Students should be very leery of this type of service catching on. First, from what I have seen so far, e-textbooks don't cost significantly less, which is strange since they 1) have virtually no cost to make [most books are sent as PDFs to printers for printing], 2) usually expire, and 3) have no resale value.
For instance, I recently took a class. The e-text was $80 and the traditional text was $100. why would I pay $80 for an e-text book, when I could buy the new book at a $100? With the hundred dollar book, I can generally sell it for 40 to 60 percent of it's value when I am done whereas with the e-text you cannot.
I fear if these books catch on, budget conscious students will have no choice but to buy the much more costlier e-texts.
Well, the kindle got panned by the Princeton students and profs...so thus far not much danger of that.
I found the kindle to be more annoying than anything else. I don't like the screen at all. At best, I would rate readability as fair. The only time I found it to be good was in sunlight. But the truth is that most reading doesn't take place in sunlight.
Just wait until Apple releases it's brand new tablet with glossy screen. Aiiiiieeeeee!
Really I think this is just irrational, just because it will run an OS derived from iPhone doesn't imply anything about it's final capabilities. On top of that I've yet to see anybody explain to me how one would get Mac OS/X software to work usefully on a tablet. If the screen is a Touch input device Apple doesn't have any options other than iPhone OS.
This is untrue. Ink has been part of Mac OSX and works for single touch. The touchpad is multitouch and can do gestures. There's nothing that OSX can't do on a tablet that the iPhone OSX can.
Quote:
The fact is the tablet will need a reason for it's existance beyound running a desktop OS because history here is starkly clear. Running a desktop user interface on a tablet has always been a huge failure. The reason is pretty clear too, you can't input data 8 hours a day on them. For that matter 15 minutes at a time is a joke.
The fact is apps need to be refactored for use on a tablet. Going to a new API forces that. Fresh apps are guarranteed with iPhone s as the programming API.
The fact also has been that slates have been far less successful than convertibles because they have keyboards and can effectively run legacy desktop apps.
Besides, to be any kind of useful replacement the multi-touch APIs matter far less than apps.
Not even Apple is going to be able to port iLife and iWork to a tablet easily...much less coddle MS to port Office to a touch interface. The iPhone doesn't need iLife or MS Office. A real tablet does.
Unless all you want is a largish MID/eBook reader. That market sure as heck hasn't blossomed yet.
Quote:
Multitasking would be a huge improvement and is just one limitation that a more powerful tablet could enable.
If it acts like a newspaper+magazine+web browser (it doesn't need to be able to bake me cookies) and if it's reasonably priced, there's a good chance I'd buy one.
The fact is the tablet will need a reason for it's existance beyound running a desktop OS because history here is starkly clear. Running a desktop user interface on a tablet has always been a huge failure.
What are you talking about? We need to see the thing first before we sell our children and decide how much of a revolution it actually is. If this thing runs iPhone OS I won't buy it.
The iPhone OS is OS X, just like the MacOS. You can be 100% guaranteed it will run OS X. There are different applications (iPhone doesn't have the finder) and some different frameworks (cocoa touch vs cocoa), but it's still OS X.
It appears that people are assuming this is all this device is going to do. I am highly doubtful that Apple would release a product that was 'just' an eBook / print media tablet. I could see this as a huge selling point and a way for Apple to set up some recurring subscription based revenue or "subs", but it isn't like it isn't going to surf the web, play games, have other apps available for it.
All the goodness of app store will come with it. Apple is right though to assure initial success it will need to have a draw. To be honest I thought movies and the web would be enough but who am I. The e-books and E-magazines market though is very compelling and wide open to innovation.
So I could see why Apple might focus in on the publishing businesses. They are in ways like the American auto industry, they got very greedy & myoptic and are now paying the price. Hopefully Apple can show them the light here and significantly impact pricing of content. Ideally we would get magazines and newspapers at one third the going rate for the dead tree versions. Maybe even less. If there are not significant discounts the obviously these businesses are learning the required lessons.
As many have noted books are even worst, especially text books for college. This is a bigger problem and requires a broader effort to combat. I'm actually surprised that there haven't been more student protests at the extortion going on here. It is one thing when it comes to extremely limited distribution texts, but the widely distributed texts have no justification for their costs.
