Apple Unlikely to Directly Enter e-Book Market?

[guzhogi]

I have a feeling that if Apple does make a tablet & uses it (at least partly) as an e-reader, I'm sure they'll do it in a way that's big & get a high marketshare. Like what they did to the portable music player business w/ the iPod & the music download business w/ the iTunes Store. Though if there is a tablet, it should still be more than an e-reader

 

[HiRez]

If a tablet does come out, it will be interesting to compare the readability of content on a back-lit tablet to those on an e-ink page.

That's why I think it's really important for this mythical tablet to have a very high pixel pitch, at least as high as the iPhone (~160 ppi), and preferably closer to the 200 ppi range. This allows for very sharp antialiasing and crisp graphics, which, along with the fact that you can read it at night, should help mitigate the fact that it doesn't have the e-ink technology and would have worse battery life. But if you can get 1-2 days out of a tiny iPhone battery, you should be able to get a considerably larger battery inside this tablet, especially since when reading a book (a largely static activity), CPU cycles should be at a minimum and there is lots of opportunity for the CPU to sleep itself in-between user actions. LED backlighting should also help a bit with the battery.

 

[Wordslinger29]

And while Steve is likely right that people don't read, they do still by hordes of text books.

Steve is likely wrong. Dead wrong. If people didn't read publishers wouldn't waste money publishing books, Amazon wouldn't have bothered creating the Kindle, and Barnes and Noble and Borders would be out of business.

Steve Jobs is a smart man, but he made a dumb statement there. Unless of course Apple has plans for e-books and he was just trying to throw people off.

 

[Divyesh]

Well i have read many webmaster and seo ebooks now i'm ready to read apple ebooks..

 

[wizard]

We can't give up our rights simply to make publishers happy.

In the previous post on the killer feature, I never put the one I think many are hoping for: E-text books. I know book dealers would love to sell more electronic copies of their books.

ok. What is the difference e-text vs e-book?

A dealer is more or less a distributor, it isn't their books they are selling.

In talking with book sellers they are in bad shape. They really only make money on the first sale of textbooks, then they enter the used market and used book store rake in the money, but none goes back to the publisher and author (thus why book prices are so high, they have to recoup costs and profit the first sale, then it drops to near zero. This also explains while texts are usually on a 3 year edition cycle.)

Of course that is what happens. The publisher like the auto manufacture only has the right of first sale. Other wise you would be able to resell anything you "owned".

Frankly niether the author more the publisher needs that money. They where paid once for what was delivered.

The books sellers are pushing hard for e-texts as they can DRM them for a year, then no resell. The next year students must buy their own.

it would be extreme stupidity to bring regressive DRM to books. It would destroy rights consumers have had for ages now.

Publishing costs drop as their are no press runs, and inventory is a couple redundant hard drives. The bonus is profit for bookstores, but they haven't caught on yet, why?

Actually electronic publishing will whip out many book stores as the simply wouldn't be needed.

E-books mean you need access to a computer, and laptops are helping sales, but still to many draw backs.

Now the market changer-The Apple Tablet
All your books fit into an envelope, save the back pain.
Take notes in your book just like you do now.
Follow hyperlinks directly from book(hyperlinks are common in printed books now, but I doubt they are used much)

If college student embraced this, paper text books could cease to exist in years. And while Steve is likely right that people don't read, they do still by hordes of text books.

Well yeah they do but that is a requirement for an education at many schools. The dirty little secret here is that many professors see books as a second income. The churn on text books is directly related to professors and colleges milking students for every penny they can.

Think back to high school, did your school issue new text books every year. I know mine didn't because it would have been seen as a waste of money. So why would a first year college student have to buy all new text books? It has nothing to do with content that is for sure.

Take a first year college math book for example. What changes that rapidly, at this level, that the latest publication is a requirement. Nothing! It is nothing more than a scam. Four years into a program or graduate studies are a different ball game but this demand for brand new books for every class for the first couple of years is a joke.

If they put the Apple polish on this are sorted out the current problems of e-texts this could kill.

Some colleges now have all the students get an iPod, now imagine they all have the apple tablet, and get their books online. Would kill the profit of campus bookstores, but apple and publishers would be rich, filthy rich I tell you!!!

