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iBookstore expanding internationally ... eventually
The announcement of the iBookstore wasn't particularly surprising -- analysts had expected such a move from Apple for months. What was somewhat surprising was that as of the initial announcement of the iPad and its tie-in with the iBookstore, there were no announced plans for international versions of Apple's e-book marketplace. Up until today, the only officially announced venue for the iBookstore has been the United States. According to MacRumors, a new job listing has been posted on Apple's website for "Manager, iBooks Asia Pacific & Canada." Part of the managerial position's role includes being "the primary person responsible for building the book business in Asia Pacific and Canada" -- for now, "Asia Pacific" is only loosely defined as "Australia, New Zealand, and other countries." It stands to reason that Apple will eventually want to expand its iBookstore to all markets currently served by the iTunes Store, but as MacRumors notes, no job postings have yet appeared for Europe, Asia, or other regions. Considering how prohibitively expensive paper books are here in New Zealand, I'm greatly looking forward to the launch of the iBookstore. In the US, ebooks generally aren't priced competitively compared to their paper cousins (something I've never been able to comprehend), but in the South Pacific, ebooks are very attractive alternatives to paperbacks, which can cost upwards of NZ$20 each. Once the iBookstore makes it down here, Apple has at least one guaranteed customer -- as long as the iBookstore isn't restricted solely to the iPad, that is. [Via MacRumors]
HP to undercut iPad price, iPad to undercut Amazon e-books prices, Courier to rule them all?
Today's Apple rumor roundup is brought to you by the word "money." First up is a piece carried by the New York Times citing no less than three people familiar with provisions that would require publishers to discount best seller e-book prices sold on Apple's iPad. In other words, below the $12.99 to $14.99 price dictated by the new agency model -- prices Amazon is being strong-armed into accepting. Apple's prices could be as low as Amazon's previously magical $9.99 price point for some titles just as soon as they hit the New York Times best-seller lists. Discounted hardcover editions could be priced at $12.99 even if they do not hit the best-seller list. The Wall Street Journal, meanwhile, has a pair of sources saying that HP will be meeting with its US and Taiwanese partners to "tweak prices and features" on its upcoming Slate. The move is meant to capitalize on a recent uptick in tablet interest with hopes of undercutting the $629 price of the similarly spec'd 3G-enabled iPad. Although it was introduced before the iPad, HP deliberatly held back on announcing a ship date or pricing so that it could tweak the Slate accordingly. Also noteworthy is renewed attention given to Microsoft's Courier. The WSJ says that Microsoft continues work on its two-screen Courier tablet at its Alchemy Ventures incubation laboratory in Seattle. However, it's still unclear whether Microsoft will launch the device.
Coming to an iBookstore near you: The authorized biography of Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs is an intensely private man. He values his privacy so much, he's had no qualms fighting the Times of London about a profile they wrote on him last summer. Four years earlier, Jobs played hardball with Wiley & Sons, the publisher of 'iCon Steve Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business'. Jobs told Wiley & Sons to halt publication of the unauthorized biography. Wiley & Sons refused to back down so Steve punished them by pulling every book by Wiley & Sons from all Apple retail stores. Talk about hitting someone where it hurts; some of Wiley & Sons' biggest selling books were titles like The Mac OS X Bible and Mac OS X Tiger For Dummies (you can see a full list of their Mac titles here). It looked like anyone hoping for a look inside Steve's past would be hoping forever. Not any more. The New York Times is reporting that Steve himself is set to collaborate on an authorized biography, to be written by Walter Isaacson, the former managing editor of Time magazine. The New York Times says the book is still in its early planning stages and would cover the entire life of Jobs, from his youth through his years at Apple. Isaacson is the author of two best-selling biographies, "Einstein: His Life and Universe" and "Benjamin Franklin: An American Life." All of his books have been published by Simon & Schuster who, coincidentally, got the center spot in the iBookstore participating-publishers slide during the iPad unveiling. Neither Apple or Isaacson would comment on the rumors, but seeing how Apple is now in the book business, now's as good as time as any for an authorized Steven P. Jobs biography. What do you think? Buy an iPad, get the biography of its creator for free?