As to novels & paperbacks well PDFs are fine for those. However we don't see much demand yet for such works in this format. In part you have the reality that reading for pleasure is different than other activities involving reading. I'm not sure how well the electronic format will adapt to this. It would be interesting to see Kindles book sales broken down by type. That is, what is the portion of the book sales going to pleasure reading.
The iPhone OS is OS X, just like the MacOS. You can be 100% guaranteed it will run OS X. There are different applications (iPhone doesn't have the finder) and some different frameworks (cocoa touch vs cocoa), but it's still OS X.
The iPhone is whatever Steve tells you it is. Look into my eyes!!
We are talking about Apple here, so subscription school books is highly unlikely. Subscription newspapers may be a different story though.
I wouldn't say that. Apple is big in education. If that's proposed to them, or they see it themselves, I see no reason why they wouldn't do it.
It also could be downloaded as one unit, much like a music album is composed of a number of separate songs.
Or like a book reader, where you download a book as you need it. If they charge for the service up front, but then allow you to download the content as required, what's the problem? You're paying for a certain amount of content, and that's what you're getting. Apple allows this now. With the ver 3 OS, you can buy new content from within a program as well.
Question from left field. I answered a question about a rumored device, not an actual device.
Well, since everyone, including all the sources, seem to agree that this will be an iPhone OS based product, and you just said that you won't buy it if it is an iPhone based product, then you said that you won't buy it.
If Apple comes out with a different product from what's being expected, that's a different question.
Well, since everyone, including all the sources, seem to agree that this will be an iPhone OS based product, and you just said that you won't buy it if it is an iPhone based product, then you said that you won't buy it.
If Apple comes out with a different product from what's being expected, that's a different question.
Text books are so expensive because publishers have to pay rather obscene amounts to the authors to get them to write something. My advisor once received $5K for writing a 30 page book chapter... the book itself was about 10 chapters long and cost $130. Textbooks are even worse, but publishers know they'll sell more so they lower the price a bit. Ideally most professors would prepare their own class notes and distribute them for free like I had some of my undergrad and graduate professors do.
As for the tablet. I can't see Steve ever putting it out as an e-reader. That would be way too uni-purpose. The iPhone is a hit because it's more multi-purpose than any other phone out there. I could see this being sold with e-new/magazine subscriptions as a feature, but not as the focus.
Responding to the part in bold above: Books are expensive because the market is tolerable of it, not because the authors are getting rich. These are required readings. Students have to buy them. Thus the high prices and the extremely wealthy publishers.
For what it's worth, I did a detailed analysis of what it would mean for Apple to "re-invent" print media in digital form, concluding that Apple has three key things going for it that make it a natural:
A pre-existing 50M device footprint with the iPhone + iPod Touch that provides leverage for a new device;
A proven dynamic platform (read: integrated hardware-software-services-tools) for end-to-end content creation, application development, distribution, and global reach, supported by deep application and media libraries, and a robust runtime space;
A durable billing relationship with consumers to the tune of 100M credit cards on file (iTunes + App Store, Mobile Me).
Plus, the history of Steve Jobs dating back to Next suggests that this is strategic to him (and thus, Apple), something the post covers:
Rebooting the Book (One Apple iPad Tablet at a Time)
As a student, I was one that kept all of my books (and still have them). If the McGraw-Hills of the world put a "time limit" on usage of their digital education content, how am I (or you) going to keep those for reference. Bad bad idea from my perspective.
I don't know if that is the plan for DRM, but I'm positive that the business model is not yet out there. We are guessing and analogizing with current models, and I think they don't work.
I think as with iTunes U, the universities will get in on things with perhaps licensing options in which they may have some control over DRM such that as a student or alumn, you might have perpetual permissions.
The iTunes model of rental and ownership will have to be worked out and perhaps the iApp ability to have updates sent to you automatically (that would be great for quickly changing subjects like science, etc.), free or with a fee, and would give a much better functionality to textbooks.
I prefer reading Thoreau and Shakespeare with books, but I'd be fine reading Immunology on an interactive tablet that is easy to update and has multimedia capability.
Comments
Students should be very leery of this type of service catching on. First, from what I have seen so far, e-textbooks don't cost significantly less, which is strange since they 1) have virtually no cost to make [most books are sent as PDFs to printers for printing], 2) usually expire, and 3) have no resale value.
For instance, I recently took a class. The e-text was $80 and the traditional text was $100. why would I pay $80 for an e-text book, when I could buy the new book at a $100? With the hundred dollar book, I can generally sell it for 40 to 60 percent of it's value when I am done whereas with the e-text you cannot.