The publishers are filthy rich already. If your e-texts can't lower the costs to students significantly then what the he'll is the sense. Further why should we give up long standing rights to feed a corrupt system. E books could be beneficial all around but only if there is some equity and real impact to student costs. The current triangle of student, professor and college is just ugly and disgusting. I used the word churn above because it is similar to the old unethical brokers of the past that use to generate a lot of income off unauthorized account transactions. This is very similar to the activities that professors and book stores engage in.



Dave

 

[Shake 'n' Bake]

iTunes doesn't need another thing to offer; It is already too bloated. They should have stopped at music and music videos.

 

[DUSTmurph]

At first i didn't think there was any chance that I'd get the tablet, but if it has a really good ebook store, plus a good application to read them on, I would highly consider buying it.

 

[Vulpinemac]

Frankly niether the author more(sic) the publisher needs that money. They where paid once for what was delivered.

Do you have any concept of what the author gets on the sale of a single title? On average, it's much less than you make in a year, and they may have worked for years on that title.

it would be extreme stupidity to bring regressive DRM to books. It would destroy rights consumers have had for ages now.

Regretfully, that's exactly what's happening. Just look at what Amazon did last week!

Actually electronic publishing will whip out many book stores as the simply wouldn't be needed.

It's already happening. Publishers have already started cutting back on sales to 'mom&pop' bookstores in favor of the big chains. Now you have B&N promoting its own e-book reader and titles. Paper books may end up becoming specialty items for the hard-core collector before too much longer.

The publishers are filthy rich already. If your e-texts can't lower the costs to students significantly then what the he'll is the sense. Further why should we give up long standing rights to feed a corrupt system. E books could be beneficial all around but only if there is some equity and real impact to student costs. The current triangle of student, professor and college is just ugly and disgusting. I used the word churn above because it is similar to the old unethical brokers of the past that use to generate a lot of income off unauthorized account transactions. This is very similar to the activities that professors and book stores engage in.

Dave

While I can't argue your complaint about the price of textbooks, you also demonstrate no knowledge of the publishing industry. You think that educational materials can't change from one year to the next, but there's ample evidence that right now your textbook is at least three years obsolete, even though it's a first-year printing! Granted, some things, like basic arithmetic, don't change, but the advanced studies that you're going to college to learn don't stand still just because you're in school. Half of what you're learning will be obsolete by the time you graduate, but you need what you can get just to understand the advances that were made while you were learning them.

Your complaint about pricing is valid in in limited ways. You need to understand how much work goes into researching and laying out a new title even on a 3-year schedule. Somebody gets paid to do that research and layout. Somebody else gets paid to look for errors in the data, diagrams and simple text content. Follow this all up with the least expensive part of all, the actual printing and binding process. You think you're just paying for paper and cardboard, but you're paying for all the work that went into collating that information as well. Removing the physical aspect of the publication would save the publisher a little bit, but not that much. Your savings would be maybe $2 or $3 off of the hard copy. Of course, if the electronic version couldn't be resold or given away, then the publisher could spread the cost over 3x to 5x as many customers, conceivably reducing the price by half or more.

 

[mackensteff]

ok. What is the difference e-text vs e-book?

A dealer is more or less a distributor, it isn't their books they are selling.


Dave

Wow, I guess I touched a nerve. If you really want to know the difference between an e-text and e-book (my definitions, which I think you caught onto, but needed to make your point)visit a college bookstore verses a Barnes and Noble.

For text books the dealers are more closely tied to the books. They are selling the publishers books. It sounds like you have some idea of how academia book dealing works, but a dealer is about one step from the author (dealer-editor-author)

You are correct in pointing out the publisher has only the first right, but they are looking for total control. I agree DRM is a bad idea, but the publishers would insist, this allows them a continual stream of revenue.

I misstated the bonus was not for 'bookstores' but publishers.

Anyway thanks for the response Dave. My goal wasn't to support how text book publishers work, but state the potential for an Apple tablet to take advantage of a market that book publishers have been trying to work to their benefit for a couple of years. I could see Apple and textbook publishers working together on this idea, which I don't think is totally bad (but I don't have to buy textbooks any more). The point was the Apple tablet could take the education textbook market by storm with strong support from book publishers if done right.

My point in bringing this up is most the talk appears to surround e-books, which in my mind is popular reading or similar. Now making the Apple tablet an essential tool for students to hold e-texts f expands the small niche of e-books to the huge market of tech savvy, first generation embracing, money to burn (or at least student loans) iPod loving, target demographic college students.

