Popular Mechanics (iTunes Link), might be the exception for many reasons.

1. They priced the app right. 1.99. It’s a beta, so I hope they see that the price is a huge deal and keep it at something reasonable, and below the dead tree edition.

2. They don’t go rich media crazy like Wired did. There’s plenty of pages of simple text for reading. Maybe a nice transition of a graphic element sliding in slightly after the page transition finishes, but every page isn’t a multimedia orgy.

3. They started slow. Both Men’s Health and Wired, dove right in with high priced, “billed as complete” as far as I know offerings. It’s nice to see Pop. Mech. admit they’re testing the waters.

4. They valued consumer feedback. The app asks you (sadly it doesn’t seem to know that I’ve already done the survey, which is a might annoying) to fill out a survey about your experience with the app. The content, the ads, etc. Neither Wired nor MH, seem to care. In fact I had trouble with the MH app (It ate my $5 issue) and it took me hours to find an email to ask for help, and the email bounced. The support site, is only for subscribers. FAIL on so many levels, the app is deleted from my iPad.

5. don’t waste space. Honestly I’m not sure how big the PM app is, but I don’t think it was as big as Wired. I don’t want my magazines to take up so much space I’m debating what to sync and not sync, video or magazine. etc. Bloat is overrated.

I’m really digging the Pop. Mech. issue so far. As always great content, but also a pleasing experience. I’m not taping, swiping, and pinching every element to see if there’s something hidden like in other magazine apps. I’m very hopeful that they learn the right lessons from this beta, and create a digital magazine worth subscribing too.

For me that would be.

1. Not $5 an issue. between $2 and $3 i think is the sweet spot. I don’t want to pay as much or more than the dead tree edition costs.
2. Subscription price that makes sense. Not more than the dead tree, and not (digital) cover price X 12
3. Leave the multi media orgy for others. Every issue should be just interactive enough to make sure I don’t think they simply uploaded a PDF of the print issue. I don’t need that much interactivity, it takes away from the content.

Looking at these screen shots, what incentive is there for me to buy the eBook version. Bear in mind, I have free shipping with Amazon prime. Though even with shipping, if I wasn’t in a hurry, regular shipping doesn’t cost much, and is often free if I’m in no hurry.

So really where’s the benefit of buying an eBook? Less than $3 dollars savings? Really? Over a paperback in two cases?! The middle book isn’t released yet, should we guess how it’s paperback price will look compared to the Kindle price?

This is such a huge fail, and it’s Amazon, and the Publishing Industries’ to share. They’ve both taken what was IMO a promising start to revolutionizing publishing, and forced it back into 1980.

I know Amazon lost (way to stick to your guns and fight for your customers) and caved to the publishers, but now rather than use their new found power (i’m talking about the publishing companies) to find a reasonable balance in price and deliverable, they’ve run the price right back up to where it makes no sense at all for the consumer.

It feels like they’re trying to kill ebooks, by making them not worth the price. Way to be green publishers.

Green? Yeah green. By making eBooks so unattractively priced, the Publishing industry in encouraging our continued attack on the environment. Maybe they hope earth will choke on green house gasses before they have to come to terms with technology and the changing landscape of publishing? If we’re all too busy gasping for air, we won’t notice that books are to blame. (Yes that’s over the top, but illustrated my point)

On top of this completely retarded pricing, that more or less incentivizes me to purchase a dead tree copy of all three books, each eBook is DRM’ed. Each of these are listed with Text-Speach disabled. So not only am I paying an outrageous price for my eBook, but the publishers are telling me to fuck off, I get no actual features that make an eBook great. And of course, I can’t use the eVersion outside the kindle.

So I pay pretty much the same price for paper or eBook. Yet with paper I can sell the book to a used book store, loan it to n number of friends, give it away, keep it for the next 30 years, etc. Where as with the Kindle version (this is aimed at you completely Amazon) I can’t loan it out, I can’t sell it, I can’t gift it, I can’t have my Kindle read it to me while I fold clothes, and should the Kindle platform die, I can’t even re-read it. Where’s the incentive in buying the eBook version?

