I’m not going to comment on the software, as I’m still downloading it as I type this entry. And other sites are doing a great job of covering today’s Apple press conference, so I’m not going to give Apple more free PR if I can help it. I mean, unless they want to pay me.

But I would like to point out one important catch. The fancy new textbook authoring software that Apple is giving away, iBooks Author, comes with a big restriction in its license agreement, and it’s that you can only sell your textbook in Apple’s iBooks store. (Click image for full-size screenshot of the license from the App Store page.) If you want to give your new textbook away for free, Apple has no problem with that. But if you want to sell it yourself or use some other retailer, no dice. You go through iBooks, meaning through Apple, and you give Apple a cut of the profits. Or you don’t use iBooks Author to make your fancy new digital textbook.

That, of course, is why iBooks Author is free. It’s sort of like if the company started giving away Pages, but required that all novels typed with the app belonged to the Apple Store.

So download it, play with it, learn from it. But take a good look at the terms before you invest any real labor in using it, because whatever you end up producing is going to be under Apple’s control for a long, long time.

I’m sure it’s more complicated than I understand, but right now it sounds a lot like the type of page and asset caching that Opera uses (used?) for its mobile browser, or that some cable companies use to reduce download times for customers.

Since Amazon Silk essentially routes all of your web browsing on the Fire through Amazon’s servers, it also raises a significant privacy question, but so far today I haven’t seen many mainstream media types address that. After all the dorky excitement over consumer technology dies down, I imagine we’ll start seeing headlines like “Do you trust Amazon with your web browsing?” and “Amazon Silk lets Bezos watch your every move”.

Update: The Amazon Silk Terms and Conditions agreement mentions that you might have the option to turn off the Amazon server caching and browse the web as you normally would, but since the word “generally” pops up several times in that section, I don’t think Amazon is making any legally enforceable guarantee to absolute privacy. (And that’s if you can turn off the Silk functionality on the Kindle Fire at all—there’s some confusing wording in the Terms that suggests the Silk browser may be on a “computer” instead of the Fire tablet when this feature is offered.)

Before the end of this year, someone shopping for an ereader device will be able to choose from five price points for a Kindle, from $80 to $200, with the top end offering a decent low-cost alternative to a Nook Color or an iPad. Actually, the $80 option is available starting today.

You should know, however, that all of the E Ink Kindles come with the “special offers” screensaver ads; expect to pay at least $40 extra if you don’t want to see advertising. The Kindle Fire tablet doesn’t include the screensaver ads and is only offered at one price.

$79 – Kindle – Wi-Fi only, dpad navigation, no physical keyboard. (It’s the middle device in the trio above.) Available today.

$99 – Kindle Touch – Wi-Fi only, touchscreen navigation, no physical keyboard. (Device on left in trio above.) Ships in November; U.S. only.

$149 – Kindle Touch 3G – Physically the same as the $99 model, but includes free 3G wireless access. Ships in November; U.S. only.

$199 – Kindle Fire – Color 7″ touchscreen, runs Android apps, designed to display all types of entertainment content, including games, music and video. Ships in November; U.S. only.

Here’s an in-context shot of the Kindle Fire so you can get a better idea of how small it is.

Does it upset you that all the new Kindles lack physical keyboards? Don’t worry—for now at least, what we know as the Kindle 3 will still be available in Wi-Fi and 3G flavors for $99 and $139.

I’m not sure anyone thought we’d break the $100 barrier so quickly and by so much, but I think this demonstrates just how closely Amazon is following Apple’s successful iPod strategy—with iPods, Nanos and Shuffles at multiple price points—from last decade.

The full story along with device specs is over on Teleread, but here’s my interview:

What was the inspiration for this?

Susan Edwards: Although our books are or will shortly be available through all the major ebook vendors, we do still have a lot of loyal customers who buy almost solely from our website. We wanted to provide them with a non-proprietary reader that they could use for all their ebooks, but that would also make it easy to continue to buy directly from us, where they still get the best price and can take advantage of all of our sales and purchase incentives.

Plus, we do a lot of conventions, trade shows, contests, p.r. and giveaways. We had been purchasing proprietary e-readers for those purposes and thought, why not have our own e-reader? It’s great advertising and it, again, makes it easy for people to come to our site and buy directly from us.

This model, which we’re calling the eCave C71, is a very limited edition test run that we are rolling out at our RomantiCon convention. We will give many of them away as prizes, and so will be able to work closely with a limited population of users to make sure the device does everything they want it to before deciding on future models and functions.