I think the Kindle, as well as any e-book reader, will always be a niche market. If Apple could sell this to students as a computer and text-book educational swiss army knife to get you that high paying job and that cute girl next to you product, and the book publishers taking advantage of the technology to enrich the texts, this could be bigger than the iPod.

Just my 2 cents on the thinking that may be going on in Apple to convince us that we must have a product with features we never knew we couldn't live without.

 

[iAlexG]

no real point for apple to release an ebook reader. I use stanza on my ipod touch and download the ebooks from my macbook. Very easy and inexpensive

 

[babyj]

That article appears to be based on an industry insider saying that Apple thought about it a few years ago and then decided not to. Someone has taken that and padded it out to come up with a reason why Apple won't do it now.

I can't believe that the setting up and running of an e-book store will be any harder than the music, video and app stores. Plus it will be a lot easier now than it was then as Amazon have done a lot of the hard work already.

I reckon the only reason Apple haven't done it so far is that reading books on the iPod/iPhone isn't a good experience so they're happy to take a back seat and let others do it. If they release a device that is suitable for reading books then they'll start selling e-books as it will drive hardware sales.

 

[m828s]

no real point for apple to release an ebook reader. I use stanza on my ipod touch and download the ebooks from my macbook. Very easy and inexpensive

But of course. What were we all thinking? If iAlexG says so, it must be true. No need for anyone to have an opinion with iAlexG around.

It's all figured out.



BTW, let's not forget the possibility of Apple releasing a tablet utilizing innovative display technology. More than one company has created displays that toggle between e-ink like text reading and LCD.

That's the real killer app. None of this silly CD business. Expect this tablet to be book-like. Expect this tablet to have a cover of sorts. It could be a fold-out keyboard.

This product will never sell without that. It will never sell as just a media device. It has to sell as multi-function product with e-reading as the killer app -- and with strong laptop-like hardware/software capabilities. E-reading is the only thing left for Jobs to gobble up. Its nascence provides a perfect opportunity to show competitors like Amazon how innovative an e-reader product can be.

To fully utilize the tablet akin to a laptop, that means extended periods hunched over the screen. Not comfortable. Hence the fold-out keyboard and adjustable, tilting display. I also wouldn't be surprised if the keyboard is detachable, or disappears into the hardware like a CD into a CD drive. After all, it'll have a virtual keyboard, too.

This has the potential to be huge. Perhaps not iPod/iPhone huge, but it will be noticeable.

I can't wait to see it.

Now, it's really all figured out. Just call me Alex.

 

[question fear]

In my own case, I've read a number of books through my iPhone and I really like having the ability to carry a selection of books with me to read whenever I have to sit in a waiting room or in the car while waiting for my wife at work or in shopping. Having the ability to carry several books along without taking up the bulk of those several books is a huge advantage.

However, I will agree that the iPhone's screen is too small for comfort. I'd like to see a full page at a time. Buy a Kindle? No way! Aside from being an overpriced, one-use tool, I have little control over what I can keep in it or how I view the contents. Last week's episode about George Orwell's novels is just one strong example against the Kindle. Add to this the fact that I want to read books that are available in the public domain--freely downloaded through Project Gutenburg and other sources makes iPhone apps like Stanza (I know, bought by Amazon) a better product. I'd even like to put my own books into it so I can read and annotate changes as I prepare it for publication.

Obviously, a clipboard-sized tablet would be a good compromise. It could be about the same height and width as a hard-bound book while staying almost as slim as a magazine. Give it the ability to run apps like Stanza while allowing it to have the full functionality of a made-for-touch-screen operating system that lets it run a full gamut of already-published software (more than iPhone OS 3 and maybe even a full version of OS X, for example.)

My main complaint, however, is that e-books for Kindle, B&N and the others are far too expensive. Why should you pay more for an electronic copy of a book than you do for a paperback copy? Yes, I understand that there are a lot of steps in the publishing business, I'm a writer, after all. But to charge more to get less? You eliminate the actual printing process and suddenly your costs go down incredibly. Carry this savings over to your reader by selling it for NO MORE than the price of a paperback, and you'll sell more copies! Sell it for $5 instead of $10 and you'd likely sell twice as many e-copies, though you'd parasitically eat up your dead-tree sales. Honestly, e-books won't take off until they become less expensive to purchase than their hard-copy brethren.

