Folders

Many have desired a way to better organize apps on their device. When Apple introduced the App Store, it also gave us multiple home screens. Organization got a bit easier with iTunes 9 which allowed for organizing home screens directly from within iTunes. Taking the idea even further, device-wide Spotlight made it easy for users to find apps no matter which home screen they were on, or even if they couldn’t be displayed because of display limitations. When iPhone 4.0 launches this summer though, users can also organize their apps into folders.

As you’d expect from Apple, the process is quite simple. Just tap and hold an app until it starts to wiggle, just like you were going to move its location. Then drop the app on top of another app’s icon and a folder will be created. The device will use the genre of app (Business, Games, etc.) to define the folder name, but this is, of course, changeable.

Allowing organization within folders will mean that users can now keep many more applications on their devices than before. In fact, Apple says that you could, in theory, store over 2,100 apps on the phone now.

Mail

If there’s one thing that constantly seeing “Sent from my iPhone” has taught me, it’s that iPhone and iPod touch (and now iPad) users all love checking their email. The next version of the iPhone OS will bring some improvements to this much-loved app. The one I’m most excited about is support for multiple Exchange accounts (which is great since I have two at work).

Like Mail.app on the Mac, this new version will also support a unified Inbox, allowing you to see messages from all of your accounts in one view. It will also support threaded messages, making correspondence easier if you’re an email junkie. It’s also easy to switch between inboxes with “fast inbox switching.”

Finally, the new version will also allow you to open attachments that are associated with third-party applications.

iBooks

The success of iBooks on the iPad is unquestionable. With the iPad not even a week old and only available in the United States, Apple has announced that over 600,000 iBooks have been downloaded.

Just like it’s iPad cousin, the iPod touch and iPhone version if iBooks will allow you to browse and buy books directly from the iBookstore. If you’ve already been buying content for your iPad, all of that will sync up through iTunes to iBooks on your iPhone. In addition, your bookmarks and information on the last page you were on will be synced as well.

What do you think of these announcements? Some of these features may only be available to iPhone 3GS or third-generation iPod touch users. Is it time for you to upgrade? Share your thoughts in the comments.

So its clear that while Amazon wants to capitalize on the iPad’s hype and pre-release popularity, it also doesn’t want to go as far as helping Apple convey the impression that it’s the only tablet game in town. To me, the “Including the iPad” sounds like a begrudging admission of the “I was wrong and you were right” variety.

Of course, it might just be that Amazon would like to appeal to the widest group of potential customers possible, while at the same time acknowledging that Apple is likely to win the brand recognition fight in that particular category. Whatever the marketing logic, the actual software Amazon is previewing looks to be pretty fantastic, especially for those (like me) who are already hardware Kindle owners.

First, the Kindle tablet app will offer Whispersync services, which means you can pick up where you last left off reading, no matter which device you happened to be using. I can’t count how many times I’ve used this between my Kindle 2 and my iPhone, so I can’t imagine it being any less useful with my iPad when it finally graces these Canadian shores.

The app will also synch your notes and highlights and bookmarks across all compatible devices, including the recently released Kindle for Mac software, which can read notes and bookmarks, but not make new ones of its own as of yet.

Visually, the Kindle app looks like what you’d expect. Page turn animations are included, or you can turn them off if you’re not so crazy about mimicking a paper reading experience on your digital devices, which I most definitely am not. You can also change font size and color, and background color in order to make the reading experience more comfortable.

Kindle for tablets also supports full color images and graphics, which is great news not only for fans of comics and graphic novels, which haven’t really been a great option on the Kindle thus far, but also for textbooks, recipe books, and some more adventurous fiction that uses in text images and font color changes as narrative devices.

Finally, you’ll be able to shop in the Kindle store via a built-in web view, so you can indulge all those buying impulses on the fly instead of having to wait till you have access to a full computer. All-in-all, it sounds like it’ll give my Kindle 2 a run for its money, even with potentially eye-straining backlighting.

Penguin is apparently looking to sidestep the iBookstore altogether and sell content through the regular App Store, at least unless Apple has additional formats beyond .epub to offer for the iBook app. The publisher wants to offer embedded interactive content in its titles, including audio, video and device-to-device functions.

Looking at what Penguin is planning, I’m reminded of those elaborate electronic reading learning systems designed for children, or the original electronic books, which included simple noisemakers alongside traditional paper texts. In other words, it’s kind of neat, especially if you’re a five-year old, but it doesn’t really strike me as the exciting future of books Penguin is making it out to be. Besides, I don’t want a five-year old getting my iPad all grubby and sticky. Here’s a video of what the publisher was showing off:

The books demoed that were aimed at a more mature audience were a little more impressive, but I was mostly struck by how much they resembled regular apps more than anything else. They seemed like slightly less capable apps, in fact, in that they were still trying to look like books despite there being no point to that. People have developed great medical and astronomy apps for the iPhone (and iPad, by extension) platform. Why would I choose a book that’s been somewhat awkwardly made into an app instead of something designed, from concept to finished product, specifically for the platform?

