Kindle app for iPad - it's June 30. Hulu has removed its "Buy" button

The Bookseller has reported that while the world (well, the interested-world) wonders what Amazon and B&N will do about its e-reader apps for iPad and other Apple devices, it is now June 30, and the last day that Apple has indicated it wants "compliance with Apple's strict new rules for in-app payment and subscription links."

Apple has said that e-reader Apps are expected to remove from the app any Buy buttons that link to an external store via a web browser, as Kindle for iPad does. Otherwise, Apple wants an option programmed in to buy it in-App from Apple, which would be easier for iPad customers.

Apple rep Trudy Muller had explained, February 1, re Apple's rejection of the Sony e-reader app:

' "We have not changed our developer terms or guidelines," Apple spokesperson Trudy Muller told Ars. "We are now requiring that if an app offers customers the ability to purchase books outside of the app, that the same option is also available to customers from within the app with in-app purchase." '

  It's been assumed that Apple's demand would be a 30% cut, which would mean 100% of the Amazon or B&N share of any Big6 publisher book.  However, in connection with that percentage, the only quotes of 30% from an Apple rep were from Steve Jobs during the Subscriptions announcement and then Apple's Internet Services boss Eddy Cue, who said that the announcement applied only to Subscriptions.

  While then it could be possible that Amazon and B&N might agree on something more like 3-5% in order to have a Buy button that would allow iPad owners the option to buy from Apple, it's also possible they wouldn't go for paying Apple whatever fee might be asked, since Apple benefits as much as the other bookstores from having those books readable on its own device and has used that availability in its marketing.  Since iBooks can be read only on Apple devices, the iPad could definitely look less appealing to prospective book-loving buyers, especially those who shop a lot at Amazon and B&N.

  In the meantime, the bookstores could just decide to make their Apple apps read-only and not try to sell books from the Apple apps, since just who does not know how to get to Amazon or B&N these days?

  I had said that Amazon should be able to add wording that the book could be found at their website and do an UN-linked URL to Amazon on the page.

  CNNMoney has an interesting quote from Richard Stephenson of YUDU Media, which has developed mobile apps for magazines including Reader's Digest, who goes further.

' [Stephenson] says he's "pretty certain" that Apple wouldn't block a link that simply says "visit our website."

  "[The problem] is really when you say, 'buy subscriptions from us direct' and there is a clear button to click," Stephenson said in an e-mail to Fortune. "If it's 'visit our website,' then [Apple] will not be able nor wish to block that." '

CNNMoney adds that "Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr said he could confirm only that the App Store terms were recently updated, and wouldn't comment on specific apps or whether a "visit our website" link would be blocked."

  Maybe the online bookstores are sending Apple updated apps that are rejected :-).  Those bookstore apps will be on every tablet EXCEPT Apple if apple makes the wrong decision.  Guess who would lose there.

  In the meantime, CNNMoney said yesterday that:

' Hulu updated its iPad app last week to remove a link to its website. The app's opening screen used to feature the line: "Not a Hulu Plus subscriber?  Visit hulu.com/plus to learn more and sign up."  That line -- and the website link -- are now gone, bringing Hulu into compliance with Apple's rules. '

That's a bit of an indication that a linked "Visit us" may not be acceptable :-)

CNN Money's Julianne Pepitone points out that "...digital booksellers rely on customers buying a steady stream of new e-books to read.  Removing all links from within their apps to make new purchases is pretty user-unfriendly."

Maybe they'll compromise on a small fee.  Apple may actually admit to themselves that iPad sales (and retention) will benefit from certain other bookstore books being readable on their devices, since that's been touted as a feature.

 We should know by tomorrow, I imagine.  I'd think the simplest solution, to keep peace in the bookstore universe, would be for everyone to be on a no-Buy button but I suppose if the price is right we could see one.

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Book lending clubs OK - Microsoft sues B&N - Apple sues over 'app store' UPDATE3

LENDLE  E-BOOK LENDING SITE IS BACK UP AND RUNNING.  THE OTHER MAIN SITES WERE FINE ALL DAY.

There have been three main Kindle booklending clubs, with one of them handling both Kindle and Nook e-books.  See earlier descriptions and links to the three sites.  Sites described there are BookLending Club, Lendle, and LendInk.
  Another site, ebookfling, received a full report in the Los Angeles times at one point, reported here.
  UPDATE - Forum folks also recommend BooksForMyEreader which also does both Kindle and Nook.
BookLending.com said all through the day, Tuesday, on Facebook and on Twitter, that their access to Amazon's listings was "unaffected," it was "business as usual" and "we're not going anywhere."

But there was generalized anger at Amazon for withdrawing Lendle's access to an Amazon API (special application programming interface), and the news stories tended to treat the action as a likely blanket decision to do a full stop on all e-book-lending clubs WHILE the four lending clubs mentioned above were up and running and the largest one had to keep telling members through the day that all was fine with them.

Why Lendle?
  There was something different with Lendle's situation.  It's not because they were larger and therefore more threatening to the publishers or Amazon.

  BookLending.com (formerly KindleLendingClub) now has approximately 18,000 members, and they say they're the largest lending site.

 However, Amazon could have been clearer, if Lendle paraphrased their statements well and didn't leave out important portions of the letter to them.  I think sometimes strange decisions are made at lower levels and the company pays for that later, but it was also quite odd that it was only Lendle that had the problem, of the sites that are most used.

  The most balanced and thoughtful column I read yesterday was by Slate's Farhad Manjoo, who did contact two of the other lending sites and found them both running and surmised:

' This suggests that Amazon might have shut down Lendle for narrow technical reasons.  So far, though, the company hasn't told Croft what those reasons are or what Lendle should do to restore access to the database. '

He also goes on to make many other good points, in general.

Here is Lendle's report-page re Amazon's actions and the explanation for the re-instatement last night.   About Amazon's latest email to them, they report:

' Late today, we received an email from an Associates Account Specialist at Amazon informing us that their concern only relates to our Book Sync tool, which syncs a user’s Kindle books with their Lendle account.

  Amazon informed us that if we disabled this feature, our access to the API, as well as our Amazon Associates account, would be reinstated.  We appreciate Amazon’s willingness to modify the position stated in the original access revocation email and work with us to get Lendle back on line.  We have complied with the request to disable the Book Sync tool (which was a very useful, but non-essential, feature of Lendle). '

That would be, then, the "narrow technical reason" that Slate's writer expected was the problem.  It appears to be a tool that's "non-essential" for Lendle but the sync'g of a user's Kindle books with their Lendle account seems to have been meant by Lendle to make it possible to confirm that the member had actually bought the book from Amazon.

UPDATE2
  On the other hand, the use of that API seemed to encourage making known what was available for lending for each person even if the author had not thought to lend it, so that it encouraged random lending even more.  Both publishers, already paranoid about e-books, and Amazon would have reason to be nervous about that.