Amazon, you came so close to crushing it. Really, you were right there. the Nook, sucks, IMO. Most of the other craptastic devices being crapped out every other day, by mostly no name vendors stand no chance at ever being anything more than Marginal. You were the market leader. Now… my Kindle is full of things I’ve downloaded off the web. Not pirated content, tho that’s an option, but content i can get from free from sites like instapaper, the Calibre desktop app, etc.

Sorry Amazon, I’m not giving you or these lame ass publishers money. It only encourages this terrible anti-consumer behavior. One of both of you will learn, and it appears it’s gonna have to be the hard way, for you and consumers. Way to go.

Authors; Tery Brooks, John Scalzi, George RR Martin, Jessica Livingston, John Birmingham, et. al. Stand up, you’re impacted just as much as consumers. It’s not 1980 any more, times change, help your publishers figure that out. If I could pay you all directly, for an open, DRM-free eBook file, I’d do it in a heartbeat!

Don’t get me wrong, it’s pretty, but not useful. Yet.

And before you decide I’m just an Apple hater, let me lay out my credentials for those that don’t know me.

I own:

Unibody Macbook, 2 Minis, 3 iPods (including an iPod Photo), 2 iPhones, 1 iPad, 2 Airport Express, 1 Airport Extreme, my wife has a white plastic macbook.

I’ve Previously owned:

a Macbook Pro, Newton 110, Powerbook 510, Performa.  I think it’s safe to say my fanboi-ness is secure.

That out of the way.

The iPad is a very pretty device, and if your life (as some do) revolves around reading websites, watching videos, and …. well that’s it. Checking email I suppose too. Then the iPad is the perfect toy for you (albeit, for those simple tasks, the price IMO is a bit steep).

I tried. I didn’t write this review the night i got my iPad, I didn’t write it Sunday night, I waited and actually tried to do things I’d normally grab my Macbook for.

First I went up on my deck, to get some sun, and enjoy working outside. Since I was just gonna reply to a few emails, I grabbed the iPad.

• While I enjoy seeing myself, i don’t want to watch my face as I type emails. That’s easily fixable though, so it’s not a knock. Why Apple is obsessed with uselessly glossy screens is beyond me.
• First I tried holding it and typing with my thumbs. I prefer landscape mode, and have locked it in that orientation. I have big hands, so it’s quite possible, but not a long term thing. Then I set it in my lap, as many have proclaimed is the perfect use case… I got a sore neck. By this time I’d responded (lengthy responses sure) to two emails. Perhaps if I invested in a $40 (?) case from Apple that i could sit on our patio table, and use? Or buy a Bluetooth keyboard?
• One email I needed to send an export of attendee data to. I couldn’t. The export is .xls of CSV. kudos to Mobile Safari for opening the .xls and showing me, but I needed to send it to some one. Sure the iPhone doesn’t support this, but if the iPad is a revolutionary bridge device between my iPhone and a laptop, I expect a few laptop like things to be there.
• Of course since I can’t run two things at once, I had to close out mail.app mid compose to look up a discount code for a sponsor. Close mail, open safari, go to eventbrite, copy the code, close safari, open mail.app
• Then I thought I’d take a break, check on my Kingdom and my weird little people on Planet Wilker. Thankfully the display is so crisp and bright, it overpowers (mostly) the sun, so i could actually enjoy those games.

Last night I went to a user group meeting, taking only my Mifi and my iPad.

• The auto brightness doesn’t seem very responsive, so I was routinely blinded when loading something with a white screen in the darkened room. No biggy really, annoying a little, sure, but not a “Damn you Apple”
• I had two tasks I was hoping to get done, or at least get started, while listening to the presentation. Write an email to attendees of 360|iDev (thru eventbrite.com’s email feature), and compose the last speaker email to speakers at 360|iDev using mailchimp. The result. FAIL. Both websites use HTML based text editors, apparently not the html web that Apple supports. Kinda crappy. Can’t use Flash, can’t use some HTML…
• So I spent the UG meeting, not using my iPad except to occasionally tweet, and that was only because my iPhone was in my pocket