As someone who avidly enjoys reading, and also buys more iPhone apps than is probably wise or justifiable, even if I do write for an Apple-centric blog, I’m not sold on Penguin’s vision of the future of books on the iPad. I don’t read books for the same reason that I use software applications or interact with rich media, and I’m not entirely comfortable with the idea of mixing the two concepts. I think in doing so, you run the risk of losing the value of one or both of these activities.

A quote by Makinson illustrates exactly what scares me about Penguin’s plans:

We will be embedding audio, video and streaming in to everything we do. The .epub format, which is the standard for ebooks at the present, is designed to support traditional narrative text, but not this cool stuff that we’re now talking about.

Cool stuff? Books aren’t cool. They don’t need to be, and your desperate attempts at staying relevant won’t change that.

This is what’s called the new “agency model” of pricing, which allows the company serving the content to take a cut. Apple’s own system calls for a 30 percent take of the revenue on all apps (and now books) sold through its online store. Amazon recently introduced a similar pricing structure for certain books and apps. It looks like major publishers are unwilling to absorb the cost of the seller’s cut, preferring instead to pass it along to consumers.

Hachette CEO David Young, however, in a letter sent out detailing the new pricing plans, claims that book publishers will not make more money using the agency model, claiming the opposite, in fact:

[W]e make less on each e-book sale under the new model; the author will continue to be fairly compensated and our e-book agents will make money on every digital sale. We’re willing to accept lower return for e-book sales as we control the value of our product–books, and content in general. We’re taking the long view on e-book pricing, and this new model helps protect the long term viability of the book marketplace.

Call me skeptical, but I can’t help but feel that these publishers are acting more out of self-interest than anything else. It may be true that they actually make less on every book sold using the agency model for electronic distribution, but it’s probably also true that the books cost much less for them to create than print versions, too. I’d be willing to bet that they end up profiting more on a per copy sold basis in the end. Hachette makes other claims in his letter about how the deal is actually beneficial to consumers, despite the upfront price hike:

There are many advantages to the agency model, for our authors, retailers, consumers, and publishers. It allows Hachette to make pricing decisions that are rational and reflect the value of our authors’ works. In the long run this will enable Hachette to continue to invest in and nurture authors’ careers–from major blockbusters to new voices. Without this investment in our authors, the diversity of books available to consumers will contract, as will the diversity of retailers, and our literary culture will suffer.

It’s good spin, but it’s spin nonetheless. The bottom line, no matter how Hachette, Macmillan, or HarperCollins try to spin it, is that rather than introducing competition that will result in lower prices for book-buying customers, Apple’s iPad has in fact spelled the end of the $9.99 bestseller, for both Kindle and iPad users. Apple had to offer publishers an incentive to come over to its side, but the cost of that bargain is unfortunately one we as the buying public will be paying for.

At least in the short term. A longer view reveals a different picture. Apple needed to gain access to the ebook market, and so was willing to make concessions regarding price. Publishers jumped at the chance to get out from under the tyranny of what amounted to Amazon’s ability to set prices unilaterally. But is it a case of “out of the frying pay, into the fire?”

If Apple’s power play succeeds, Amazon could conceivably be forced to close up shop (though I still don’t think I’ll ever stop reading on my Kindle in favor of the iPad). If and when that happens, Apple will occupy the spot that Amazon once did, and will be able to dictate prices to publishers, much like they did and still continue to do with record labels. It’s a rare case where a monopoly could actually benefit the buying public, but only if you’re willing to pay more than paperback prices in the meantime. I’m not sure I’m willing to do that.

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Amazon announced today that it will now be offering a much more financially attractive deal for publishers providing content for its Kindle platform. Maybe it has just reached a profitability milestone in terms of the cost of Kindle unit construction that allows it to shift the burden away from content providers, but I’d hazard a guess the move has more to do with Apple’s impending announcement next week.

Why would I think that? Let’s look at the numbers. Up until now, Amazon’s profit-sharing model has been, shall we say, less than kind to the people who provide its digital books. The new model gives content providers 70 percent of the total revenue derived from sales, while Amazon would keep only 30 percent. Sound familiar? That’s exactly Apple’s formula for App Store revenue sharing. Under Amazon’s previous model, providers received just about half the cut they’ll now be getting. Pretty aggressive, if you ask me.