I fear if these books catch on, budget conscious students will have no choice but to buy the much more costlier e-texts.
Well, the kindle got panned by the Princeton students and profs...so thus far not much danger of that.
I found the kindle to be more annoying than anything else. I don't like the screen at all. At best, I would rate readability as fair. The only time I found it to be good was in sunlight. But the truth is that most reading doesn't take place in sunlight.
Just wait until Apple releases it's brand new tablet with glossy screen. Aiiiiieeeeee!
You are the one who has been pouring the Kool-aid for years now.
Let's all raise our Kool-Aid in a toast!
You answered the question. You won't buy it.
Question from left field. I answered a question about a rumored device, not an actual device.
Really I think this is just irrational, just because it will run an OS derived from iPhone doesn't imply anything about it's final capabilities. On top of that I've yet to see anybody explain to me how one would get Mac OS/X software to work usefully on a tablet. If the screen is a Touch input device Apple doesn't have any options other than iPhone OS.
This is untrue. Ink has been part of Mac OSX and works for single touch. The touchpad is multitouch and can do gestures. There's nothing that OSX can't do on a tablet that the iPhone OSX can.
The fact is the tablet will need a reason for it's existance beyound running a desktop OS because history here is starkly clear. Running a desktop user interface on a tablet has always been a huge failure. The reason is pretty clear too, you can't input data 8 hours a day on them. For that matter 15 minutes at a time is a joke.
The fact is apps need to be refactored for use on a tablet. Going to a new API forces that. Fresh apps are guarranteed with iPhone s as the programming API.
The fact also has been that slates have been far less successful than convertibles because they have keyboards and can effectively run legacy desktop apps.
Besides, to be any kind of useful replacement the multi-touch APIs matter far less than apps.
Not even Apple is going to be able to port iLife and iWork to a tablet easily...much less coddle MS to port Office to a touch interface. The iPhone doesn't need iLife or MS Office. A real tablet does.
Unless all you want is a largish MID/eBook reader. That market sure as heck hasn't blossomed yet.
Multitasking would be a huge improvement and is just one limitation that a more powerful tablet could enable.
iPhone already multitasks.
You answered the question. You won't buy it.
If it acts like a newspaper+magazine+web browser (it doesn't need to be able to bake me cookies) and if it's reasonably priced, there's a good chance I'd buy one.
They can call it what they want, but rentals, or subscriptions, are what they are.
Actually, this is one area where a subscription service would work best.
We are talking about Apple here, so subscription school books is highly unlikely. Subscription newspapers may be a different story though.
The fact is the tablet will need a reason for it's existance beyound running a desktop OS because history here is starkly clear. Running a desktop user interface on a tablet has always been a huge failure.
Read: Mac OS X touch.
Let's all raise our Kool-Aid in a toast!
I second that motion, hear hear!!
Let's all raise our Kool-Aid in a toast!
Mmm! Apple flavored!
What are you talking about? We need to see the thing first before we sell our children and decide how much of a revolution it actually is. If this thing runs iPhone OS I won't buy it.
The iPhone OS is OS X, just like the MacOS. You can be 100% guaranteed it will run OS X. There are different applications (iPhone doesn't have the finder) and some different frameworks (cocoa touch vs cocoa), but it's still OS X.
Just wait until Apple releases it's brand new tablet with glossy screen. Aiiiiieeeeee!
Since most people prefer glossy screens, I wouldn't be surprised if that's what Apple would have.
But a small hand holdable device is much more easily positioned, so it's less of a problem.
It appears that people are assuming this is all this device is going to do. I am highly doubtful that Apple would release a product that was 'just' an eBook / print media tablet. I could see this as a huge selling point and a way for Apple to set up some recurring subscription based revenue or "subs", but it isn't like it isn't going to surf the web, play games, have other apps available for it.
All the goodness of app store will come with it. Apple is right though to assure initial success it will need to have a draw. To be honest I thought movies and the web would be enough but who am I. The e-books and E-magazines market though is very compelling and wide open to innovation.
So I could see why Apple might focus in on the publishing businesses. They are in ways like the American auto industry, they got very greedy & myoptic and are now paying the price. Hopefully Apple can show them the light here and significantly impact pricing of content. Ideally we would get magazines and newspapers at one third the going rate for the dead tree versions. Maybe even less. If there are not significant discounts the obviously these businesses are learning the required lessons.