I’ve tried to replace some of the things I do on my iPhone and my laptop

• I completely understand why Apple made the iPad support iPhone apps. It’s nice to launch and crow about 100k + apps. I have yet to use an iPhone app on the iPad that wasn’t completely and utterly fail. Why use it in 1x mode? I’ll just fire up my iPhone. In 2x mode, no app escapes the ugly tree. I understand the logic, but think Apple should have given developers more time to get their apps ready. I mean really, no facebook app? Hell, the mobileMe app… uh Apple. I know you want me to shell out $30 for the iWorks, but I’d love to be able to access my mobileMe account in a native iPad app, how about that?
• I think the iPad will be much more interesting 3 months from now. Now that developers have an actual device to test with, those that (I can’t blame them) waited to actually use the device before building apps for it, will begin releasing apps. Right now the iPad app store is woe-fully anemic… well maybe not if you’re independently wealthy, and can afford every $9.99 app, LOL. Even then, there’s only a small list of apps I’m buying later, as I feel richer. Most of the apps I want, aren’t there.

Yeah Apple is about the experience, I agree, and sure surfing the web is very nice, if you only want to surf the web and consume. If you actually want to create… well so far the iPad hasn’t done much to support creation. I read one review that gushed and gushed about how awesome surfing the web is. OK sure, but I don’t spend my day complaining about surfing the web now.

So what do I like?

• The feel of it. It’s a nice piece of equipment. The screen (once covered in a smudge/glare free cover) is awesome. Sure I’d like to not have letterboxing when I watch a movie but whatever, that’s a first world problem, and not that important to me.
• The OS, it’s the iPhone OS, which while I wish wasn’t so closed off, and anti-hacker (Pro user), it’s an easy OS to understand.
• The Apps. iPad apps, are nice. They use the screen really well. Those that will shine are the ones that didn’t simply recompile for the larger device.
• The future potential. The iPad right now, for me is a cute toy that gets attention, and let’s me play a few games, and waste time. The iPad in 6 months, could seriously kick ass. There will be more apps that are useful, there will be (Please Apple, it’s kinda obvious) some way for me to work on files in mobileMe (or Googledocs) over the cloud. Screw this dragging files into iTunes, and back and forth. It’s 2010 Apple, you have a cloud storage service, that people are paying money for now. Tie that in to your devices!

What don’t I like? (and please, you don’t have to agree, I welcome your opinion, but if Apple makes you happy with what they deliver, don’t try to tell me what I should be happy too)

• It’s a bit heavy. Not really a “Bad mark” but it’s not light.
• The video app needs an update. Looking at my movies, it’s fine to see the thumbnail and name. Looking at TV shows. A thumbnail from an episode, isn’t helpful. I had 6 icons. Some Seinfeld, some Big Bang Theory. No labels. I had to open one up to see that it was the folder for a season of that show. I like the breakdown by season, that’s nice, but not having any visible clue, it’s like hunting around to find the show you want to watch.
• The single port. This is totally an Apple thing, and I wasn’t surprised, that they’d only have a dock connector, and sell $29 things that plug into the dock connector. Doesn’t mean I think it’s ok.
• The lack of Flash. I don’t actually miss Flash THAT much, because I’ve had my iPhone for a while. I think flash on the iPhone isn’t really a deal breaker. But the iPad is another device entirely. I expect on a media consumption tablet, that I could hit up Hulu, or youtube (fuck having a separate app, that’s lame), or any of the what? 80% of the web that uses flash to deliver content. It’s a business play pure and simple, and as a business person, I can’t find fault. As a consumer, hacker, and person who tries to see thru bull shit, I think it’s weak sauce. “Open Web”, my ass, it’s the “Apple Web”, and them trying to come off like it’s anything but a power grab, is disingenuous at best.
• the iPad of now. If 360|iDev wasn’t the weak after iPadmas, I probably would have waited. It just doesn’t do anything I can’t do now with the tools I have. I don’t need “an semi-adequate alternative” I need a “solid replacement”… the iPad isn’t there.

So I picked up a trusty paperback I’ve read 3 times previous but not recently (the last 4 years or s0).

I had forgotten how nice a book feels. No I’m not suddenly an anti paper luddite, but real books are nice, the feel of paper (in this books case) the degrading spine (mass market paperbacks sadly aren’t designed to last) requiring kid gloves to read it, etc.

But that nostalgia aside, i’m still a big proponent of eBooks, but I’m reconsidering my opinion that they’ve ‘arrived’

Not only does Amazon cow towing to McMillan bother me, but in general the trend of Amazon and the publishers.