The deal isn’t automatic for every book sold through Amazon’s Kindle store, though. There are a few criteria providers have to meet. Here’s how it breaks down, according to AppleInsider:

• The author or publisher-supplied list price must be between $2.99 and $9.99
• This list price must be at least 20 percent below the lowest physical list price for the physical book
• The title is made available for sale in all geographies for which the author or publisher has rights
• The title will be included in a broad set of features in the Kindle Store, such as text-to-speech. This list of features will grow over time as Amazon continues to add more functionality to Kindle and the Kindle Store.
• Under this royalty option, books must be offered at or below price parity with competition, including physical book prices. Amazon will provide tools to automate that process, and the 70 percent royalty will be calculated off the sales price.

Whether or not a war really is coming, Amazon clearly doesn’t want to be left behind. And the bottom line is that’s great news for us consumers. Amazon’s revenue-sharing model has been one of the major barriers to getting more content available for the platform, and now that they’re feeling the heat from Apple, be it real or imagined, the floodgates are open.

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Presumably, the iSlate would also offer iPod and media playback functionality, but Hans’ post makes no mention of these features:

Our sources have told us that the rumor about Apple launching a product with the iSlate name is true, but the product won’t be an Apple tablet, it will be an eBook reader. The iSlate will be a competitor to the Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook and other e-readers that are out there. Our sources have also told us that the iSlate eBook reader will run on Apple’s upcoming iPhone OS 4.0 software and will include a seperate App Store for eBooks. Apple will be announcing the iSlate eBook reader at WWDC 2010, which our sources says is being held on June 7.

Note also that if Quick PWN’s sources are correct, we won’t be seeing the iSlate or hear mention of it until WWDC, which is being held much earlier than previous rumors suggested, if the unidentified informant is to be believed. Moscone Center booking information suggests WWDC will begin on June 28, not the 7th.

I’m suspicious of this latest rumor for a number of reasons. First, the discrepancy between the WWDC dates previously reported and this one doesn’t really make any sense. Then again, maybe that actually adds credence to this rumor, since the source didn’t just go with the accepted date. I suppose the date change just strikes me as odd, but it doesn’t really preclude the validity of this report.

What I’m more wary of is the nature of the device described and the timing of its launch. Even though the e-book market is beginning to take off (if you believe Amazon’s own hype), it’s still nowhere near as strong as the netbook market was and is, and Apple was wary of jumping into that. I doubt it would create an e-reader at this point without making that a secondary feature, rather than the primary focus of the device. And if it isn’t coming until WWDC, then what’s the event next month going to be about? Why do rumors stemming from suppliers and other more reliable sources point to a different production timeline?

The iSlate, if that’s what it really will be called, will most likely have e-reader function and it will probably threaten Amazon’s market dominance in that area. But is that Apple’s aim with this device? I doubt it. Is e-reading the only or primary purpose of the new gadget? Not a chance.

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Actually, a beta version of the PC software is already available, but the Mac version is still very much under wraps. Writing in the Fast Company blog, Chris Dannen reports, “An Amazon spokesperson told me late Thursday: ‘Yes, we are working on a Kindle app for Mac.’”

The software will work in a similar fashion to the existing Kindle iPhone app (which is currently available only in America). A Kindle owner will be able to read and automatically sync their books across devices. So for example, a user can read a few chapters on their computer screen before heading out of the house. In their doctor’s waiting room they reach for their Kindle, the Whispersync network would have automatically synced the Kindle with their desktop computer, allowing them to pick up reading right where they left off that morning.

Will customers be excited about reading on their desktop? I don’t think so. The form factor of most desktop machines doesn’t make for a very comfortable book-reading experience. But the upcoming touch-enabled netbooks that take advantage of the touch functionality in Windows 7 offer a far more compelling form factor. A Mac-compatible version of the software is more exciting, however, if we imagine it running on Apple’s impending Tablet.

The tablet will most likely offer e-books and other “print” content via the iTunes store, but it’s also just as likely Apple’s e-books won’t use the same file format as Amazon’s proprietary AZW, which is the default format used by the Kindle today. Being able to run the Kindle software on the tablet means Kindle customers will potentially enjoy the best of both worlds on a single device. And even if they ultimately stop using their Kindle and the Kindle online store, their investment in Amazon’s platform will not be wasted… that’s assuming Apple will allow the Kindle software to be installed on its Tablet.