OTHER STORIES
Microsoft's lawsuit against Barnes & Noble (Nook)
"Microsoft sues Barnes & Noble over Nook reader"
Points in the ibnlive article:

' Microsoft Corp filed lawsuits for patent infringement on Monday against bookseller Barnes & Noble Inc over its Nook electronic book reader, widening the software company's legal assault on devices running on Google Inc's Android system...
. . .
In lawsuits filed in federal court in Seattle and with the International Trade Commission on Monday, Microsoft claimed the Nook line of e-readers infringe five Microsoft patents, concerning the way they display retrieved images, show the status of downloaded material on a small screen, edit electronic documents and render annotations.

The lawsuit also charged the makers of the devices, Foxconn International Holdings Ltd and Inventec Corp, with patent infringement.

"The Android platform infringes a number of Microsoft's patents, and companies manufacturing and shipping Android devices must respect our intellectual property rights," Horacio Gutierrez, deputy general counsel of Microsoft's intellectual property and licensing, said in a statement.

"We have tried for over a year to reach licensing agreements with Barnes & Noble, Foxconn and Inventec. Their refusals to take licenses leave us no choice but to bring legal action to defend our innovations."

Barnes and Noble said its policy is not to comment on litigation. Foxconn and Inventec could not immediately be reached for comment.' ...

It's surprising that B&N would 'refuse' to take licenses since they had put B&N up for sale due to less than favorable circumstances.  Foxconn provides essentials to all the device-makers.  How does that affect things?
  UPDATE3 - Commenters to the blog have explanations for this.

  Amazon took action to prevent possible problems with Microsoft last year and they're not known to 'give' where it's not required.   Nieman Journalism Lab's Tim Carmody pointed out that "Microsoft and Amazon made a broad patent cross-licensing agreement for the Kindle and other technology, but it’s not known whether and under what conditions that agreement would permit an Amazon-branded multimedia tablet or prohibit it."

  The Nieman piece by Carmody is more general and makes these points:

' ...Like Frommer, I think it’s unlikely that the mainstream Kindle will be radically altered. It is simply too successful for what it is...

  Amazon plus Google may be the most dangerous competitor Apple could face.  The open question would be whether such a “Googlezon” tablet would need to carry the Kindle brand, or whether (like “Wintel”), they could set the market standards for an ecosystem of third-party manufacturers. '

  There's more at ibnlive.

  Here's added detail from AP on the situation.


Apple filed a complaint against Amazon to prevent the use of "app store"
TechConnect's Cristian writes a short and sweet story explaining this (bracketed clarification mine):

' ...Apple is currently engaged in proceedings to register App Store as a trademark and says that Amazon's use of the words would confuse and mislead customers.  Of course, iOS users [Apple operating system users] wouldn't really be 'confused' since Amazon's store would sell Android apps but even so, Apple doesn't like it and wants the court to throw the ban hammer at Amazon.

If Apple succeeds with its lawsuit then Amazon will have to figure out a new name for its store. '

ZDNet's Larry Dignan has a very detailed piece that should be read, explaining "Apple's stance: "Apple's App Store and a little trademark history"

Bloomberg gives detail on Apple's "Unlawful Use Claimed."

' Amazon has unlawfully used the App Store mark to solicit software developers throughout the United States,” Apple claimed.

Apple said in the court filing that it contacted Amazon three times to demand that it cease using the name and that Amazon hadn’t “provided a substantive response.”

“We’ve asked Amazon not to copy the App Store name because it will confuse and mislead customers,” said Kristin Huguet, a spokeswoman for Apple.

Apple applied to register App Store as a trademark in the U.S., and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office approved the application, Apple said in the lawsuit.

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) opposes the registration and the matter will be the subject of proceedings before a trademark appeal board, according to the court filing. '

Photo credit: http://reboundpost.com


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's),   DX Graphite

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Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

Kindle for Android newspapers & magazines / Borders, Barnes and Noble dilemmas

LIST OF 100+ NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES IN COLOR, MANY WITH HIGH-RESOLUTION IMAGES, for KINDLE FOR ANDROID

Amazon has a page now that leads to the listing of magazines and newspapers for the Kindle for Android app update.

  But here are the separate listings for magazines and newspapers for the Android app update.

  They also have a listing that combines newspapers and magazines for Android.

  When you compare these Android-app lists against the usual newspapers and magazines available at the Kindle Store for the Kindle itself (in the listings for bestselling newspapers and bestselling magazines), you'll see which publishers haven't signed up at this point for the Android version.

  For newspapers, the topmost bestsellers missing currently are Wall St. Journal, USA Today, The Washington Post, Financial Times, etc
  For magazines, the more obviously missing ones currently are The New Yorker, TIME, Technology Review, PC Magazine, The Nation, Bloomberg Businessweek, etc.

  The periodicals not included for Android are explained this way:

' The publisher may have opted out of making it available on certain devices, or the Kindle Reading App experience may not yet be optimized for this publication. '

"JUST NUTS:  TITANIC RUSHING TO JOIN FORCES WITH THE ANDREA DORIA"
Ed Renehan's e-publishing, etc. blog had that colorfully apt title in early December for his blog entry on whether Borders was really serious about buying Barnes & Noble.


  Today's The China Post has an interesting article on the financial dilemmas facing both Borders and Barnes & Noble, the latter having made themselves available for sale and the former hoping to be the buyer! Barnes and Noble are in better shape than Borders, thanks to their NookColor debut and sales figures.
  In fact, I bought a NookColor last week and have been enjoying it as a secondary, supplemental reader for color material, including National Geographic.  It has its birthing pains and I'll probably discuss workarounds in a subsequent blog I'm starting, but it is a very nicely designed e-reader although for full books I'll be using the Kindle's E-Ink screen.

Some excerpts from the China Post article:

' Christmas to be decisive for Borders, Barnes & Noble
. . .
In the latest chapter, Barnes & Noble Inc has put itself up for sale, while Borders Group Inc has put its hand out to lenders in hopes of avoiding a cash shortfall early next year.
. . .
Borders is in worse shape, bleeding sales and closing hundreds of stores.  Last week it reported yet another double-digit centage decline in same-store sales and said it could violate terms of its debt agreements in the first months of 2011 if it cannot refinance.

Last week, Borders' second-largest shareholder, William Ackman's Pershing Square Capital Management, offered to fund a merger of Borders and Barnes & Noble. The idea was dismissed by analysts because of how much the retailers' store locations overlap.

A Borders spokeswoman declined to comment on whether the company was considering a bankruptcy filing.

Larger rival Barnes & Noble is on better footing thanks to its popular Nook e-readers and rising e-book sales. But physical books — a shriveling business — still make up the lion's share of its revenue.

The company put itself up for sale in August and is under the gun to show that the Nook is generating e-book sales quickly enough to warrant a high price for the company.

“Holiday e-reader sales this year will show where you have a clear leader,” said Wahlstrom.  Five suitors are eyeing Barnes & Noble, a source has told Reuters.

The difference in the companies' fortunes was plain to see last weekend in Santa Barbara, California. The Borders store there was holding a going-out-of-business sale, even selling the kitchen sink used in its cafe. Across an intersection, a Barnes & Noble teemed with shoppers... '

There's twice as much in that story at the website.