Apple said to be using FairPlay DRM for iBookstore
Well, it looks like anyone hoping that books on Apple's iBookstore would be as DRM-free as music is on iTunes may be in for a bit of disappointment, as the Los Angeles Times is now reporting that Apple will be making its own FairPlay digital rights management available to any book publishers that wish to use it. Of course, that shouldn't come as a huge surprise considering that Apple still uses FairPlay for movies and TV shows sold on iTunes -- not to mention apps -- and it even still technically supports it for music as well, although it's pretty safe to assume Apple won't be going back down that road anytime soon. For its part, Apple is unsurprisingly staying mum on the matter, but March is fast approaching, so we should know for sure soon enough.
iPad in the family: What it'll take
When Steve Jobs announced the iPad, I thought it was neat, but I didn't see how it would really fit into my life. What could it do for me that my iPhone or MacBook Pro couldn't? It seemed like that gap Steve Jobs said the iPad filled was targeted at a group of people I didn't belong to. So I asked the TUAW readers if you'd be getting one. Then I began talking to my family about the iPad and discovered some surprising things: the very people I thought would never buy one plan to, and the people I thought would jump at it are holding off. So here's a rundown of four very different people in my family and if/why they will be getting an iPad: Person: My mother. 62. Queen of the Luddites. Computer proficiency: Absolutely none. Will she be getting the iPad? Yep. The 16GB 3G model. Why? My mom has never owned a computer. She doesn't have an internet connection. She couldn't explain to you what Facebook is. And she refers to my iPhone as "that information device."
Rupert Murdoch: Amazon now 'willing to renegotiate' e-book prices
You didn't think the price hike would stop at Macmillan, did you? In today's News Corp. earnings call, chairman Rupert Murdoch gave indication that his HarperCollins would also soon be changing its e-book prices with Amazon. As relayed by All Things D, the mogul has been unhappy with the $9.99 tier, that Apple's iBookstore "does allow some flexibility and higher prices," and here's the kicker: "And now Amazon is willing to sit down with us again and renegotiate." Nothing's changed yet, but we gotta imagine it's only a matter of time -- not just with HarperCollins, but probably all "big six" publishers before too long.
Have we seen the end of the $9.99 eBook?
At the roll out of the iPad, our old friend Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal chatted up Steve, and when asking about the pricing of buying books from the iBookstore, Walt was told that the price would be the same as Amazon. Amazon currently charges $9.99 for most books, which, according to AppleInsider, means that Amazon is losing $4.50 per book to keep its leadership position in the eBook market and keep Kindles selling. This strategy is similar to the loss-leader marketing popularized by Gillette who sold razors at a loss in the hopes of more than making up for it in the sales of blades. Apple proposes prices that would actually be profitable, wanting to position best sellers between $12.99 and $14.99. AppleInsider notes that Apple's plan is a similar one to the App Store where the publisher takes 70% and Apple takes a 30% cut. Under the Amazon plan, including the $4.50 Amazon subsidy, book publishers are currently being paid $14.50 while under Apple's model, the publisher of a bestseller would only make $10.49 per copy. The idea of Amazon subsidizing books is unsustainable in any competitive market and with more than one big razor in town, or at least one showing up soon, the market will inevitably settle on one method or the other. [via AppleInsider and WSJ]
All about EPUB, the ebook standard for Apple's iBookstore
Overlooked in much of the hype about the iPad announcement earlier in the week was a comment by Steve Jobs in the Keynote presentation where he mentioned that the iBooks app for iPad would take advantage of the popular EPUB format for electronic books. Since we're all going to get a lot more familiar with this format in the near future, we felt it would be a good time to provide our readers with more information about EPUB. EPUB is the same format used by the popular Stanza [free, iTunes link] app for iPhone and iPod touch. It's a free and open standard format created by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), and it's designed for reflowable content that can be optimized to whatever device is being used to read a book file. The IDPF has championed EPUB as a single format that can be used by publishers and conversion houses, as well as for distribution and sale of electronic books. The format is meant to function as a single format that publishers and conversion houses can use in-house, as well as for distribution and sale. It supports digital rights management, something that's sure to warm the cockles of the hearts of publishers, but there's no DRM scheme that is currently specified as part of the format. Other ebook readers that currently use the format include the Barnes & Noble Nook, the Sony Reader, iRex Digital Reader, and the iRiver Story.