I had hoped after what? 2 years of Kindle sales, stats like every Kindle owner on average buys 2.7 or something more books than non Kindle owning Amazon users, etc. That the publishers would get onboard the clue train.

But that doesn’t seem to have happened.

Rather than figure out how to make money in the marketplace as it exists, they’ve bitched and moaned for 2 years, without fixing a broken system.

I had hoped, and have said often, that the change in publishing, will have to be forced, and that I hoped Amazon was strong enough to “Apple” the publishing industry into the 21st Century.

I appear to have misplaced my hope. Sure it would suck to not be able to buy Tor titles from Amazon, I love Sci Fi. But it was a game of chicken, and Amazon jumped out of the car first.

Unfortunately rather than support the modern age, most authors seem to be on the attack of eReader owners, and crying foul on Amazon. Rather than lobbying for change from within most just sit back and bitch about how truly powerless they are. WTF guys come on, you’re the content creator, the power IS yours.

So for now, I’ve established a book buying moratorium. As much as it pains me, I can’t support an industry that staunchly refuses to adapt to the world around them. If the Music industry and figure it out, publishing should be able to as well.

I’ll get books at used book stores, I’ll use Paper back swap, and I’ll get free books for my Kindle when I can.

There’s always bittorrent too, sorry publishers, but forcing paying customers away, is your own doing*

I hope other Kindle owners will stop buying books as well. There’s plenty of other sources, and plenty of free content as well. My Kindle won’t be collecting dust by any means.

I’d love to hear what you think.

*Not an admission of piracy, if I WERE to download a book off a torrent and like it, I’d buy the paper version.

As the organizer of a conference for iPhone developers, I can’t wait to see what they do with the iPad. I can’t wait for panels on the differences, etc.

This post isn’t about that. This post is about me as a techy, power user consumer. The exact person the iPad isn’t for.

Alex Payne captures my thoughts on this really well. From a Flex Developer standpoint (Yeah that’s right hater, Flash!) I think Doug sums it up well.

I’m not gonna lie I let the rumor mill wind my expectations up more than I should have.

I was expecting

• iPhone OS – Got it
• Cellular plan of some sort – Got it
• affordable – sorta got it. based on features it’s murky but it’s not $2000, so that’s something.
• Ability to run more than one iApp at it’s native size in a window – Nope didn’t get that
• A USB Port or two – Nope
• Some type of awesome MobileMe integration that would allow me to download files on my iSlate straight to mobileme where I could consume them on my real computer. – Nope, not even close, and MobileMe still sucks, not even an upgrade to it.
• Flash – nope. Though I wasn’t surprised. Apple controls the playground, and in true bully fashion has no reason to stop.

That’s it. The camera everyone wants might be fun, but i don’t use the one on my Macbook, so…

I can survive without the USB ports, since clearly apple doesn’t like us to have access to the guts, that’s livable.

No multitasking is a deal breaker. Let’s be clear, I have an iPhone, I have a Macbook. If I want the “Real web” I can look at it on my macbook which is nice and light. If I want the Apple version of the web, I can use my iPhone.

Assuming I got the device I wanted, I never in a million years Imagined I’d leave my Macbook at home. Clearly I wouldn’t leave my iPhone at home either. I’d cary the tablet for when I walk around, or just need to do some lightweight work. I’d carry with me at conferences for note taking and controlling the mac mini’s on site if they need it. etc. it’d be a utility device. I could stream music, and work on my keynote for Wednesday, I could fire up IM and not be away from it, ditto for twitter. I’d basically be free to roam and not be tied to my laptop at the registration desk.

When I was going out and didn’t need my laptop, i figured my iSlate would be with me. Heck I could toss it in Nicole’s purse, or just hold it.

It’s not (yet) the device I want.

I admit, my hopes were pie in the sky. From the vitriol flowing out of twitter the last few days, I’m not alone. It’s almost like the Jets vs. sharks scene in West Side Story. The die hard fanbois are rushing to the defense of Apple and the iPad and those dissappointed and even angry are rushing to call it names, and shout how Apple has failed them. I say them because while I’m sad it’s not the device I want, I have no doubt it will sell like mad and people will love it. Fanbois will love it because it’s in their contract. Normal consumers will love it because it’s simple, doesn’t do anything but surf the web and send email, etc. My mom truly is the perfect candidate for this device.