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's),   DX Graphite

---

Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or highest-rated ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

NookColor reviews - a look at several of them

NOOKCOLOR E-READER REVIEWS

Paul Biba of Teleread had the first blog and Twitter alerts I saw on the various reviews, and three of the big gadget blogs came out about the same time.  By the way, I've had email and comments that some Kindle owners don't like to see blog entries here about other e-readers as they come here for Kindle information, but the blog is about a Kindle world and in that world, there are competing devices and other aspects of all this, which have their effect, and many seem curious about the other readers even when delighted with what they/we have.  I'll report today on what's been said in early reviews, as it involves a large change in the dynamics of the e-reader arena.

  Bear in mind that the NookColor is an LCD-screen reader rather than an eye-calming but slow monochromatic e-Ink one, but even for those of us who have e-Ink readers which will remain our primary readers, many of us are interested in a secondary reader that is color-capable for shorter-term reading (magazines, travel books, photography) and for children's books, not to mention comics.  Also, some of us want a DRM'd ePub reader and the ability to use the library if we want though I can understand why Amazon might not want to latter feature.  I saw a posting from someone today who mentioned that in a year of using the Nook, she'd never had to buy an e-bok.  Not the best news for e-book-selling companies and understandably sensitive publishers :-)

  As I wrote in several postings to this Amazon forum thread last week, I've thought Barnes and Noble made a very smart move with an LCD reader, going for "the rest of the story/audience" (those who are not interested in an e-reader unless it's in color) and that I would be interested in getting the NookColor as a secondary reader for color-focused travel and photography books as well as for magazines if it's easy to use -- and it appears it has a very good start.

Those who ordered early will probably start getting them tomorrow but B&N has said the quantity is limited, and orders made today are due to ship Nov 26..

Since Paul's early alert (on Crunchgear, Engadget, and Gizmodo reviews), other sites have weighed in, including Wired, Laptop Magazine, Network World, with hands-on reviews.  Here are notes I took for interested Kindleworld readers.  They look like lengthy quotes but I left out usually 65 % of what was said, so please read the full reviews for a much better handle on it all if seriously considering a purchase.

Engadget's Joshua Topolsky

' As far as the web browser goes, the experience is pretty standard Android 2.1 fare, though as with the homescreen and general navigation on the Nook Color, the fun of using the device is hampered by touch response and refresh rates that seem way behind the curve. The team working on this software really needs to clear up some of these lag issues to make the Color a more viable choice for those considering this instead of a dedicated Android tablet. Of course, this price point helps to make a powerful argument.
...
Videos were another issue -- we couldn't get anything besides M4Vs to play, and even then we had trouble with some HD trailers. Obviously this isn't a crucial task for this device, but having a strong set of codecs and some decent video support would be really nice (and should cost next to nothing for this platform).
...
Dealing with galleries and PDFs, on the other hand, was a joy. We jumped into really large PDFs with no trouble whatsoever (though it is weird that you don't flip through them like books, rather swipe up and down). Galleries loaded up reasonably quickly and the included image viewer gives you a healthy amount of options (along with pinch zooming). The Nook Color also does Microsoft Office documents, and we were able to view DOCs and PPT files with a reasonable level of success. Just like most things on the device, it wasn't the fastest experience in the world, but it worked well.
...
We really liked reading with the Color, and even though the device doesn't sport animated page turns (a la the iPad), it does offer great options for notation and word or phrase discovery (you can do dictionary, Google, and Wikipedia searches right from a contextual menu).
...
We hate to beat a dead horse, but as with the rest of the interface, the magazine experience is hampered by the sluggishness of the UI.

Score: 7 out of 10
THE GOOD
Beautiful industrial design
Clear, crisp display
Lots of quality content available

THE BAD
UI is buggy, sluggish
Android 2.1 is dated
No apps or app store yet '

CrunchGear's John Biggs
"...The newspapers are a real dud, at least right now. The New York Times appears just as it has on the Kindle and Nook for years now – a list of headlines and then a series of long articles. There is no interface for tapping articles in a newspaper layout right now although this is expected soon along with the article view in the magazines available in the Kindle store..."

Biggs says that it won't run Angry Birds, but Engadget tried a development model that did run it.

' Another problem is that there is no visible “back” button for returning to screens you’ve just visit[ed].  It is a one-way system and very rarely is there a visible way “back” to the main pages for each of the features.  If this sounds confusing it’s because it is.  The persistent menu always keeps you on an even keel, though.  However, you must forget everything you think you know about mobile OSes and allow for the Nook’s own special interface.
...
The trade-off, then is clear – absolutely clarity vs. eye-soothing e-ink.

While devices like the Galaxy Tab and the iPad do many things adequately, the NookColor does one thing very well.  Many may be put off by the idea of a single-purpose device like this and I don’t blame them.
...
  While the screen is surprisingly bright and clear, I took this outside hoping I’d be able to read the screen under an overcast sky.  Nope.  It was as washed out as the iPad in direct sun....
...the $249 you’d spend for a NookColor may be better spent on a more capable Android or iOS device. But if you’re looking for a color e-reader for reading a few black and white books as well as some color enhanced e-books and kid’s titles, this incarnation of the Nook is hard to beat. '

Gizmodo's Matt Buchanan
(who makes so many good, often unique, points I've probably included too much) :

  "This is a capable little thing, potentially the first of a new kind of cheap tweener tablet with functionality that's both broad but limited."

' It's dense. As in, deceptively heavy—15.8 ounces, despite being legitimately thin. ... I hope you don't mind glare when you're reading.

At 7 inches, this Technicolor Nook is ironically still best for reading straightforward ebooks. And it's about as good as reading can be on a backlit glass screen (more pixels and less glare would be more better, but it actually bests the Kindle 3's pixel density, 169ppi to 167).  Reading stuff other than ebooks is an interesting set of tradeoffs, largely because of the constraints of a 7-inch screen.

  Magazines are presented as full-page, unreadable facsimiles of the real thing, which you can zoom in and pan around. Or you can use Article View, which pops the text out from the page and reformats it in a narrow column—exactly like Safari Reader. It's more readable, but completely breaks any fidelity to the magazine experience.  Newspapers go through similar contortions to fit: B&N reformats them so that they're presented the same way as ebooks: page by page.
[ which seems to me a good choice on a small screen ].

The web browser works, but it generally tells sites it's a desktop browser instead of a mobile one, so you sometimes get weird formatting (like with Gmail) or a site that's too big for the Nook's tiny ereader britches (new Twitter wreaks havoc).  Mobile YouTube and Vimeo videos work, but they come in super low-res.  Still, it's important to note that it can do these things.

Reading text is totally comfortable on the 1024x600 IPS display, which is the ideal size for ebooks.  And how can you not love the price?  It overrules nearly every tradeoff and compromise.

Interaction is more chunky peanut butter than butter smooth.  Animations, touch response and transitions all feel slow, even when they're not exactly lagging, which happens a fair bit—whether you're opening books or pinch-zooming in magazines.  It's like they were animated without enough frames.