FYI, 90% of all Kindle books are 9.99 or below, incl bestsellers that would be 20+ in hardcover. So they've come down significantly in price.

 

[Vulpinemac]

FYI, 90% of all Kindle books are 9.99 or below, incl bestsellers that would be 20+ in hardcover. So they've come down significantly in price.

I appreciate the heads up, but even $10 is more than most paperbacks. I think I'll wait until the price of paperbacks rises to the e-book prices, or the e-books drop to paperback prices.

 

[SactoGuy18]

What I expect is an Amazon Kindle reader application designed specifically for the much-rumored tablet device.

However, unlike the real Kindle, the reader application includes both an app for reading the downloaded ebooks on the tablet and a downloading app similar to the Amazon MP3 downloader app, except instead of downloading MP3 files you download Kindle ebook files.

 

[twoodcc]

just bring on the tablet first!

 

[michelepri]

E books on Apple? That's dirty. Knowing how they work they work they would probably ban books about Windows OS programs. We've seen that with Google apps. Apple is becoming an evil company.

 

[question fear]

I appreciate the heads up, but even $10 is more than most paperbacks. I think I'll wait until the price of paperbacks rises to the e-book prices, or the e-books drop to paperback prices.

Depends on the paperbacks you are buying. Most "quality paperbacks" or the mid-size paperbacks that are smaller than a hardcover but not the small cheap kind, run you $12-$15 easily retail. Only "mass market" books fall into the $5.99-$7.99 range. Think action-adventure series and romance novels if you need an example of mass markets.

Almost all of the books on Kindle are cheaper than their print counterparts.

Here's a mass market (Vince Flynn's "Transfer of Power") and you can see the pricing difference between the mass market and the kindle edition.

And here's a hardcover (Janet Evanovich's "Plum Spooky") where you can see there's a $7+ difference between the paper price and the kindle price.

I'm totally not trying to convince you to buy a Kindle at all...you have valid reasons for not wanting one. Just pointing out that slow as it is, Amazon is pushing the pricing way down on ebooks compared to what they were a few years ago. I worked for 3 years as a manager for Borders, so I know all about book margins and the publishing companies. The margins for booksellers are razor thin as it is, and really only Amazon and maybe ereader (with their newly acquired deep pockets from B&N) can afford to discount or pressure the publishers to discount ebooks.

Prices may not be as low as they could get, but they are definitely on their way down, so whoo hoo for that!

(And as an aside, I know buying books used will net you a better price than Amazon even on a good sale, but that's an unpredictable market to measure. I do own a Kindle, but I also peruse every used bookstore I can find and have stacks of books everywhere. I still miss my Borders discount...)

 

[Chupa Chupa]

Agreed. This is the downfall of the Kindle -- why pay $300-400 for a device that only reads books when you can get an iPod touch for less money that will do so much more? (Granted, it doesn't use E-ink or anything but I've found reading on the iPhone/iPod touch more than satisfactory.)

First, before any other device is the "downfall of the Kindle," the Kindle has to become more than a niche/cult product. Second, the product overtaking the Kindle has to fare at least as well as the Kindle in the Kindle's basic function as an e-Reader.

You may find reading on the iPhone satisfactory, but that is as mainstream as people walking on fire. Most people cannot read for long periods of time on backlit LCD screens. That is documented fact. Yes, there are some who can, but there are also people who bend over backwards. Again, not mainstream.

The unfortunate truth is that LCDs aren't great for deep hour(s) long reading and e-ink isn't great for Internet browsing, or much else for that matter. So I think only competition to the Kindle is going to be from other e-Readers.

 

[Vulpinemac]

Depends on the paperbacks you are buying. Most "quality paperbacks" or the mid-size paperbacks that are smaller than a hardcover but not the small cheap kind, run you $12-$15 easily retail. Only "mass market" books fall into the $5.99-$7.99 range. Think action-adventure series and romance novels if you need an example of mass markets.

You're speaking of Trade paperbacks verses Mass Market paperbacks. Mass Market are what you find mostly in the fiction and literature shelves of the big bookstores. A Trade paperback is essentially putting hardback-sized pages into printed paper cover. While I admit I own a few Trade paperbacks, it's not many--I just don't like paying more than I need to for my entertainment. However, if you're talking self-help and other reference materials, obviously you're not going to find those in Mass Market paper.