I agree with Alex that it seems that Apple is turning down a path, where hackers and power users aren’t welcome, and aren’t their core business. They’re truly turning consumer. This is good, great, but also bad.

Good because I want Apple to succeed, I truly love their products and industrial design (though I hope they ditch shiny backs on ipods. Clearly Steve jobs has had his finger prints burnt off to not see the smudges the rest of us see, or he has a Eunuch to operate his iPod and iPhone for him). Bad because as Alex says, they’re turning their attention away from what (I think) they’re all about. Apple was founded by hackers, Apple survived a long time on hackers, and tinkerers and power users.

Lately all their devices are less and less hacker, tinkerer, power user friendly. I’m sure plenty of self proclaimed power users will say otherwise, running Photoshop all day, with other apps open, does not a power user make in my mind. Open Terminal, hack your shit! Change settings via bash, etc. That to me is a power user.

That’s not possible on the iPad.

Hope in the Jailbreakers

I think the iPad has huge, huge potential. I think those folks that are angry have forgotten one key thing, the first version of most Apple gear is just meh. the first iPod, not so hot, awesome by the standards of the day of course, but compared to what iPods can do now. no.

The iPhone 2g when it was released had no apps but those Apple provided. Had no MMS, had no (long list of things, some still on it)

the OS wasn’t that great, the features weren’t that great, etc. the iPhone 3GS is quite a different machine. More powerful, more feature rich. I bought my 2G iPhone when the 3G was released, on Ebay. i didn’t fully jump on the bandwagon of iPhone until the 3GS. That was when it was a device I could use and like, outside of my fanboiism.

The Macbook Air had issues with it’s CPU cores, etc. Macbook pros mooo’d. There’s plenty of history of first gen issues. nothing major and Apple fixes them, but it’s common that the first run is to get the bugs out. Apple will make the iPad better. Perfect? no, but I hope it is eventually something I’ll want as a consumer.

P.S. Fanbois, please refrain from commenting on why I’m dumb for expecting something other than what I got. I’m sure you got exactly what you expected, you’re buying 4 of them the moment the site allows it, and you and Steve are on the same wavelength and this device is 100% the most awesome revolution in computing. I’ve heard it all before and it doesn’t add to the discussion. You have a blog, use it.

I would like to know what everyone thinks about the iPad in the least fanboish ways possible, what will you use it for, what do you think it’s strength is, other than, of course being Magical

Joe has some really good points, and sadly, 2.3 doesn’t negate many if any at all.

Then I got to thinking, what makes me still recommend my Kindle? It’s not the Kindle itself, it’s only a little bit Amazon itself, though I do almost all my buying on amazon, and really like the whispernet service.

it’s the incredible third party ecosystem that has grown around the Kindle to make it a truly kick ass device.

Enter the hacks. My Kindle now shows images I like to look at, when it’s asleep. The font is now darker, easier to see, a much improved way to read. Why couldn’t Amazon provide that functionality? It doesn’t impact performance that I can tell, it doesn’t cause system instability, no crashes, etc.

This thought came to me when I was reinstalling my screensaver hack, because even after months of no new firmware updates, years of the same three “experimental” features never getting an ounce of love from Amazon, i still couldn’t pick my own images for the screensaver. I was still stuck with the dead authors Amazon thinks I should see.

I still couldn’t pick the font I wanted to read in, stuck with a terribly light, hard on the eyes font. Why?

Now look at services like instapaper, kindlefeeder, and Calibre. While I’d never want those great ideas and awesome entrepreneurs to be thwarted, i’d love Amazon to show them some love, buy their services, buy their code, hire them, something.

Kindlefeeder delivers a mobi formatted newsfeed every morning, it’s there when I get home from the gym. 20+ of the blogs I read daily, are right there, the most recent posts since the last morning, ready for my reading. Why can’t amazon offer that? Oh wait, I can pay $ for every blog I like for Amazon to send it to me.