...  Online video experience is often crummed out with super low-res video. I couldn't get any of several correctly encoded videos that I loaded up through the SD card to run either (pictures and music worked fine).

[The Verdict]
...It's not quite a tablet, but it's more than a simple ebook reader.  It can do things that an e-ink reader simply can't -- even if it doesn't excel at them -- but it's nearly as cheap at $250.  At half the price of the Tab or iPad, if you're looking for a super portable tablet thing primarily for reading, it's hard not to give the Nook a serious look, even if you might wanna wait 'til the B&N app store opens and it gets its first major update early next year. '

WIRED/Gadget Lab's Tim Carmody

"I was expecting tradeoffs. I wasn’t expecting its advantages.
...
...text entry on the NOOKcolor may [be] the best experience I’ve had using a software keyboard on any device.  It’s light-years ahead of the Kindle’s shrunk-down hardware keyboard."

' ...full-color children’s books and magazine subscriptions.  The storefront and reading implementation are better here than anything offered by Apple or Amazon.
...
Magazines are nearly exact copies of printed issues, with full-color illustrations and advertisements.
...
Article Mode is also just flat text: if a magazine Q&A distinguishes between interviewer and interviewee by using different-colored text, all that formatting is stripped out in article mode.

In general, everything about transitioning between vertical and horizontal, landscape and portrait on NOOKcolor is probably more awkward than it needs to be...
...
...Magazines, children’s books and the web are all more exciting and more readable at ten inches.  So are textbooks, if [the 7"] Nook ever gets there... '
...First, there is something ingenious about the 7″ form factor. It fits naturally in a coat pocket or purse. It’s easy to hold, as I mentioned above. And it works really, really well for most books
.
... It doesn’t have the 3G connectivity or battery life of the Kindle, which makes it harder for road warriors. Even though it’s an Android tablet, it doesn’t have full access to the Android market.
... [The audience?] Millions and millions of people — who have a phone and a PC, who don’t scour the web for tech news, and for whom a device that costs $250 that does a little bit of everything pretty well and a subset of things extremely well is [an] extremely compelling proposition. '

Much more by Tim Carmody at the Wired/Gadget Lab

PC Magazine
Similar points to the ones made above and worth reading those; however, there are a couple of detailed caveats here that new owners should be aware of

' The Amazon Kindle will run for a week with its 3G radio on, and as long as a month without it disabled.  That is certainly not the case with the Nook Color.  The company says it will last up to 8 hours, and my testing confirmed that number.  After a day of heavy reading, about 3-4 hours, I went to bed to find the device dead in the morning.  The next day, I got the Nook Color to survive the night by turning off Wi-Fi.  If you read for more than a few hours a day, you should plan on charging daily.  This is much better than the color-screened Sharper Image Literati's ($159, 2.5 stars) measly 4-hours of battery life.

Make sure you bring your charger wherever you go.  Although the Nook Color looks like it has a standard micro USB port, it will only charge with the Nook AC adapter.  I tried both 5V and 10V adapters, with no luck.  Nor can you charge the device by connecting it to a PC...'

  Here are more photos.

Laptop Magazine
One of the two most thorough reviews, with a full section on functioning of study-features such as annotations, search, dictionary, etc.  There are 8 separate detailed sections in the report, so do read the full report.  Their summary:

' you get a first-class color screen, a robust content ecosystem, and reader-friendly features, but not as much freedom as a full-fledged tablet.  On the flip side, the Nook Color costs $100 more than the Wi-Fi only Nook and $110 more than the Kindle Wi-Fi, both of which are easier to hold and view during longer reading sessions.

Overall, the Nook Color is an excellent choice for consumers who want color, web browsing, and a focus on reading. '

Network World's Melissa J. Perenson
"...a superbly integrated, largely satisfying, and (for now) unique e-reading experience."

' The NookColor's display and its intuitive interface form an extraordinary one-two punch. The display employs an in-plane switching (IPS) panel, just as the iPad does, to provide a wider viewing angle and better color reproduction than standard TN LCDs.  And like the iPad, it supports 16 million colors.  The NookColor's 1024-by-600-pixel display carries a pixel density of 169 pixels per inch
...
Under conditions where the Galaxy Tab or iPhone 4 were essentially unreadable mirrors, the NookColor could, at least, be seen.  I wouldn't have read the final volume of Harry Potter on it, but I could see well enough to navigate around, and to read for short stints.

And in most circumstances, I found the screen dramatically easier to read than other touchscreen devices I had on hand.  Again, it's not as good as E-Ink, and Barnes & Noble has by no means eliminated the concept of glare on an LCD; but the screen goes far toward mitigating the effects of glare, and this is a critical accomplishment for a device designed for reading.
...
Barnes & Noble says it plans an update to NookColor to an Android version that supports Adobe Flash via the Web browser "sometime next year."  For now, YouTube videos will play via the browser, but they look choppy and full of artifacts.

By launching with 100-plus strong collections for its periodicals and children's books, NookColor makes a strong case for the color e-reader, and it does so in a far more compelling way than any other device has so far.  Still, for all of its screen enhancements, I wouldn't suggest an LCD e-reader like NookColor if you will primarily use it outside in direct sunlight.  But for anyone else, NookColor is a worthy contender-especially for those who want to consume books, periodicals, kids' fare, and PDFs...'

CNet's K.T. Bradford
...what you have is an eReader that excels at its primary purpose while offering enough extras to justify the price."

'  "While this [heavier weight] definitely made the Nook Color feel very solid, it became an issue during long reading sessions.  We found ourselves switching hands more often than we normally do to alleviate wrist fatigue and much preferred to prop the eReader on our body or against a nearby surface whenever possible.  Thanks to the rounded edges and soft-touch back, it's at least comfortable to hold.

Traditional LCDs aren't as reading-friendly as ePaper displays, and if you're looking to get away from bright screens beaming light into your eyes when you settle in for your reading session, the Nook Color isn't going to be your thing. However, for those who've found reading on a smart phone satisfactory or have eyed the iPad or Galaxy Tab, Barnes & Noble's offering is compelling.
...
Orientation switched automatically, though landscape view wasn't available on all screens or applications. We couldn't flip books, for instance.
...
The times we noted the touch sensitivity falling off were after we'd left several smudges on the glass. Users may want to keep a cleaning cloth handy or buy a screen protector.
...
The individual keys are nice and large, so we were able to type accurately while holding the Nook Color with two hands.  Like the rest of the eReader, we didn't notice much lag.
...
Plus, users can adjust the margins and space between the lines to fit whatever they find most comfortable.  There's also a screen brightness slide accessible within books or periodicals, which helped minimize eye strain.
...
...in a darker room, the light annoyed us, and even the Night theme didn't make reading easier.
...
Though notes sync to most of the apps in the Nook ecosystem, there's currently no way to export them.
 There's not even a text file with all notes and highlights, as with the Kindle, that users can extract.  We hope B&N adds this functionality in a future update, as it would be extremely useful for students.
...
You get a first-class color screen, a robust content ecosystem, and reader-friendly features, but not as much freedom as a full-fledged tablet. On the flip side, the Nook Color costs $100 more than the Wi-Fi only Nook and $110 more than the Kindle Wi-Fi, both of which are easier to hold and view during longer reading sessions.
...
Conclusion: "As long as you don't expect full tablet functionality, and you keep your Barnes & Noble-approved AC adapter handy, the Nook Color makes a perfectly amiable reading companion if you want to see your books in full color. '

ZDNet's Michael Miller
This reviewer is a nice guy who is "a huge fan" of the first Nook, stating it was the Kindle Killer before trying one and then later showed us his video of the first Nook taking 25 seconds to open a book and thought that was fine.
 If you'd like to read all pro's and no cons, you should catch this one, and there are a few more hands-on pictures of the NookColor also.