Sure, a Kindle reader app is already available on the iPhone, complete with the ability to purchase new titles. But the iPhone (well, more specifically, iTunes) doesn’t yet offer a serious selection of e-books and electronic publications like magazines, periodicals or comic books. But once Apple has taken its first significant steps in the e-book market, will it forbid third-party apps from offering similar functionality on the same device?

I’d like to say Apple wouldn’t be so silly or shortsighted. But then I think about the high drama surrounding the ill-fated Google Voice app for the iPhone …and suddenly I’m a lot less certain.

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Now clicking “Get Books” in the Kindle iPhone app will take you to a shopping site nicely optimized for Mobile Safari, so you don’t have to squint and swipe around just to give Amazon your money. It definitely improves the user experience of book shopping, but I think that compared with some other iPhone-optimized site designs based on similar concepts (i.e., deviantArt‘s mobile site), they could still make further improvements to make the experience even more pleasant. Why not take a cue from the company you just acquired and build an integrated catalog browser into your app? Stanza will probably be keen to help you out, now that you own them.

Kindle for iPhone is the top e-book app in the U.S. store, having overtaken longtime leader Stanza prior to their purchase of the much smaller company. It’s still unclear what their specific aims were in acquiring Stanza, since they’ve yet to either offer Kindle content in the app, or give Kindle for iPhone users access to the titles they may have in their Stanza library. One thing is clear, though — Amazon is serious about the iPhone platform, even though they offer a competing device. Looks like they want their cake, and they want to eat it, too. We’ll see how that works out for them.

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People who like to read books on their iPhones (including myself) will be pleased to hear that Amazon has grown tired of playing catch-up with Stanza on the platform and instead bought out the much smaller company behind the app, Lexcycle. The Stanza makers are reportedly “very excited” by the development, which is understandable considering the gobs of cash Amazon no doubt threw their way. I’d be jazzed, too.

While it looks like the Stanza devs will continue to work on the app under the Amazon banner, and they claim that no major changes to the app will result from the purchase, Amazon no doubt has big plans for the platform, which it will likely integrate with its existing iPhone app for Kindle titles. Hopefully they don’t just shut it down in favor of their own app, or rebrand it, because I think the Stanza name at this point has become a force to be reckoned with in the world of iPhone apps.

This is definitely a smart play for Amazon, no matter what route they choose to take. They’ve seen how successful the iPhone has been as an eBook reader, and they, like us, have no doubt seen the growing rumors that point towards a larger, tablet-type device coming out of Cupertino in the near future. Even though it’s unlikely that such a device will be marketed primarily as an eBook reader, if it runs iPhone OS and therefore supports app store programs, users will want to use it as one, regardless of whether or not it has e-ink capabilities. In other words, they’ve seen the writing on the wall, and they’ve obviously decided that if you can’t beat ‘em, it’s best to acquire a company already in that space and join ‘em. Good choice, Amazon.

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The new device brings a lot of improvements over the previous model, including more battery life, an incredibly sleek, much thinner design, and better rendering of images. It also brings an experimental text-to-speech feature to the table that enables the device to read aloud, 2GB of internal storage, and a new sync feature that allows you to read on your original Kindle, and then switch to the Kindle 2 without losing your place. This feature is also supposed to support other devices in future.

All of this is interesting, but what does it have to do with Apple? If you ask Apple, they might coyly answer “Nothing.” But if you ask Amazon, I’ll bet that if they’re being honest, they’ll say they’re giving a lot of thought to Apple with the Kindle 2. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos even noted that the Kindle 2 was much thinner than the iPhone during the launch event.

Consider the recent success of the iPhone and iPod touch as e-book reading devices. In fact, the iPhone recently garnered press for surpassing Amazon’s original Kindle in popularity in that category. To me, that sounds an awful lot like competition. And what’s really frightening, from Amazon’s perspective, is that Apple isn’t even actively trying to lock up that market, yet they’re making significant headway.

I think that’s probably why the Kindle 2 has so many feature improvements over the original. Without the advent of the iPhone’s success via apps like Stanza, we might have seen a very different Kindle 2, one that improved on physical design and usability, but not necessarily one that includes features the iPhone lacks like text-to-speech and the new syncing feature.

Don’t think that Apple hasn’t noticed the success of their device as a book reader, even if they didn’t plan on marketing it that way. In fact, I suspect that if they are working on a larger format iPod touch, or a tablet-type device, it’s safe to say that they’ll play up that angle and even offer an official, integrated solution that will definitely give the Kindle a run for its money. An iTunes e-book category would then be a perfect tie-in.

It may seem like a far-fetched prediction, but there’s no way Apple can look at the success of Stanza on the iPhone and not imagine ways they might more directly capitalize. And if they’re already working on a larger-format device, there’s no good reason not to challenge Amazon.

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