As many have noted books are even worst, especially text books for college. This is a bigger problem and requires a broader effort to combat. I'm actually surprised that there haven't been more student protests at the extortion going on here. It is one thing when it comes to extremely limited distribution texts, but the widely distributed texts have no justification for their costs.
As to novels & paperbacks well PDFs are fine for those. However we don't see much demand yet for such works in this format. In part you have the reality that reading for pleasure is different than other activities involving reading. I'm not sure how well the electronic format will adapt to this. It would be interesting to see Kindles book sales broken down by type. That is, what is the portion of the book sales going to pleasure reading.
Dave
Dave
The iPhone OS is OS X, just like the MacOS. You can be 100% guaranteed it will run OS X. There are different applications (iPhone doesn't have the finder) and some different frameworks (cocoa touch vs cocoa), but it's still OS X.
The iPhone is whatever Steve tells you it is. Look into my eyes!!
We are talking about Apple here, so subscription school books is highly unlikely. Subscription newspapers may be a different story though.
I wouldn't say that. Apple is big in education. If that's proposed to them, or they see it themselves, I see no reason why they wouldn't do it.
It also could be downloaded as one unit, much like a music album is composed of a number of separate songs.
Or like a book reader, where you download a book as you need it. If they charge for the service up front, but then allow you to download the content as required, what's the problem? You're paying for a certain amount of content, and that's what you're getting. Apple allows this now. With the ver 3 OS, you can buy new content from within a program as well.
Question from left field. I answered a question about a rumored device, not an actual device.
Well, since everyone, including all the sources, seem to agree that this will be an iPhone OS based product, and you just said that you won't buy it if it is an iPhone based product, then you said that you won't buy it.
If Apple comes out with a different product from what's being expected, that's a different question.
Well, since everyone, including all the sources, seem to agree that this will be an iPhone OS based product, and you just said that you won't buy it if it is an iPhone based product, then you said that you won't buy it.
If Apple comes out with a different product from what's being expected, that's a different question.
It sure is.
Text books are so expensive because publishers have to pay rather obscene amounts to the authors to get them to write something. My advisor once received $5K for writing a 30 page book chapter... the book itself was about 10 chapters long and cost $130. Textbooks are even worse, but publishers know they'll sell more so they lower the price a bit. Ideally most professors would prepare their own class notes and distribute them for free like I had some of my undergrad and graduate professors do.
As for the tablet. I can't see Steve ever putting it out as an e-reader. That would be way too uni-purpose. The iPhone is a hit because it's more multi-purpose than any other phone out there. I could see this being sold with e-new/magazine subscriptions as a feature, but not as the focus.
Responding to the part in bold above: Books are expensive because the market is tolerable of it, not because the authors are getting rich. These are required readings. Students have to buy them. Thus the high prices and the extremely wealthy publishers.
- A pre-existing 50M device footprint with the iPhone + iPod Touch that provides leverage for a new device;
- A proven dynamic platform (read: integrated hardware-software-services-tools) for end-to-end content creation, application development, distribution, and global reach, supported by deep application and media libraries, and a robust runtime space;
- A durable billing relationship with consumers to the tune of 100M credit cards on file (iTunes + App Store, Mobile Me).
Plus, the history of Steve Jobs dating back to Next suggests that this is strategic to him (and thus, Apple), something the post covers:Rebooting the Book (One Apple iPad Tablet at a Time)
http://bit.ly/zOoEu
Check it out if interested.
Mark
As a student, I was one that kept all of my books (and still have them). If the McGraw-Hills of the world put a "time limit" on usage of their digital education content, how am I (or you) going to keep those for reference. Bad bad idea from my perspective.
I don't know if that is the plan for DRM, but I'm positive that the business model is not yet out there. We are guessing and analogizing with current models, and I think they don't work.
I think as with iTunes U, the universities will get in on things with perhaps licensing options in which they may have some control over DRM such that as a student or alumn, you might have perpetual permissions.
The iTunes model of rental and ownership will have to be worked out and perhaps the iApp ability to have updates sent to you automatically (that would be great for quickly changing subjects like science, etc.), free or with a fee, and would give a much better functionality to textbooks.
I prefer reading Thoreau and Shakespeare with books, but I'd be fine reading Immunology on an interactive tablet that is easy to update and has multimedia capability.