That should do it for the roundup of first-day reviews, a much happier set than the one for the first Nook.  One of these reviews credited the designer and I'd say he did a very good job.

 But now some will wait for the 'real world' reports by those who spend a lot of time with it.  I think it sounds very good though, and is priced particularly well if it functions smoothly long-term, and again I MAY get one as a secondary reader, though I'm also tempted to wait for a regular Android 7" tablet because ALL the online stores will have their buying apps on those and then we can buy from Amazon, B&N, and Sony rather than have another device that uses a somewhat proprietary digital-rights method (so that Sony cannot read Nook books although it works in the opposite direction), and certainly B&N wouldn't be using a Kindle app just as the Kindle wouldn't be used for selling B&N's books.
  An independent Android tablet would run all Android apps rather than just the ones allowed by an online-bookseller.


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's),   DX Graphite

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Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or highest-rated ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

The Kindle is now $189. Fast work, Amazon. Nook's turn again

The Kindle 6" International pricing has been lowered to $189, not very long after the Nook announcements today.

  The 3G mobile free wireless full-web access that most countries are reporting  since the 15th, with no change by Amazon to that access for almost a week, seems to be a side effect of having the ability to send a highlighted passage and note to Facebook and Twitter via 3G wireless with the new software update v2.5.x, much discussed on the forums and described here.  See the Intro and Guide to the new software version.

Countries reporting no-cost full-web access are listed in a file associated with the story on June 15, and updated daily.

RECENTLY BOUGHT KINDLES AND PROBABLE CREDITS/REFUNDS
During past price changes, Amazon gave recent purchasers of the Kindle a credit or refund for the difference in price if the Kindle purchase was made within 30 days of the new, lower price.

U.S. Kindle owners should contact Customer Support about this at 1-866-321-8851.
Very recent purchasers outside the U.S. should go to the Amazon Kindle Support page and click on the orange button labeled "Contact Us" to ask about it..

See today's earlier blog article that included a good link to the Nook news that apparently had a big influence on Amazon, though I think they were prepared for this but did not care to be the first to adjust pricing to compete even more on price with the larger multi-function tablets.  I mentioned the differences in the feature sets for the Nook and the Kindle earlier today.  Pro's for the Nook - it does allow public library access, valuable if your local library carries much in the way of contemporary e-books (some don't).

  The lending feature of the Nook is not clearly described by news stories.  If a publisher approves the lending of a nook book (about 45% do), then you can lend an e-book to someone, but only One Time to Anyone in the lifetime of the e-book (ever), and for 2 weeks to the borrower but not renewable by the borrower even if the book couldn't be finished.

  See the blog article on sharing Kindle books on an account, not restricted to a household or relative, just to people you trust on your account.  It's far more flexible than the Nook arrangement but not heavily marketed.

  The new Kindle price is now a real value instead of just a value ;-)

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Check often:  Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.

Walletpop: Kindle books much cheaper than Nook, Sony

Walletpop reports "Battle of e-readers shows Kindle books much cheaper than Nook, Sony."

For Kindle Edition subscribers, I'm inserting Walletpop's chart into this news alert to make it easier, but website visitors and RSS feed readers can easily use the link to walletpop to read the full story.

ALSO, Kindle Edition subscribers may use this article and chart as a very good example of what you can do on the Kindle if choosing to browse mobile-unit-optimized websites.

  This Walletpop article is a good way to get familiar with the Kindle's built-in and free web browser.  If you're at home or in an office, you can even plug in the adapter if wanting to play with the web-browser features without draining the battery.

To get the Kindle-friendly version of the walletpop article with your Kindle, click on the following link to the same article optimized for mobile units, and you'll see that when away from home you can use the Kindle pretty nicely for lookups if you know the links to mobile-device versions of various sites.
  For the sports-interested, there's a mobile version for ESPN also. As usual, when on a computer, see my mobile-web article for a downloadable Kindle file of mobile-device optimized sites linked.  That article also includes a link to my blog entry on how to use the Kindle's web-browser for faster and more readable results.

Back to the Walletpop story
For the article, Tom Barlow chose the New York Times selection of the 10 best books of 2009 -- five fiction, five non-fiction and avoided current bestsellers because they're often subject to price wars and loss-leader pricing.

He found the results startling, and I agree.  While I did not think that Amazon had raised prices already in any finalized greement with major publishers, he found that prices had risen on Amazon above the $9.99 price point for what were bestsellers in 2009.

  However, I've noted that when a book is a bit older and no longer on the NYT bestseller list, Amazon has often raised the price, which helps them recoup some of the money lost in selling bestsellers at $9.99 when they traditionally pay the publishers about $12.50-$15.00 (50% or so of the LIST price SET by the publishers).

Book	Amazon for Kindle	Barnes & Noble for Nook	Reader Store for Sony
Chronic City by Jonathan Letham	$15.37	$20.76	$9.99
Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It by Maile Meloy	$14.27	$18.53	$18.16
A Gate At The Stairs by Lorrie Moore	$14.27	$19.27	$9.99
Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls	$9.99	$9.99	$9.99
A Short History Of Women by Kate Walbert	$9.99	$17.82	$9.99
The Age Of Wonder by Richard Holmes	$23.76	$29.71	$40.00
The Good Soldiers by David Finkel	$9.99	$18.57	$9.99
Lit: A Memoir by Mary Karr	$9.99	$22.27	$9.99
Lords Of Finance by Liaquat Ahamed	$9.99	$9.99	$9.99
Raymond Carver: A Writer's Life by Carol Sklenicka	$19.25	$26.00	$24.50
Total	$136.87	$192.91	$152.59

As you can see, many books remained at the $9.99 price, nevertheless, and Barlow notes

' the shocking difference in price between Amazon, the Reader Store and Barnes & Noble.  In just this small sample, books for the Sony Reader were 11.5% more expensive, while the ones for the Nook cost 41% more. '

 He asked Mary Ellen Keating, senior vice president of corporate communications and public affairs for Barnes & Noble, about this price disparity.  To be fair to the writer and the paper, please go to the story to learn how she explained the price differences.  It's sort of a marvel.

Barlow sums it up this way:

' ...those of us who read books on another platform, Blackberry in my case, have a choice between versions of the Nook and Kindle readers.  Guess which one I'll be using. '

Photo credit: Librarian by Day

My visit to BN and the Nook last night & more videos - Updated

Driving past Barnes and Noble last night, 1/2 hour before they closed, I thought it might be good to drop in and actually see the Nook function, in person, instead of via videos.   They had it at the customer help booth, which is fairly large and had two Nooks, both chained to their posts.
Both had clear plastic over the entire face of the Nook to protect it.