Then there’s Calibre, which I’ve used off and on for 360|Whisperings, but now also has a nice new feature I love. I love the Harvard Business Review. Sadly it’s STILL not available on Amazon, but Calibre allows me to plug my credentials in and receive a mobi magazine formatted article. It looks just like any magazine you’d pay Amazon for. I’m already paying for HBR, but it’s nice to be able to get it in the format I want it to be in.

The last feature that Amazon should have included but didn’t is Instapaper, which I’ve long used in my surfing of the internet. Find a site I like, mark it to read later. Now when I mark it to read later, I get a weekly mobi formatted new feed on my Kindle. Where I can save it and read at my leisure.

Where’s Amazon?

All these hacks and services are what make the Kindle a kick ass device. It’s software is lackluster, it’s feature set dated (Folders? Tags? Desktop organization? Hello Amazon), it’s hardware uninspired to say the least. Thank god for smart ingenious people who work to make up for Amazon’s failings.

Maybe Joe is right, maybe Amazon won’t stick with hardware. if they won’t step up, I think it’s for the best. I think they’ve done great things for the eBook marketplace, I think they can again if they actually put some effort into it, but to pull a move like they’ve pulled…? Weak sauce.

Make an effort Amazon, it won’t take much, and you stand SO MUCH TO GAIN.

The effort isn’t really that much. More frequent firmware updates for sure.

A hardware refresh yearly at least, or look at Apple, small changes between the larger updates.

Both of these things are a must for Amazon to remain relevant in the eReader hardware space, for the Kindle to be more than a footnote in the eReader story.

What do you think?

Not only do I think it’s BS that a $9.99 eBook isn’t profitable I think it’s outrageous that Steve Haber sucks for thinking consumers are a bunch of idiots that don’t understand profit margins.

Perhaps $9.99 isn’t profitable for Sony (Why is sony profiting at all on eBook sales?) because Sony is a huge bloated company with (I’d guess) more middle management than it needs. Profit margins have to be high for bloated inefficient companies to survive. That’s not the consumers fault, or the competition.

It’s an ebook, very little work goes into it’s creation, distribution, etc beyond the initial writing/editing process. Unless publishers are so backwards they’re still mailing manuscripts around in big envelopes, the work is already digital. Translate to ePub, and that’s it.

WTF, you can’t make money on $9.99 when you’re doing nothing more than taking the finished digital work, and converting to ePub? Really?  eBook sales should be icing. You’re already marketing the book (or should be), already pitching it to brick and mortors, etc. the eBook is the “Oh yeah it’s also available on your eReader”

As a side note, i found this quote hilarious.

On Sony’s embrace of ePub, the open format for reading digital books across multiple devices (which Amazon has not adopted):

“My analogy is if you walk into a mall and you’re with a bunch of your friends to go shopping and you can only go in one store and they can go into many stores. It probably makes more sense to shop many stores. That’s our thinking … It frankly makes it more fun for us because we can work with so many different companies. We’re not here trying to put a wall up to block our customers. We don’t get emails complaining about ‘Why did you lock me in?’

My translation is this.

“We tried being pricks and forcing people to use our own proprietary format, much like we did with digital music, (ATRAC) and memory cards for digital cameras, that didn’t work with any other devices or services on the planet. It didn’t work, so we’re doing what we should have done in the first place, but spinning it like we’re cool, and hip, and all about consumer rights.”

As always we started talking about technology, and in particular eBooks, and eReaders, and how the library of tomorrow won’t look like the one we were walking through.

Here’s the idea we came up with, looking at the crowd of people in the library.

Offer a Kindle (or a Nook, or whatever) to each library member. Of course they’d need to be subsidized somehow, and you could probably get away with charging something super small, $20 maybe? Just to put a value on it to holders. It’s Library property, so you could also enforce some “Lose it, buy it” deal, and give the $20 back if it’s returned in working order. Otherwise it’s a lifetime deal like a library card.

Of course it’s not a Kindle like you’d get on Amazon. It’s a library device. It’s useful to read content you’ve checked out of the library. Sort of like the way the Nook knows when you’re in a B&N, the Library Kindle would know you’re in the library. You’d browse the available titles, check out whatever the limit is, etc. following whatever rules exist. You wouldn’t be buying anything, nothing permanent would reside on the device.