Can you provide some details on the device? It looks like the Prology Latitute T-701.

SE: It’s very similar to that one. It wasn’t manufactured by them, but has very similar specs and does use the same operating system.

This first model does not come with a cover, though it fits the sleeves available for the Nook and the Kindle 3. Right now, we’re testing the water with the device to gauge interest. If we decide to go larger scale, we will probably have a selection of our own covers to choose from.

You mentioned a “vibrating key” functionality. What!?

SE: It’s a tactile feedback function, like the clicking sound you get when you tap keys. We chose the vibration rather than the usual click mostly just for fun. We are, after all, primarily an erotic romance publisher, and we like to have fun with that, so we often inject a note of fun around the sexuality of our content.

Have you set a price?

SE: We are still working on determining an exact price point. We would definitely like to sell it for less than other e-readers, with some built-in purchasing incentives: something like a combination of free e-books preloaded on the device and a discount on the purchase of additional e-books. We are looking at different models in a range of prices for the future.

How does EC plan on handling warranty and service issues?

SE: We have a great customer service department, so most of the support issues will be handled via that existing department. Any problems we can’t solve through that avenue, we will work directly with the manufacturer on and we will replace any faulty devices. That’s part of the reason we are starting out small, to make sure we are getting dependable devices from reliable manufacturers who stand behind their products.

The similar Prology and Digma models seems to offer a lot of extra functionality, like a radio, photo viewer, voice recorder app, calculator, and so on. Will those things be in the EC model, or is it going to be customized to work solely as an ebook reader?

SE: The ECave C71 features photo, music and video functionality. It truly is a multi-media device at a fraction of the cost of most tablet PCs. It does not feature wireless connectivity but can be accessed via the usb cable provided or by loading various media onto a separate MicroSD card.

Do you see this as a way to exert some control over your market segment when it comes to ebooks, which is currently dominated by huge companies like Amazon, Apple and B&N?

SE: Many of our customers have been buying, downloading and reading our books on their computers and other digital devices for years. We have always worked to keep up with their preferences by providing our books in whatever format they prefer so that we can retain them as customers. This is really just an extension of that practice, and it very definitely does help us to retain direct access to our market segment.

The tl;dr summary: it’s only fast if it’s warmed up and working properly; there’s lots of older content and public domain stuff in the database but not enough frontlist material being offered; the search interface sucks; publishers (and Google) need to take metadata more seriously, because it’s crucial for discoverability in an increasingly crowded marketplace; and the machine’s profit centers are blank journals and small print runs for a local organization, plus self-publishing one-offs.

Be sure to grab a drink and some popcorn and read the comments after the article, too. There are a couple of inflexible traditionalists who loathe the Espresso and everything they think it stands for, and they pull out every bad comment thread/discussion forum trick in the book short of referencing Hitler.

“The Good, the Bad, and the Sexy: Our Espresso Book Machine Experience” [Scholarly Kitchen] (Photo: sukisuki)

Today, however, they’re offering free access to their website for 24 hours. You have to register, but there’s no credit card info required, just name, address, and email. There’s also no verification process, so theoretically you can make up anything you want if you’d prefer to remain private.

You’ve probably already heard that Consumer Reports recently named the new Nook Simple Touch ereader the best of the 6″ models, beating out the Kindle 3 by one point (the scores were 78 and 77 respectively). But now you can see the full list, and see how everyone stacks up on a range of features and performance criteria.

Consumer Reports free access offer [via Consumerist]

Disclosure: I used to blog for Consumerist, which is owned by the parent organization that owns Consumer Reports. None of that past professional relationship has any bearing on this post, however.

PCMag’s reviewer, David Pierce, stacks the deck against Amazon slightly by comparing the $190 Wi-Fi/3G Kindle with the $140 Wi-Fi only Nook Touch. A more straightforward comparison would be the $140 Wi-Fi only Kindle, or even the $114 ad-supported version. Once you remove the misleading 3G price difference, the real features to compare are the input mechanics (physical keyboard vs infrared touchscreen), the user interface, and the battery life.

Pierce writes that the Nook Touch beats the Kindle in all three of those categories. Its home screen is more intuitive and more attractive than the Kindle’s, and its touchscreen interface generally offers a much better way to interact with books, from turning a single page to quickly scrubbing through multiple pages at once. The Nook Touch is also smaller and lighter than the Kindle 3—imagine the Kindle 3 sans keyboard—making it even more pocketable.

