News tagged ‘e-book’

Recently AppAdvice announced that Apple is going to launch a new service called iTunes Replay:

Read the rest of this entry »

Business Insider conducted an extensive survey having asked more than 850 people questions that surround the iPad and how it is used. Their survey revealed that for about 70% of respondents, there was only 1 iPad in their household and only about 23% has 2 in the one household – less than 7% had 3 or more iPads in their household. Nearly 40% had downloaded between 20 and 50 apps, whilst 30% had downloaded more than 50 apps – with few paying for more than 20 of those apps and only 6% paying for none. Below are some of the other more interesting results:

Read the rest of this entry »

According to The New York Times, Apple has forbidden all developers including Sony to sell content or provide access to purchases outside its iOS App Store.

After that Apple rejected a Sony Reader iPhone application, as it allowed users to buy and read electronic books from the Sony Reader Store. So now all in-app purchases must go through Apple, president of Sony's digital reading division Steve Haber told.

Read the rest of this entry »

According to MacNN, yesterday The Ministry of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages announced that it had granted formal approval of the iBookstore. Its Minister James Moore positively commented this decision:

"Our Government is committed to strengthening Canada's economy through all its sectors, especially arts and culture. Apple has demonstrated how iBookstore Canada represents new opportunities for Canadian authors and publishers, and I have determined that this investment will be of net benefit to Canada."

Read the rest of this entry »

After iPad's appearance in late April many Apple's competitors decided to release their own tablets. Almost four months had passed since that moment and now we decided to study the market of iPad's rivals and write down every one that worth attention.

But before we start the list it is important to note that we chose the tablet devices that satisfied next criteria:

1. No physical keyboard;
2. Availability for purchase;
3. The screen must be at least 5''.

Let's go!

Read the rest of this entry »

Today Taiwanese newspaper DigiTimes released another article which reveals that the producing of next-gen iPad will be started in the last quarter of 2010. New tablet will have 7-inch and 5.6-inch OLED displays supplied by Compal Electronics. Both of these small (compared to the current 9.7-inch model) devices will "target the e-book reader market, separating them from the 9.7-inch model, which mainly targets multimedia entertainment".

Choosing the OLED panels is explained by the assumption that its costs will be dropped soon, as LG display and Samsung Electronics are currently devoting resources into its development.

Read the rest of this entry »

A new version of iBooks 1.1 has just been released for iPad and iPhone (you will need iOS4 to install this application). The version was shown at WWDC 2010 and included some of such often demanded features as bookmarks and notes.

A short list of what you’ll find in the new iBooks 1.1:

Read the rest of this entry »

According to Digitimes senior analyst, Ming-Chi Kuo, the iPhone 4G (iPhone HD) manufacturer Foxconn will ship at least 24 million units of the device this year. The shipments will start in June.

4.5 million units are scheduled for the first half and 19.5 million units for the rest of 2010. Apple is expected to present the new iPhone on June 7, 2010 during Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference.

The new device will adopt IPS (in-plane switching) panels with FFS (fringe-field switching) technology and a 960x640 resolution, Kuo said, noting that LG Display and Prime View International are the panel suppliers. By incorporating FFS technology, which enables a wider viewing angle and clearer visual quality under in sunlight, Apple is aiming to improve the handset's e-book reader features and promote its iBooks Store.

As for internals the iPhone 4G will run on the Arm Cortex A8 processor and will have 512MB memory module from Samsung Electronics, doubling the memory capacity to enable better multi-tasking.

iPhone 4G will have a bigger battery supplied by Simplo Technology and Dynapack International Technology. This will be achieved by reducing the panel width by 33%.

Today Steve Jobs revealed that last Friday Apple's iPad reached one million sales:

"One million iPads in 28 days -- that's less than half of the 74 days it took to achieve this milestone with iPhone. Demand continues to exceed supply and we're working hard to get this magical product into the hands of even more customers."

The company also revealed next facts:

• 12 million apps for iPad were downloaded from the App Store already;
• 1,5 million e-books were downloaded from the iBookStore;
• 5,000 applications were created specifically for the iPad (the number of apps for iPod touch and iPhone is more than 200,000)

There were no information revealed about a breakdown of 3G vs. Wi-Fi-only sales, but one analyst told that on Sunday 49 of 50 retail stores were sold out of both models.

Piper Jaffray's analyst Gene Munster predicts that the Wi-Fi iPad will be more popular and will take 60% of sales while iPad 3G-capable model will carry only 40% of overall sales. He also believes that Apple has already more than 1 million iPads, which proved to be true.

Last week Alexander Vaughn from the AppAdvice.com resource had a chance to take a first look at the iBookStore. As you see from the screenshot above, late rumors about higher e-book prices for iPad are confirmed to be false. Moreover, 27 of the 32 books presented in the NYT's Bestseller section cost $9,99 which is exactly the same price as for Amazon Kindle versions.

