long faces at Amazon H.Q. in Seattle. The iPad is something I'm sure they wished hadn't happened, but of course it did, and I thought I'd take a closer look at the competition between the Amazon and Apple devices. First off, if you were thinking of buying a Kindle DX, I'd say forget it. The iPad is a knockout punch to that device. At just ten dollars cheaper than the low end iPad, there just is no contest. The two devices are the same size (both are 9.7"), but the iPad has a color screen and can do a lot of things that Kindle just can't do. Yes, the DX has free 3G wireless for buying books, but the iPad has 802.11n, and for most common usage, it just isn't that hard to find a place to hook up. Book prices may be a bit higher on the iPad, but they will be in color and multimedia with the promise of moving video, color charts and pictures, and so on. I also consider the on-screen keyboard an advantage for the iPad -- the keyboard on the Kindle is basically a waste of space. As a travel companion, all you can do on the DX is read, although there is a rudimentary browser, and more functionality coming. Subscriptions are another Kindle selling point, but it's not a stretch to believe that Apple has something like that coming as well. Comparing the iPad to the Kindle DX, I just don't think there is any contest, and Amazon is going to be forced to think about how they are pricing and marketing the Kindle DX.
Nook shipping update assures pre-orders arriving on time
This should come as a relief to all you anxiously awaiting your Barnes and Noble Nook pre-orders. We've received a statement from Barnes and Noble affirming that all pre-orders which had an original pre-holiday ship date will be fulfilled, and that the rest of the orders will be filled starting on Friday. Here's the full, reassuring statement: "We're happy to report that all customers who pre-ordered nooks and were given a pre-holiday estimated shipping date will be sent their nooks in time to receive them by Christmas. As you know, there's been an overwhelmingly positive response and unprecedented demand since Barnes & Noble announced its new eBook reader on October 20th. Customer demand continues to be strong and new orders will be fulfilled beginning February 1, 2010. " Happy, happy holidays!
Barnes & Noble Nook review
When we first caught wind of Barnes & Noble's Nook -- a device clearly positioned to give the Amazon Kindle and Sony's options a run for their money -- we were understandably interested. As voracious readers and lovers of fresh gadgetry, pretty much anyone on the staff at Engadget would tell you that a new contender on the e-reader scene is more than welcome. When we discovered that Barnes & Noble's offering would not only feature a full color touchscreen component, but would run Google's Android OS as well... let's just say we were pretty much in gadget-hog-heaven. We weren't without our reservations, mind you; the appearance of this device made for some pretty heated conversations amongst the staff over whether or not we were seeing the dawn of a truly commercially viable e-reader. Of course, for us the proof is always in the pudding, and since B&N is about to launch a full assault against the current offerings, it's our duty to turn over a report. Is the Nook the answer to our e-reader prayers, or just a stepping stone to greener pastures? We've taken a long, hard look at the device -- so read on for the official Engadget review. %Gallery-79717%
BookReader for iPhone: You can't judge a book by its cover
We did a fairly extensive rundown of eBooks for the iPhone/iPod touch in August; you can take a look back if you're new to the eBook universe for Apple's mobile devices. BookReader [iTunes Link] , a US$4.99 app for devices running OS 2.21 or higher, has just joined the crowded eBook market -- but it brings little to the table to recommend itself. The app when first run looks beautiful. You are shown a wonderfully rendered bookshelf which looks very similar to the one found in Classics [iTunes Link], but a bit more nicely rendered, showing the spines of books instead of covers in a scrolling list. Impressive, but now what? I really had no idea since there were no instructions on how to operate the app either in the app, or on the Readdle site. This, as I've often said, is a major downfall of many of the apps in the store. It would be fine if it were an adventure game, but not at all acceptable in something offering utility that you would like to get at quickly. The only documentation in the app is a cursory explanation of one of three methods of getting content into the app -- connecting via Wi-Fi and WebDAV to your computer in a fairly arcane manner. You connect to an external server and provide an app-created numeric password. From there you can add books to the server folder... or so they say, but they don't go as far as saying how. I added books to the server, and they never showed up in the app. I was left stranded on the Wi-fi access page and didn't know where to go from there. Now I know that I'm missing something minuscule, but that's exactly my point; there wasn't enough given to me to allow me to complete the task. The second method of acquiring content is through Readdle Storage. You need to set up an account on the Readdle site which gives you a free 512 megabytes; larger amounts of storage are available for purchase. Once you set up an account, it works fine, but unless you know what to do, you may not find it on your own. You can easily add documents to Readdle Storage and they do show up in the app. Many documents, unfortunately, don't look very attractive. Anything that started as a .pdf document winds up looking like garbage since all the graphics are gone, and the formatting is stripped out. The list of formats that BookReader handles is also lacking. It doesn't understand some very popular formats such as Kindle, MobiPocket and Microsoft Word's .DOC as do other apps such as Stanza [iTunes Link]. DRM is not supported, but that's par for the course in the eReader market.
Time looking to kick out the e-readers after all?
Hey -- this one makes sense, so we shouldn't be too surprised, but it turns out that Time, Inc. is seriously looking into getting into the e-reader business, according to a leaked presentation from June of this year. The slides, which are entitled "New Platforms & Business Models for Publishers," also contained notes which had been updated as late as this past August, indicating that Time has plans to launch a product as soon as the end of this year. Though Time had said back in March that it had "no interest" in getting into the e-reader biz, it's not terribly shocking to hear that they were either fibbing or changed their minds, considering how the market's been heating up lately, combined with the deaths of many, many print mags. NBC contacted Dawn Bridges -- a spokesperson for Time -- about the story, who said the company is "speaking with a number of hardware and software companies as well as other content companies about various projects." Vague enough for you? [Via Gizmodo]
Boston prep school nixes all the books in its library, replaces them with 18 e-readers
We love looking to the future here at Engadget. And while real, paper books hold a special place in our heart, we're fairly certain no one will accuse us of being Luddites for scoffing at a recent development at a Boston prep school. James Tracy, the headmaster of Cushing Academy, says that he sees books as an "outdated technology," and to that end, he's taken the drastic and expensive step of ridding the school's library of every single one of its books. Replacing the books will be a high tech "learning center," housing three flat screen televisions, laptops, 18 e-readers, and a coffee bar. The project -- which is costing somewhere in the neighborhood of $500,000 -- is one of the first of its kind. So, excuse us for our cynicism, but unless there are only 18 students at Cushing Academy, we're pretty sure the e-reader supply is going to come up short.
Amazon Kindle DX gets torn apart, examined
Just as soon as we finally get our hands on a new unit to test out, the boys over at Rapir Repair are racing to rip one apart. And that's just what they've done here with the Amazon Kindle DX. Inside it's got the requisite boards, wires, tape and cat hairs (just kidding), plus an E727NV WN2 wireless card, memory, CPU and Epson E-ink panel controller. It's actually pretty sparse and clean inside of there -- we'd expect nothing less! Hit the read link for the full, glorious disassembling (though there is one more shot after the break).