However, Pierce notes that it’s not exactly easy to jump from the Kindle platform to the Nook, since both companies use formats that are incompatible with other devices. If you’ve already invested lots of money in a Kindle library, you’re sort of stuck with Amazon unless you’re willing to strip any DRM and convert the files yourself.

There are three points the review touches on that I think deserve more emphasis to help a consumer decide what to buy. First, if you want 3G you’ll want to stick with the more expensive Kindle model. Second, if you want an easy way to customize your home screen with screensaver images and you don’t want to install a hack, the Nook Touch is a better choice because it supports custom images right out of the box. Third, the Nook Touch will support library ebook loans, something the Kindle can’t do—Amazon has promised this functionality later this year, but so far hasn’t provided details.

And finally, there’s one thing I disagree with from the review, and I think it’s also an important factor in making a purchasing decision. Without explicitly saying it beats Amazon, Pierce suggests that the Barnes & Noble Nook store is just as good or better, but in my experience the Amazon Kindle store easily bests it in every way. For example, Amazon has a seven day refund policy on Kindle books, while Barnes & Noble has a no-refunds policy. Amazon also has a bigger selection if you don’t count public domain works, and I don’t since they’re freely available for pretty much any device. Finally, in my experience Amazon offers better prices if you exclude agency-priced books, which are the same price everywhere. Of course, as I mentioned above, if you know how to remove DRM from ebooks then you can shop pretty much anywhere you like.

On average, it seems clear that the Nook Touch is the new champ in the no-frills ebook device category, and although nobody has had a chance to put the forthcoming Kobo Touch through its paces yet, I suspect that it will place second in a comparison of hardware and user interface (although Kobo’s store is probably third after Amazon and B&N).

That puts the Kindle 3, viewed by many as the best device on the market for the past nine months, in a surprising third place. Unless Amazon incorporates a similar touchscreen or comes up with some other killer feature in the near future, I imagine a lot of ebook consumers are going to be buying Nook Touches this year. Most likely I’ll be one of them.

“Barnes & Noble Nook Touch Reader” [PCMag.com] ]]> http://booksprung.com/pcmag-calls-nook-touch-the-new-king-of-ereaders/feed 4 http://booksprung.com/cleverwraps-5-freezer-bags-for-your-kindle-or-nook http://booksprung.com/cleverwraps-5-freezer-bags-for-your-kindle-or-nook#comments Thu, 31 Mar 2011 21:28:12 +0000 Chris Walters http://booksprung.com/?p=5982 Do we really need CleverWraps? They’re essentially just specialized freezer bags, with an added fold-over adhesive flap to help keep the Ziploc-style closure sealed. But halfway through making fun of them, I deleted the paragraph and changed my mind. Sort of.

Here are the two features CleverWraps have that freezer bags don’t:

• They’re sized to fit your device exactly.
• They tape shut to help prevent accidental openings.

Are those compelling enough to win you over, at $5 per bag? (They’re sold in $15 3-packs, with free shipping to U.S. addresses.) For me, no, at least for my Kindle. But CleverWraps also come in custom sizes for the iPad and Galaxy Tab, and for various smartphones. And, to be honest, they do look a little more upscale than a plain old freezer bag.

www.cleverwraps.com [via OhGizmo!] ]]> http://booksprung.com/cleverwraps-5-freezer-bags-for-your-kindle-or-nook/feed 2 http://booksprung.com/sterling-publishing-giving-away-free-nook-color-via-twitter http://booksprung.com/sterling-publishing-giving-away-free-nook-color-via-twitter#comments Thu, 24 Feb 2011 16:44:30 +0000 Chris Walters http://booksprung.com/?p=5653 Sterling Publishing wants some free social media marketing to your Twitter followers, so it’s giving away one Nook Color to a randomly selected person who publishes a special tweet before 11 p.m. ET on February 25th:

["Three Seconds"] focuses on split-second life and death decisions, and the contest asks readers: “What can you do in three seconds?” To enter, simply tweet the answer to that question along with the #ThreeSeconds hashtag on Twitter.

Here are the full rules, but the short version is you can only enter once, only legal residents of the U.S. are eligible, and the winner will be contacted shortly after the contest ends via Direct Message on Twitter.