To my eyes, the Nook has a beautiful exterior design, more striking in person than in photographs, and the screensaver of the San Francisco bridge shown was gorgeous and much more welcoming than the forlorn-looking author pictures we're used to.  I asked if I could open a book, explaining that I had read reviews about the formatting time, and also see page turns for myself to see if any slowness was that bothersome.

Both staffers told me it was not possible to open a book because the store is only having 'demo' Nooks and they don't allow downloads, and to open a book you must download it first.  What?!  I tried to explain they can download it and it will be on the unit and not have to be downloaded again!   They said, no, it wasn't allowed, as the management erases stuff on it each night and they don't want children [or children-like?] people downloading away on it -- so they didn't have a book to open on it, because of the no-download policy (!)

I then explained this would look very strange because reviews are saying it's too slow to open a book and that page turns take an inordinately long time -- people will wonder if that's why they're not allowing customers to even open a book on it.

After awhile, when a couple also really wanted to see this, one of them agreed to download a book.  Then I saw it was a sample!  I explained that was not a good test of load times :-)  They were very pleasant and said I should probably come back in the morning because the day crew knows more about the Nook, so that's what I'll do.

In the meantime, Barnes and Noble has a problem (as seen on the forums when people have asked questions at the stores and received quite inaccurate info) in that their general customer service in-store will not be as trained on the Nook as official customer service people specifically trained on an e-reader (and even the latter is not wholly dependable or course).  I heard a staffer tell a questioner that yes, she could buy and download books from B&N while traveling in Europe.  But B&N staff online have explained why this is not possible for the Nook and they hope to have publisher agreements to be able to do that someday.

In the meantime, I must say that if I didn't already have a couple of good e-readers I would have bought it on the spot!  It's very attractive, and all the menu steps and delays (an added 30 seconds for a Google book he opened, one Nook owner said) would not bother me if I weren't now used to more direct opens (which I appreciate even more these days), searches (w/excellent search-result displays - see sample below), and faster page turns.

  It's my feeling that people new to e-readers could be very happy with the Nook, as it has a very friendly feel to it, and the screen text to background contrast ratio is decidedly better than the Kindle 2's, with the background lighter and the text fatter and therefore darker.

SONY POCKET READER
  I also liked the Nook immediately more than the Sony readers I've seen.  The Sony Pocket reader is 'only' $200 and fits into a pocket nicely, so a lot of men prefer it even if it does not have an inline-dictionary, any search capability, annotations, or wireless features.
  It just lets you read and is very compact.  But I think they'll need to bring that one down to $150 and then I might get one, just for reading ePub formats (instead of doing auto-conversions on them as I do now), especially with the Adobe Digital Edition in place, with library capabilities, even if its screen is slightly smaller.  On the other hand, I am spoiled by having search capabilities and dictionary summary defnitions at the bottom, of a word my cursor is on, so am not sure about that but I'd be tempted.
 See a recent review by Huffington Post's Stephanie Vaughn Hapke, aka GeekGirl, who is doing a series on various e-readers, with an unusual sense of fairness.


NOOK FUNCTIONING AS SHOWN IN VIDEOS
  With regard to how the Nook functions and how troubling any delays or navigational steps might be, here's a very good video for seeing what's involved for various functions posted by Matt Miller of ZDNet who does only glowing reviews of the Nook - he is enchanted by it, focusing on the positives (the glass half-full thing maybe?)  His video is 25 minutes, as he shows how various features work. The good and the bad are there for you to see, so it's helpful.

  Miller's video does show that when he opens up The Lost Symbol, it takes from 16:36 on the tape to 17:02, which is 26 seconds, and he sort of chirps through it, unfazed by the delay.  I think many other people would not be bothered by it either (though I would).
  At about 20:00, he shows how to do a search.  However, there is no result and only a blank page for "ritualistic" -- dictionaries sometimes show only the root word, 'ritual' so it's not really surprising.  Still, while the Kindle dictionary doesn't have that word either, the Kindle takes you, after listing books that have a search-result, not to a blank page, but to the dictionary page that starts with "ritualism' and has 'ritualization' and 'ritualize' also.

Consumer Reports also has a very brief video focusing on page turns.

Wired has a quite balanced video report with more real-time page-turns.

MobilitySite.com - This 11 minute video of a first look at the Nook is done by a very cheerful and thorough hobbyist reviewer.  Starting at time 2:50 Chris Leckness demos the color touchscreen at the bottom, and with unusual patience he shows us a disquietingly unresponsive touchscreen for up/down scrolling especially (that part is painful to watch), and for pressing/clicking on a selection (which can take several attempts).

BARNES & NOBLE "Getting to know your nook" web page
  Here's a very helpful page by Barnes and Noble with information on what to do when encountering oddities reported.  Example: If books downloaded don't show up, "go to My Library and tap the Check for New B&N Content.
  UPDATE 12/18/09 - 11:37 PM (The original page was removed with no forwarding link, but I found the new URL for this Nook help webpage, linked above.  (But, why must the font be a gray, faint one?  One can guess.)

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Also see
1. Follow up to David Pogue's NYT review - Q&A
        Collected feedback to the review, with David Pogue's responses
2. Combined reviews - early & newer
3. Newer reviews, and Nook gets public library books
4. Early reviews
5. Nook-Kindle comparison info
6. Nook User Guide online

Nook delayed at BN stores another week - Update3

Arrival of the Nook at B&N stores has been pushed back to December 7 from November 30.

  B&N says it's to put customers first.  I guess that means it's less likely that units will be available for gadget-review sites, with not one hands-on review of it available yet, which is truly unusual.

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UPDATE3 - 12/2/09 2:47 AM (Original posting: 11/30/09, 5:45 AM)
EWeek's Nicholas Kolakowski gives a detailed summary of the court action yesterday rejecting Spring Design's injunction.

  In the meantime, a Barnes and Noble's forum thread on the Alex points us to a PDF of the court document denying the motion, which Len Edgerly has already gone through it and highly recommends reading it.

UPDATE2 - 12/1/09, 9:41 PM (Original posting: 11/30/09, 5:45 AM
Gizmodo continues to be the one skeptical gadget site out there (they are generally also skeptical about the Kindle).  In this case, Matt Buchanan doesn't seem to think that delays of store-demos, review-copies, and customer units are due only to high demand for the product.
  A User's guide available online would help but, unlike Sony and Amazon, Barnes and Noble have chosen not to make an online copy available ahead of time.

HOWEVER, Gizmodo also has a photo of the court document dated December 1, which denies the request by Spring Design for a preliminary injunction -- which might now free up the Nook for release.  At least that's the hope of the members of Barnes and Noble's increasingly agitated Nook customer forum.