The book would transfer to your device, with the appropriate DRM to enforce the check out period (as already exists and is in use at libraries), the patron would go home, and have a book to read on an eReader.

There wouldn’t be 3G, and you couldn’t connect to other Wifi hot spots. The connection is only for the Library. Outside the Library it’s an unconnected eBook reader, which all a library patron would need it to be.

Sidenote (You could get really jiggy, and allow patrons to have an account on the library server, to collect annotations, etc. That way you could make notes on the book you’ve checked out, and they wouldn’t go away when you checked the book back in, but you might have to check the book back out to read them? I dunno, it just popped into my head.)

As far as funding goes, well it doesn’t cost Amazon $259 to build the Kindle, so they could easily give libraries a massive price break on bulk orders. Additionally, what company wouldn’t want, say a screen saver image as advertising on each device? Sell a few (there’s no limit really) ads (600×800 images) that are displayed when the device is sleeping, to offset the cost of the device. That’s a lot of eyeballs on each ad, if you think of how many patrons your typical metro library has.

Once the devices are in the library (assuming someone like Amazon, etc builds the custom OS) the ownership is easy. Charge the devices in a closet somewhere. When someone signs up, give them the device, the charger, and an instruction manual. Heck charging could even be something only offered at the library, since without a wireless connection Kindles last about 2 weeks. But either way, there’s not much overhead in managing the Devices. Repair/replacement would obviously be thru the vendor, just like with library workstations.

The OS is simple (The existing Kindle OS ain’t exactly MacOS) so there’s little to no learning curve, you wouldn’t need to have full time support staff, etc either. Whatever existing staff, would easily handle issues, since worst case, it’s swap out the device, and RMA the bad one.

I think as libraries become more aware of the sun set approaching them, the smart ones, will get on board with this idea. The smart company (Amazon, Sony, B&N) will jump on the idea too and secure the market before anyone else sees the market forming.

This idea free to whomever can make it work, I want to see our libraries thrive in the future, and I want to see reading supported!

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://www.assoc-amazon.com/s/link-enhancer?tag=redomega-20&o=1″> </script> <noscript> <img src=”http://www.assoc-amazon.com/s/noscript?tag=redomega-20″ alt=”" /> </noscript>

And now I’m torn.

The Nook (Gizmodo Review), looks incredible. Up until now, the other eReaders, looked F-ugly, performed poorly, cost too much, etc. But B&N seems to have hit a home run. I’ll admit, I haven’t seen one in person, yet. If half the write ups are accurate though, this device has true Kindle killer potential.

I’ve also made no bones about the things I think Amazon is doing wrong; DRM, proprietary format, pricing, etc. Can the Nook, counter enough of them to win me over?

The nook, certainly looks like a great alternative to the Kindle. So much so, I’m really debating my allegiance to Jeff and Co.

Battery Life:

When measuring time in days, does 10 or 14 matter? Not to me. I charge my Kindle about every 4-5 days when I go to sleep. When I travel sometimes I don’t even charge it. 10 days or 14 makes no difference to me. SO long as I have Days, NOT hours, i’m good.

Network:

You know, i don’t care. So long as there’s broadband, I don’t care if it’s Whispernet or AT&T. Though given that I’m an iPhone owner, and know first hand how shitty AT&T’s network is, I’ll be really mad if I have to wait an hour for a book to be delivered. Wifi will be nice, when I travel overseas, but really, not that nice. I mean, I’d likely buy as many books as I planned to read, before leaving.

Sharing AKA Collaboration?

The big thing for me, that the Nook comes closer with its sharing feature than the Kindle… well the Kindle doesn’t even try. Fuck piracy yo! But it’s a book, it’s meant to be shared. Hell yeah I want it back! But if I think it’s worthwhile enough to share, I want to be able to do that! If I want to show someone how great it is, so they buy their own, awesome! Just the other day, Tom suggested I pick up Gary V’s book. I was torn, Gary goes between being inspirational for me, and my wanting to punch him. I told him, “You better be right, I don’t have money to buy books I won’t want” Tom lucked out, and Gary V rocked it. “Crush It!” is worth the buy. Had Tom bee able to loan it to me for two weeks, I’d have read it for a day or two and bought it.