“Win a Free Color Nook in Sterling Publishing Twitter Contest” [GalleyCat] ]]> http://booksprung.com/sterling-publishing-giving-away-free-nook-color-via-twitter/feed 0 http://booksprung.com/what-neil-gaiman-likes-about-the-kindle-and-why-you-should-care http://booksprung.com/what-neil-gaiman-likes-about-the-kindle-and-why-you-should-care#comments Tue, 18 Jan 2011 00:34:13 +0000 Chris Walters http://booksprung.com/?p=4903 Hopefully you don’t need a Famous Author to validate your purchasing decisions, so I’m not posting about Neil Gaiman’s opinions on the Kindle just to make you feel better/worse about your new ereader. Instead, I thought it might provide some useful things to think about when you shop for your next device, or when you buy ebooks in the years to come.

The Kindle, he writes in a forthcoming article for Locus magazine, “wins” over print in two areas. First, it’s easier to read than a printed book if you need larger sized text, because it can make any book a large-print edition without requiring any real knowledge of how the device works; this is both a crucial feature and usability requirement for the current 40-and-over set. Second, its “buy once, read anywhere” approach makes reading big books a pleasure instead of a task. (Gaiman writes that he still prefers paperbacks for smaller, pocketable books.)

That first achievement–ease of use–sounds like common sense, but it’s actually pretty hard for companies to pull off these days, which is why you should always try out an ereader in person before you buy it. In my opinion there are only a handful of truly easy-to-use consumer electronics in the world: the iPhone, the Tivo (with the original menu, not the unusable HD interface), the Keurig brewer, the Flip videocamera, and the Kindle. Although Amazon’s web interface for the Kindle is nothing to brag about, it’s possible to avoid it almost entirely and still get full use out of your Kindle.

This simplicity really hit home for me last week, when I took advantage of Borders’ “please give us some revenue” sale and bought the Kobo Wi-Fi for $100. I bought it for my mom, because I figured even though she’d miss out on cheap Kindle books, she’d be able to access library ebooks on a Kobo. But I wanted to give it a test run first to make sure it would be easy to use. I immediately fell in love with the hardware, but I kept running into problems with the usability. First, I hated how it was pre-set to connect only to the Borders ebook store and not to the general Kobobooks.com website (actually I hated that there were two shopping destinations at all–Kobo should just be Kobo). I also didn’t like how you had to navigate down through multiple screens just to toggle wireless access, when that’s the very first menu item on the Kindle. I hated that you have to install a desktop app if you want to wirelessly sync the Kobo with your library. And then there was the Adobe Digital Editions program requirement for authorizing library check-outs.

In the end, I couldn’t bring myself to send my mother an ereader that was looking suspiciously like it would require many hours of technical support. I took it back and spent the extra $40 for a Wi-Fi Kindle. She’ll never have to connect it to her aging iBook or think of it as a PC peripheral for as long as she uses it. She can buy a new book while she’s at work, or I can email her a file, and it will appear on her Kindle automatically when she gets home. Hooray for simplicity.*

The second achievement Gaiman describes–the ability to access a book across multiple devices–isn’t unique to Kindle, and I think it’s more of a general benefit of reading ebooks, at least if you’re a Nook, Kindle, Kobo or Google eBooks customer. In fact, it’s one of the innate benefits of storing your books in the “cloud”–they’re easy to access from multiple devices, no matter where you go.

But in theory, at least, cloud storage has a heavy potential cost you should be aware of, which is that it forces consumers to give up control over their purchases.

Publishers would love to see the cloud become the only way to sell ebook licenses to readers, because they could finally get rid of unprofitable consumer behavior like passing books along to friends or shifting formats–the kinds of privileges that consumers demand when they feel like they “own” something, but that are easier to kill off when a customer grows comfortable with simply paying for access to the cloud. Cloud access also makes it easier for publishers to enforce their interpretations of fair use, and to block any applications of technology that they haven’t yet monetized.

For that reason, even though I share Gaiman’s pleasure at being able to pick up my reading where I left off as I move among devices, I always download and save backup copies of my ebooks. That way I will have at least a fighting chance of preserving access to them in the future, no matter what the publisher or retailer decides.

The bad news is, the type of consumer who takes care to make backup copies of ebook purchases probably isn’t the same one who needs an easy-to-use device, so I fear the cloud approach will win out in the years to come. The good news is that the topic is moot right now, because today all the major ereader stores let you download copies of your purchases. But as long as we still have a choice, I suggest that you patronize retailers and publishers who offer file downloads as well as cloud storage.

This isn’t just a pro-Kindle post. I would have happily bought my mom a Nook Color instead of a Kindle had it been in my budget. I wouldn’t have bought an original Nook, though, because I find its interface too clunky. (Return to the post.)

(Neil Gaiman photo: Jutta @ flickr; cloud image: akakumo)