Gizmodo's Rosa Golijan adds that "Spring Design has been granted an expedited pre-trial process to push the entire mess into court a bit faster"

  Nook zealots have been very present on Amazon's Kindle forums lately, and now in reaction to a steady dose of that, Kindle owners have been visiting the Nook forums to correct some bad information about the Kindle being put out by B&N store staff (some of what they are telling customers boggles the mind).

  I'm a B&N member and love going to that store, so I want B&N to succeed (latest earning reports show how important the Nook is to the company then, and this may be influencing employee putdowns of the Kindle to store visitors but it's not the way to sell your product though I may be wrong on that, of course).

  The rumor mill has been rife but early reports that the injunction was denied (before the news sites had the info) were accurate.  In addition, in the thread titled "Nook's benefits over Kindle" Brain Wave adds, "I read today in a tech zine that B&N may be having trouble getting their FCC license for the WIFI and cell transmitters in the NOOK and can't ship until that license comes through."

He doesn't cite the 'zine though. But if the hold-up was due to the injunction request, then by tomorrow, we should see some movement in the shipping of Nooks.

[Earlier update]
UPDATE 11/30/09 - 3:04 PM (Original Posting: 11/30/09, 5:46 AM)
- The Gadgeteer says it is being made "grumpy" by Barnes and Noble over this, as now the customer also has a backed-up date this morning despite the B&N reason given earlier today.

 They now say they "expect" (Gadgeteer made the bold-facing there) to have the Nook to the early pre-orderers by December 9 and have 'upgraded' people to overnight shipping though many like Len Edgerly, who also reported this email, already was on overnight delivery status.

B&N is also giving those customers a $10 gift certificate code.  Gadgeteer reports the shipping date he sees online hasn't changed though.

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Earlier report - continued:
Len Edgerly (Gadget Man) of The Kindle Chronicles Friday podcasts is expecting his before Christmas, and a lot of us will be looking forward to his take on it.

In the meantime, SlashGear quotes Amazon's reports that November was the biggest sales month for the Kindle, though Amazon gives no actual numbers.  They claim that besides people buying them for family members, businesses and organizations are buying them for employees and customers.

I sense a PR battle :-)  On the other hand, the Kindles have been widely reviewed.

Sony Daily Edition, Nook, iRex, PL-Que Comparisons, Delays

Excellent comparison piece by Staci D. Kramer of Paid Content a couple of days ago that included charts of features for the two current Kindles, the Nook, the iRex 8.1", the Sony Daily Edition, and the Plastic Logic "Que" - (Chart 1,  Chart 2) and Kramer's own thoughts on each unit in Slideshow format.  Page loading is slow on the charts.
  It's interesting to note (and she more or less does) that every unit except the Kindle Int'l and the Kindle DX is not available for customers or reviewers yet despite the looming holiday season.

  As an executive editor, she's a generalist but knows her e-readers and gives pros and cons for each in a very balanced report that is fair to each.  She is the only one I've seen who refers to the Nook's "unexpected demand" delay-reason as possible hype that works.
  I read, with some disbelief today, another writer's report of holding a plastic or cardboard version of the Nook at B&N and saying how good and right it felt, despite its having no innards.  Size matters, they say.  And definitely colorful slim looks.

  On the other hand, the Nook has a promising feature set, especially with file formats, even if the heavily-marketed lending feature is now seen as quite limited (one loan only for each book and only if the book's publisher approves the feature).  The indication of future multi-tasking with the 2nd window is a draw.

  I did comment at the site that the charts which list features that each does or doesn't have should also have categories for other unique features such as the Kindle's free 24/7 access to Wikipedia globally and the text-to-speech feature.  Kramer catches just about everything else and seems impressed most with the iRex and Que, both of which will be somewhat more expensive but also more flexible and catering to the business users most.

NY Times: New Sony Reader May Miss Christmas for Some
Brad Stone of the New York Times reports that Sony is unable to guarantee that the Daily Edition ($399), with wireless to the Sony store and a 7" touchscreen, will arrive in time for the holiday.
  Today, Sony will begin taking preorders and advising buyers that shipping will take place between December 18 and the first week of January and the device won't be in physical stores until January.

Steve Haber, president of Sony's digital reading division, said that publishers hate the current $9.99 pricing and are trying to slow down the shift to digital reading but that it's "ridiculous" that they are actually delaying some e-book titles over the dispute.

On October 22, the American Booksellers Association asked the Department of Justice to investigate bestseller price wars.  Here is their letter to the DOJ via overnight mail and email.
  And here's the varied reaction to that letter.

Lawsuit Could Delay B&N Nook Release

Authorlink.com's headline and Andronica's image and title (on left) with story, duplicate a thought many had on hearing that Barnes and Noble had announced that there would be a delay of the release of the Nook due, they said, to a larger demand than expected.

  The earlier story on this detailed several meetings between B&N and Spring over the latter's "Alex" eReader which, as the photo shows, is so similar in concept to B&N's Nook.

  B&N stated that the first shipment of the Nook will be made at the end of November, but Authorlink reports that "A U.S. District Court has given Barnes & Noble until the day after Thanksgiving to respond to a lawsuit filed November 2 by Spring Design, Inc ... Barnes & Noble apparently received the Court summons November 6, which would make the response date November 26."

  Andronica writes that the court filings state:

' An injunction prohibiting B&N from further use or disclosure of trade secrets – in particular, to prevent any further sales of the Nook and/or any other products using Spring’s trade secrets – is necessary to provide Spring complete relief. '

And they link to court filing and supporting documents and describe the implications of that for the holiday season and longer-term if Spring Design is successful in even temporarily halting sales.

Brighthand is reporting that "Barnes & Noble stores are reportedly going to have demonstration units on the last day of this month, but no units to sell.  At this point, it's not clear if B&N stores will have more than demo units this year; all sales may have to happen on the Web.

  Those who would like to give the Nook as a Christmas present will apparently have to seriously consider buying it unseen, as devices pre-ordered next month might not ship until too late."

  Brighthand also describes the many attractive features of the device which could be experienced if it is ever available for review so that we can see the interface and how well it functions.  With the pluses (loaning, WiFi as an option, a good number of compatible devices, a microSD slot), it won't matter to many that it does not have the Kindle's (slow) cellular-network web-browsing capability.

  eWeek mentions that one of B&N's eReader contracts (Plastic Logic, in addition to iRex) "will aim its QUE e-reader at the SMB (small- to medium-sized business) and enterprise markets."

Authorlink adds:

' Spring Design first developed and began filing patents on its Alex e-book, an innovative dual screen, Android-based e-book back in 2006.  Since the beginning of 2009 Spring and Barnes & Noble worked within a non-disclosure agreement, including many meetings, emails and conference calls with executives ranging up to the president of Barnes and Noble.com, discussing confidential information regarding the features, functionality and capabilities of Alex.  Throughout, Barnes & Noble's marketing and technical executives extolled Alex's "innovative" features, never mentioning their use of those features until the public disclosure of the Nook. [That was a day after Spring announced their 'Alex'...]