Amazon pulled Macmillan titles due to price conflict -- confirmed (update: they're back!)
Macmillan's US CEO, John Sargent just confirmed that Amazon pulled its inventory of Macmillan books in a powerful response to Macmillan's new pricing demands. Macmillan offered the new pricing on Thursday, just a day after Apple announced Macmillan as a major publishing partner in its new iBookstore -- a revelation that certainly factored into the discussions along with Skiff and other emerging e-book distribution and publishing models. During the meeting with Amazon in Seattle, Sargent outlined what he calls an "agency model" that will go into effect in early March. Under the terms offered, if Amazon chose to stay with its existing terms of sale then it would suffer "extensive and deep windowing of titles." Amazon's hardball response was to pull all of Macmillan's titles from its Kindle site and Amazon.com by the time Sargent arrived back in New York. Macmillan claims that its new model is meant to keep retailers, publishers, and authors profitable in the emerging electronic frontier while encouraging competition amongst new devices and new stores. It gives retailers a 30% commission and sets the price for each book individually: digital editions of most adult trade books will be priced from $5.99 to $14.99 while first releases will "almost always" hit the electronic shelves day on date with the physical hardcover release and be priced between $12.99 and $14.99 -- pricing that will be dynamic over time. So when Steve Jobs said that Apple's and Amazon's prices would be the same, he was almost certainly referring to the $12.99 to $14.99 e-book pricing originally rumored by the New York Times -- not the $9.99 price that Amazon customers have been enjoying so far. Funny how Jobs, the man who once refused to grant the music labels' request for variable pricing on digital music so that Apple could maintain a low fixed $0.99 price per track, is suddenly the best friend of a new breed of content owners. Guess the old dog just learned a new trick, eh? Update: Amazon has conceded, but not willfully. It has decided to give the consumer the option of paying too much for a bestseller, and frankly, that's the right thing to do. Let 'em vote with their wallets, we say. The full response is after the break.
iPad iBooks will be US only at launch?
Apple Australia just became one of the first international sites to introduce the iPad to its pages. That gives us a pretty good indication of Apple's plans for a global launch: same "late March" ship for Wi-Fi only models and April for 3G models (carrier yet to be announced). Fine, but it's not what we see that has us intrigued so much as what's missing: the iBookstore and any indication of the iBooks app. This doesn't look like an oversight but rather its purposeful removal from any images or feature lists. Guess we shouldn't be too surprised; going back to the press release we see the following: "iBookstore will be available in the US at launch." Seems Apple meant to say, only in the US, eh? Rest easy Bezos, the iPad has a long way to go before it's any competition to the Kindle. Update: Footnote on the bottom of the Apple Australia iPad site says "iBooks available in the US only." Evidence after the break. Update 2: UK site is up sans iBooks which doesn't bode well for Europe considering it's the home for many of the world's top publishing houses. One sliver of hope was spotted in the iPad video promo that's footnoted with the following text: "iBooks available in U.S. and select countries." Hopefully soon rather than later. Screenshot after the break. [Thanks, Eytan D] [Thanks, Robert S.]
Apple reveals iBook Store and app for the iPad
Put this down as something else rumored that's come to fruition today. Apple's just announced iBooks, an e-reader app and bookstore (called iBookstore) for the iPad, using the ePub format. We're seeing prices around $12.99 to $14.99 so far... looks pretty slick! We're sure Jeff Bezos and Co. are none too pleased to see this one, but we'll have to see for ourselves what reading's like on a non-E Ink screen. There's a gallery after the break. Be sure to hit up our hands-on right here!