Almost all of the books on Kindle are cheaper than their print counterparts.

While I'm not going to argue your examples, at least as yet none of the titles I'm interested in come out in Trade size anyway. That may change in the future, but for me I read for pleasure and prefer to peruse the Mass Market shelves.

I'm going to have to look into online comics, though. Would love to catch up on some of the old, old comic books.

 

[question fear]

You're speaking of Trade paperbacks verses Mass Market paperbacks. Mass Market are what you find mostly in the fiction and literature shelves of the big bookstores. A Trade paperback is essentially putting hardback-sized pages into printed paper cover. While I admit I own a few Trade paperbacks, it's not many--I just don't like paying more than I need to for my entertainment. However, if you're talking self-help and other reference materials, obviously you're not going to find those in Mass Market paper.



While I'm not going to argue your examples, at least as yet none of the titles I'm interested in come out in Trade size anyway. That may change in the future, but for me I read for pleasure and prefer to peruse the Mass Market shelves.

I'm going to have to look into online comics, though. Would love to catch up on some of the old, old comic books.

We are definitely talking about two different things...you're looking for mass markets, and you're right, the Amazon prices are not a big savings.

QP is actually not just hardcover sized but in paperback. It's the size between hardcover and mass market. Go into your local Borders and check out their "3 for 2" table or whatever the latest paperback promo is. Those are all QPs, not mass markets. Rule of thumb: $8 and under is mass market, $12+ and paperback is quality paperback.

wikipedia on paperback types

Generally most books that were out in hardcover go to QP/trade paperback before they hit mass market if they ever hit mass market. The exception is usually genre books, they'll go from hardcover to mass market pretty quickly.

A few years ago the book industry tried to create "bigger" mass markets that were more readable and cost ~$9...they didn't sell so well because they were too narrow to be comfortable, and too expensive to be true mass markets.

Anyhow, this is all OT, and we're basically saying the same thing but coming at it from different angles and approaches towards books...I'm such a book omnivore that I love the kindle because I save money vs buying hardcovers...but if i had more discipline and only bought mass markets and used books it wouldn't make sense for me.

 

[grapefruitx]

No Smoke without fire.

Apple just don't do things that will be cool, they do things that will be mass market and make money and are cool, for there to be a "mac tablet PC" there has to be market for it that goes way beyond geeks, it has to be something every one could want, if they wanted to build a keyboardless mac with pointy touch screen they could have done it on every second tuesday in the past 10 years,
No, if apple are working on this, the real problems are not technical it is market, what can you do with such a device to make it relevant, my feeling is that the one place people are not turning to electronic media, is for stories and news particularly when on the move, and I think this is where a tablet PC would work, what features and content delivery model, wireless, 3G subscription, download, on-line and content ownership and copyright protection, are the real challenges. the physical components of such a device itunes, hardware and software are there, not all screwed together but extant.
What is missing is the reason for everyone to want one, my feeling the missing factor is books. This, the tablet Mac, is an ipod for books

 

[PodHead]

Agreed. This is the downfall of the Kindle -- why pay $300-400 for a device that only reads books when you can get an iPod touch for less money that will do so much more? (Granted, it doesn't use E-ink or anything but I've found reading on the iPhone/iPod touch more than satisfactory.)

One word....size.

 

[SactoGuy18]

The unfortunate truth is that LCDs aren't great for deep hour(s) long reading and e-ink isn't great for Internet browsing, or much else for that matter. So I think only competition to the Kindle is going to be from other e-Readers.

Actually, the newest LCD's with LED backlighting work very well for reading text--I've seen the 24" Apple Cinema Display with the LED backlighting and I never felt uncomfortable reading text for long periods of time. As such, if Apple offers at least an LED-backlit LCD panel for their rumored tablet, then reading text on this panel should be comfortable for the vast majority of users.

I'm hoping that Apple will within a year see it fit to manufacture an improved version of this tablet using an OLED panel, which will allow for VERY long battery life per charge since OLED's don't need battery-wasting backlighting.

 

[chickenninja]

I can see reasons for staying away from ereader market and reasons for entering it. i think theyll stay away as long as amazon is kept at bay with the ereader apps in the appstore