Alex, with its unique Duet Navigator™, provides the capability for interaction and navigation techniques of the two screens and furthermore utilizes the capabilities of Android to enhance the reader's experience by supporting interactive access to the Internet for references and links.  As the first in the market to offer an e-book with full Internet browsing while reading and with easy navigational control via its touch screen, Alex is well-positioned to offer the most dynamic and powerful reading device in the market.

It's amazing to me that Spring has not found a bookseller partner for this.

CNet review and some corrections

Here's a new CNet review that is more thorough than most today (after so many e-readers hit the market and very few have been actually really trying them out for functioning before reviewing them). The downsides are explored in this review, and buyers should be aware of them.

I'm linking readers to the review but pointing out a few erroneous statements (which are somewhat common to Kindle reviews) for those wondering about the pros and cons of the the Kindle International 6" reader. Still, the review is much more accurate than most I've read.

According to CNet, the font darkness or screen contrast is now better than it was with the Kindle 2.
Although they say, rightly, that the free websurfing is slower than we'd want but it's doable, they don't understand why Barnes and Noble is not giving this web-surfing capability with the Nook reader. (It's costly.)

Correction 1
On page 2, CNet says that *.txt and *.jpg files can't be natively viewed on the Kindle and that this is problematical.  The Kindle does natively view .txt files, and jpg files are read with a 'pictures' folder function though the latter's not that easy to use.

Correction 2
They also say that you'll "need to email" these and other formats for conversion at a cost of 10 cents per file. No, you can email them to be converted and sent to your computer for free and then move the converted files to the Kindle yourself with the USB cable. No cost.
  There IS a charge for mailing them direct to the Kindle and that is now 15 cents per file (per megabyte of file). They are right that the Kindle 2 does not natively read PDF files but converts them, which is allright for novels, but not particularly accurate with multi-column text and complex pages with illustration and labels. On the other hand no 6" reader will show these well and anyone needing PDF reading capability should go with the coming Plastic Logic's larger model or iRex's due in December, though they'll be more expensive. They allow annotations on PDFs, which is important for academics and business users.
  Update - I should have mentioned that the Kindle DX does a good job of reading PDFs and enlarges them when you rotate the unit.  It currently does not allow editing of PDFs but we can convert copies to flowing-text "mobi" or "prc" files for that while using the original PDFs for reading, on the DX, the layout as presented.

Correction 3
CNet writes that "The Kindle is natively compatible with only Amazon's own .azw file format" - what you get from the Amazon Kindle store. This is decidedly not true.  It reads, natively, 'mobi' and 'prc' files which you can get and download for free from places like http://feedbooks.net, http://manybooks.net (http://mnybks.net) and as I have said often, this also includes 30,000 well-formatted free "mobi" books from Project Gutenberg.

Correction 4
They also say that you "can't read the huge library of free Google books, but you can, with a simple 3-minute conversion.

Correction 5
CNet's review claims that Kindle's Whispersync does not allow two people to read a book at the same time. This is misleading at best. Whispersync is for people who want to read on one device and continue reading on a second device.
  Those sharing a Kindle account can just turn off Whispersync and then up to 6 people sharing that account can read a given book at the same time for the cost of one book.

Despite the above, the review has very good information, otherwise.

(Am still on vacation but reading every now and then.)

Kindle and Sprint/AT&T coverage / A borrowed Nook? UPDATE

UPDATE 11/6/09 - Original posting 11/3/09.
I have time to do only minimal reading when I get a connection, but I did get on just now and saw a new article re the Nook's problems with more details. I had not read about the more recent meetings between B&N and Spring, which I think is difficult for B&N while trying to release this product. It's from The Examiner. (San Francisco).  The newer information described this:

' Court documents state that Spring Design shared its design for its upcoming Alex ereader with a Barnes and Noble consultant on February 17 of this year, five days after both companies signed a non-disclosure agreement. On March 20, representatives from Spring Design met with the head of Barnes and Noble’s software development department, Ravi Gopalakrishnan. During the meeting, Mr. Gopalakrishnan allegedly stated that Barnes and Noble wanted a product that would compete with Amazon’s Kindle.

Spring Design alleges that a series of meetings between the two companies were then held in April and May, with several Barnes and Noble executives in attendance. During one of the meetings, representatives from Spring Design allegedly gave a product demonstration and showed a Powerpoint video of its Alex ereader to B&N.com president William Lynch and B&N CFO Kevin Frain. Spring Design alleges that Mr. Frain warned the company to avoid partnering with Amazon for content, due to the concern that Amazon would steal Spring Design’s idea for its ereader.

Spring Design alleges that Barnes and Noble made contact in July, requesting a summary of Spring Design’s product development. Barnes and Noble then held a meeting with Spring Design’s CEO on October 1 in order to discuss the possibility of revenue sharing for the Alex in the university textbook market. In its court filing, Spring Design alleges that Barnes and Noble “made no mention during that meeting or any other meeting with Spring that it was actually in the process of developing a device with many of the product features contained in the Spring design.” '

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I'm still on vacation, this time near Petra in Jordan and won't be back at the main computer for another week and there's not much time to get on, even if I can.  BUT I got on tonight and did some reading.

1. A PC World article proclaimed the current Sony Touch Edition superior to the Kindle without knowing that the Kindle has free 24-hr web access to sites everywhere, for U.S. residents, though it is far better to access mainly-text sites, since it is slow otherwise, and the writer assumed one can buy books only from Amazon, which regular readers of this blog know is completely untrue.  A Gizmodo reviewer who actually has used the Kindle and the Sony has good detail in his write-up, which I included a link to within an earlier blog entry.

  International customers now get Wikipedia free 24/7, which no other e-reader is offering, very useful for students or people who like to look up info.

2. Barnes & Noble's Nook e-reader won't exist as an actual useable product until December, and yet some writers consider it preferable to the Kindle, without ever seeing how it functions -- the attraction is based almost entirely on its looks, with a color LCD screen (battery drainer) for browsing books (or ads) below the b&w e-ink reading screen, although the fact that it will read ePub direct is a big plus.  The Kindle requires a conversion for that.

  Library rentals may be possible, but there is conflicting information from B&N on that. Loans to friends for 2 weeks will be a feature though some publishers have resisted this.

  It definitely will not have free 24/7 web access for U.S. residents (and Japan, Hong Kong, Mexico) as the Kindle does (worth at least $30/mo.).   Nor will it read books, articles, documents, etc., to you (though some would prefer it didn't).

  In the meantime, a company is suing Barnes & Noble for what it considers theft of the color LCD feature, as they showed it to B&N last January and B&N signed a non-disclosure agreement on that.

3. Getting to the first subject of the title, some have worried that our Kindle 2's and DX's will be negatively affected by the AT&T contract but assurances have been given to some customers that Sprint converage will continue for these domestic models.   Some comments to forums and to this blog in some of the entries indicate that if AT&T access isn't available in your area it will try to get another connection for you.

A US resident currently in Germany found she could use her web browser there.  We don't know if that was intended since wireless rates are higher there.

Others in the U.S. report that AT&T may not be available in their area while Sprint is, and vice versa.  When I get back I'll be looking into this.  In the meantime, here's one interesting thread with a lot of different experiences reported.