To expand their market share Amazon chose a strategy of selling the most popular and newly released books at a loss. Now it seems that such a serious concession won't take a proper effect.

iBookStore is a platform for selling iPad e-Books. The working scheme is the same as for iPhone developers - publishers are free to set the prices they want, but Apple keeps 30% of it.

The Examiner reporter Daryl Reino claimed yesterday the March 26 for iPad's release date is "very likely". He said he has information from some unnamed Apple store manager in Southern California.

Daryl also reported Apple employees will start training March 10, and the official commercials will begin to air on TV starting March 15. It will be emphasizing the e-book capabilities of the device. Those who camp out for the new device will receive some "special gift".

As we wrote before, some manufacturing bottleneck has been lengthening the production terms, but Daryl said it will not delay the launch of iPad (though the number of devices will be much more limited).

Credit Suisse analyst Bill Shope recently met with Apple executives:

Apple wants the iPad to be the best device for a few key use cases. For instance, the company believes it could eventually be seen as superior to both handheld and notebook devices for browsing the Internet, using the App Store, and consuming mobile media (video, photos, and e-books). Nevertheless, in other areas, notebooks, the iPhone, or an iPod may be more appropriate. This clear segmentation of capabilities suggests that cannibalization may be less of a concern than most currently believe.

Shope writes about the price:

it remains to be seen how much traction the iPad gets initially, management noted that it will remain nimble (pricing could change if the company is not attracting as many customers as anticipated).

Sounds great. What do you think about $200 iPad? Would you buy one?

A month ago John Gruber, author of the Daring Fireball blog, posted on twitter: “Shouldn't the iPhone shoot 16:9 video? Who wants 4:3 video nowadays?”

Many people admit that they expect all screens to be closer to 16:9 aspect ratio. However from the first look it is obvious that iPad does not have 16:9 screen. We can see from the picture above the iPad screen is apparently equivalent in its aspect ratio to 2 iPhone screens, stacked in landscape mode, which is 4:3. It is primarily meant to be used in portrait mode, and it looks like a video playback is a secondary function. Indeed a 16:9 video looks a bit skinny on the iPad.

So will 4:3 video get back to business or it is just another feature of more comfortable e-book reading?

After the iPad presentation on Wednesday Walt Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal journalist, had a conversation with Steve Jobs who revealed interesting information about the new product.

Books for the iPad were rumored to cost between $13 and $15, and Mossberg asked, why customers will purchase books on this price if Amazon charges only $9.99. Jobs answered: “The prices will be the same”.

Later Mossberg inquired Steve whether he can use Pages application to write his review and then send it to his editors in the Microsoft Word format, as his colleagues doesn't know anything about Pages. Jobs told that the mobile version of Pages allows saving files as Word documents.

The journalist also asked about battery life on the device, and Jobs answered that iPad offers 140 hours of music playback with the screen off or 10 hours of reading. It seems not so much in the comparison with e-books, but Jobs revealed that 10 hours is enough, as nobody reads for 10 hours, and plugging the device or docking it in the end is "not a big deal".

Apple's finally announced the iPad (Apple Tablet). It is perfect for tasks like browsing, email, photos, e-books and videos. It's a half-inch thick and weighs just 1.5 pounds (680g), with a 9.7-inch capacitive touchscreen IPS LCD display and it's running a custom 1GHz Apple "A4" chip developed by the P.A. Semi team. The 10-hour battery life and a month of standby is quite exciting.

There will be devices with 16, 32 and 64GB. All iPads will get a 30-pin Dock connector, a speaker, a microphone, Bluetooth, 802.11n WiFi and optional 3G, as well as an accelerometer and a compass. There's also a keyboard dock, which connects underneath in the portrait orientation. iPad supports up to 1024x768 VGA out and 480p composite out through dock adapter cables. There is a camera attachment kit that lets you import photos from your camera over USB or directly through an SD reader.

The device is managed by iTunes, just like the iPhone and iPod Touch. iPad can run iPhone apps: either pixel-for-pixel in a window, or pixel-doubled fullscreen. Developers can also target the new screen size using the updated iPhone OS SDK, which is available today.

The 3G version runs on AT&T and comes with new data plans: 250MB for $14.99 and an unlimited plan for $29.99 a month contract-free. Activations are handled on the iPad, so you can activate and cancel whenever you want. Every iPad is unlocked (!) and comes with a GSM "micro-SIM".

The price starts at $499 for 16GB, 32GB for $599, and $699 64GB. Adding 3G costs a $130 per model, so the most expensive model (64GB / 3G) is $829. The WiFi-only model will ship in 60 days, and the 3G models will come in 90.

UPDATE: The 3G version will also have A-GPS.