Walt Mossberg asked Steve Jobs regarding bestselling ebooks prices. Most ebooks are priced $9.99 on Amazon but higher on the iBookstore. Steve Jobs answered, “The prices will be the same.” Apple wants publishers to set their own prices for ebooks, and the first out of the gate is Macmillan. John Sargent, CEO of Macmillan:
Our plan is to price the digital edition of most adult trade books in a price range from $14.99 to $5.99. At first release, concurrent with a hardcover, most titles will be priced between $14.99 and $12.99.
That ticked off Amazon:
We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles. We want you to know that ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan’s terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books.
I agree that a starting price for “hardcover” ebooks at $12.99 is high. But I think it is the right thing to do to allow publishers to price their books however they want. The market will decide whether the pricing is too high. I for one would never purchase an ebook for $12.99 when I can get the real thing for the same price. If the ebook version were to add additional resources such as interviews (video), commentary (video, audio, text), index (hyperlinked), additional pictures, richer appendix, etc. I might consider the ebook version for the same price. Source: MacRumors
Stephen Colbert pulled out an iPad during the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards. See video here.
Michael Gartenberg’s Entelligence: Lessons from the iPad launch details four important lessons to learn from Apple’s iPad launch:
Gartenberg ends with:
Vendors competing with Apple in this space are going to need to understand these lessons and in many cases change not only their current products, but the story they tell.
Andy Ihnatko, Chicago Sun-Times, writes about his impressions regarding the iPad, which he was able to play with after the iPad introduction:
It has a feeling of being The Right Size. … This is no cheap hunk of netbook plastic. … Its weight is just fine. … The display is gorgeous … Viewing angles are immensely wide … This really is the iPhone OS. … Fast. Fast, fast, fast. … it plays HD video smoothly and smartly. … I’m not worried about the lack of Flash. … As a consumer, I’m hoping that the iPad will indeed be the One True Thing.
Can’t wait to get my hands on an iPad.
Kevin C. Tofel at jkOnTheRun reviews the Nexus One dock on video:
It’s just not seamless, yet.
A quick summary: The Nexus One can easily slide out of the dock because there isn’t a USB connection on the dock: the connection is via Bluetooth. The clock app runs when docked, most of the time. Audio plays via Bluetooth, some times. The dock is $45 and you get an additional phone charger and a 3.5mm-to-RCA cable.
Android Mom also has a video showing how you can stream music via Bluetooth from the Nexus One to the dock, which is connected to her speakers.
Kendell Helmstetter Gelner responds to TheFlashBlog: Except for Farmville and Hulu all of the other sites have non-Flash version for browsers that do not support Flash, including MobileSafari on the iPhone. Earlier, TheFlashBlog’s Lee Brimelow posted up mock screens of sites that supposedly didn’t support Flash. Well, it seems Brimelow didn’t check to see whether or not these sites actually worked without Flash. It turns out they do: CNN, FWA, Addicting Games, Google Finance, Aviary, and Disney. Spongebob Squarepants has many native iPhone apps.
Daring Fireball‘s John Gruber regarding Flash:
Used to be you could argue that Flash, whatever its merits, delivered content to the entire audience you cared about. That’s no longer true, and Adobe’s Flash penetration is shrinking with each iPhone OS device Apple sells.
Technically, Adobe’s Flash penetration would not shrink as long as there is an equal number of Windows and Android devices sold. But I do agree that developers will not be able to reach their target audiences with just Flash. Increasingly the audience they want to reach will be without Flash.
Fujitsu has an iPad. So does Mag-Tek. Heck, even Coconut Grove has a bra named iPad. It might be a bit tricky PR-wise but this is an opportunity for Apple to change the name, to something less related to female hygiene. Source: The New York Times via Engadget
Dell’s Mini 5 tablet prototype has a model number M01M. The 5-inch tablet sports a 800 x 480 pixel format in landscape, Android 1.6, a 1GHz Snapdragon CPU, WiFi, Bluetooth, 3G, 5MP camera with dual LED flash and a front-facing camera. Next to the iPhone the M01M looks quite serious, in a very good way. Let’s hope the M01M looks seriously good when turned on. Source: PC Online via Engadget
Dell’s Adamo Admire is a very sexy machine. The specs: 1.4GHz Core 2 Duo, Windows 7 Home 64-bit, 2GB 800MHz DDR3 Dual-Channel RAM, 128GB SSD. And the price of just $999 is, well, quite tempting. Source: Dell via Engadget
Daring Fireball’s John Gruber in “The iPad Big Picture” on Apple’s A4 CPU used in the iPad:
… from what I saw today, Apple doesn’t just own and control a mobile CPU, they own and control the hands-down best mobile CPU in the world. … They’re not getting into the CPU business for kicks, they’re getting into it to kick ass.
I have little doubt an Apple-designed CPU will be used in the next iPhone and eventually the next MacBooks. At that point the iPhone will be considerably faster than any other smartphone and last significantly longer. Ditto for the MacBooks.
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