What I’m not sure about, and don’t see mentioned, can the person I lend the book to, make annotations? Will those come back with the book? It’s not exactly what I want, which is two people, two copies of the book, sharing notes. But it might be closer, and with Android, certainly more likely.

Add to that the free in store reading, that’s kinda awesome. Gimmicky for sure, I haven’t been in a B&N in months, but I might visit one more often with a Nook in hand.

Keyboard:

The second screen, while kinda weird to think about, sounds awesome. I hate the keyboard on my Kindle. it’s small, hard to use, and mostly in the way. I’m a note making fool and barely use it.

If I could have a keyboard when I needed it, and say media controls (I’ve never used them on the Kindle, but still) always on the bottom, NOT interfering with reading, all I gotta say is w00t!

UN-Proprietary:

I hate closed systems. Sure I don’t want crazy hacked instability roll your solution shit, but I always like to be able to mod my stuff. I jailbroke my iPhone to have themes, I hacked my Kindle so I’d stop looking at old Bookplates and authors. Andriod, while I’m not a fan of the phones, opens some seriously awesome doors for the Nook. Hell that second screen could be streaming internet radio, or playing MP3s while I read, without me having to leave the book to control that function. It could show me a running tally on the notes I’ve written so far, or a live dictionary. hell it could be showing me twitter! All while I read my book.

Downside: Amazon.

The one thing that gives me pause is two parts really. It’s Amazon. I’ve had my Kindle for maybe 6 months, bought dozens of books. I like being able to fire up amazon, find a book, and assuming there’s a kindle version, begin reading in under 5 minutes. Sure I can go to the Barnes & Noble site, but it’s not the same, sorry guys.

PLUS, what happens to the dozens of books I’ve bought for my Kindle? Some of which I haven’t read yet. Sure I can probably hack something together to strip the DRM, turn into a usable format, etc, but that’s a PITA. Kinda sad, what makes me not like the Kindle, also locks me into it unless I’m willing to lose my purchases. Way to go Amazon.

What do you think?

360|iDev

This was our second iPhone developer conference and it was a HUGE hit! We saw a 30% increase in attendance, which was awesome! 6 months, 30%, that’s just great! Denver didn’t let us down at all! this city is a treasure trove of iPhone developers. I’m seriously thinking 360|iDev might have a perm home here.

We had a great time! Got lots of incredible feedback, met tons of interesting people. One of the most awesome blog posts (Of the many, many) written about the event, was from David Whatley, who volunteered to speak at the conference at the last minute, completely on his own dime. We also wrangled him into hosting a panel, which was mind blowing!

“To be blunt, the conference was not dominated by stuffed suits, not dominated by nonsense, not dominated by people hawking stuff… there wasn’t even a single prima donna in sight!  People were there to learn from each other, help each other, and band together to achieve their ambitions.  The sense of community, which I feel the whole game industry lost so long ago, was a constant at this conference.  It was, I realized by the second day, home.“

He captures, why I do events. David wasn’t the only person to say something along those lines.

I’m really excited to already be working on the next 360|iDev, in San Jose! Not to mention the next 360|Flex! I can’t wait to see all my new friends, as well as the new people who have heard about the conference and will attend next time.

360|MAX

Adobe MAX is the annual “geek out” for those of us doing anything with Adobe technologies. It’s a huge event, costs a metric buttload, and is usually pretty over the top. It’s also hugely fun, and a great way to see folks who don’t come out for other events typically. It’s also nice to attend an event that I’m not organizing, or at least not organizing much of.

360|Conferences does an unconference at MAX, to bring some community to the event. It’s always a good time, we get some great speakers to give us some time and share what they know. It was really cool this time that we had some more interesting topics; Arduino/Flex interaction, How a rock band uses Flex/AIR and even iPhone in their performances, etc.

It was a good time.

Next time, we’ll limit talks to 30 minutes. It’s about double the sessions, but I think 30 minutes is a good time slot, we can get more great topics going.

The funnest part of my job (If I can call it that) is doing different types of events. They’re not just always the same event over and over. Even 360|Flex and 360|iDev, while super similar, and based on the same ideals, are vastly different. Then throw in Ignite, 360|FlexPress, and hopefully a Festival of Books, and it’s just a great time bringing people together!