While there’s a lot of talk about Apple’s rumored tablet device as it relates to new initiatives from the music industry, the device is undoubtedly a lot larger in scope. The music-angle talk is mostly thanks to the Financial Times all-over-the-place first report yesterday. But a second story also released yesterday with much of the same information, clears things up a bit, and adds a few interesting new nuggets of information.
Here’s the best excerpt:
“It would be a colour, flat-panel TV to the old-fashioned, black and white TV of the Kindle,” one publishing executive said.
Uh oh, Amazon.
Now, to be fair, the executive completely glosses over any upsides to the current Kindle. Like the fact that its E-ink uses very little power. Or that it can be read in sunlight and is easier on the eyes than a backlit screen, which the Apple device would undoubtedly use. But still, it always seemed inevitable that devices like the Kindle would make the transition from black and white to color, just as televisions and iPods did before it. Now it appears Apple is ready to shove the e-book readers into a world of color before they may be ready.
Thought of another way, this new Apple device is kind of like the kids in Pleasantville from the real-world, full-color future who visit the quaint black-and-white fake television town of the 1950s, and turn it on its head. Things could get ugly — but undoubtedly will be more exciting.
I have a Kindle (the 2nd generation), and I love it. But even after months of using it, when I switch to it after a day of using my iPhone, my initial reaction is to try and touch the screen. I want to flick my finger from side to side to turn book pages, not use the device’s clunky buttons. I want to be able to turn the device and put it into landscape mode, to pinch to zoom in on picture, and for the love of God, please let me use my finger to click on links rather than the awful joystick thing. Those are things that this Apple device will undoubtedly bring to the table.
Oh yeah, and you can be sure it will not only play music, but movies as well. And I’m sure it will browse the web in a way that makes the Kindle really look antiquated.
It’s interesting just how eager the FT report paints book publishers as getting in bed with Apple:
Book publishers have been in talks with Apple and are optimistic about being included in the computer, which could provide an alternative to Amazon’s Kindle, Sony’s Reader and a forthcoming device from Plastic Logic, recently allied with Barnes & Noble.
But, as they note, unlike the music industry, which Apple brought to its knees when it got a dominant position, Amazon, not Apple, is the one that threatens to do the same to the book industry right now. In Apple, they likely see a very viable alternative that should ease fears of Amazon doing something like cutting out the middle man (the publishers) and publishing books itself for the Kindle.
If Apple really is able to get this device out by September — which again, seems unlikely for a few reasons, another of which is that according to this new FT report, Apple hasn’t even talked to the film studios about it yet — Amazon is going to have to haul ass to get a response out on the market. Could that mean a Kindle 3, in color, by early 2010?
[photos and video: New Line Cinemas]
Once again, Siegler uses his baffling powers of bullshit to peer into the future and review a product that does not yet exist.
this is why i also read venturebeat for real analysis and not bull from tc
And obviously he’s got no clue what he’s talking about, as usual.
Hey Siegler, have you ever read a book laying on your side in bed? If you had, you would know how inconvinient it would be to have to swipe to turn pages. Yes, no worse than turning a real page, but being able to hold the edge of the Kindle and flicking your to flip the page is an actual improvement over a real book.
Actually I take that back — a real page you can turn by picking it up with your fingernail, which you couldn’t do with a tablet. Any e-Reader needs dedicated turn page buttons.
Hey Tom. It would appear that you have no idea what you’re talking about either.
The Kindle app for the iPhone lets you change orientation and lock orientation as needed. (As does Stanza.) You can do a quick swipe to turn a page… or simply tap the left or right margin anywhere.
No swipe, and no dedicated buttons needed. At all.
Wow, you must have had to try really hard to contradict yourself in your own comment. Do you really think a swipe and a flick are all that different??
Btw, a multi-touch tablet with an accelerometer can be programmed to do respond to nearly any gesture conceivable.
well said
I’m quite pleased with your decision to use Pleasantville as an analogy for your article’s topic. Very pleased indeed…
And I was quite pleased to use it.
How pleasant.
Did he use Pleasantville as an analogy? I did not get that.
/sarcasm
first post
Atleast call it First Comment, though you are late as usual!
first reply
Damn I’m late
fifth.
of vodka
how many articles can 1 site write about a rumored device? we’ll see
1) No-one wants to read books on a backlit screen.
2) No-one likes DRM and Amazon and Apple will surely have DRM ebooks. It may take 5 years but a Spotify for books is the only thing that will save the publishers. Now if someone came up with colour e-ink tablet that had Spotify as well as “Spotify for e-books”, it would be killer.
Re: backlit screen. You know I would have agreed with that months ago, except for how well books are selling on the iPhone. I believe its the #3 or #4 most popular category now.
i agree with Twigler. it’s all about convenient form factor. the iphone is small enough. maybe a foldable large screen kindle would also do
I was on a flight this morning and spent the majority of it reading a book on my iPhone. I find myself using the Kindle app on the iPhone way more than I actually use the Kindle itself. So I tend to agree that this long rumored Tablet will also work well as a reading device. Perhaps not as well as a Kindle — but if it could do as much as I imagine it will, I’m happy to sacrifice power consumption in exchange for a quality ad-hoc reading device.
i disagree about the tablet. it’s too big and may be heavy. i wouldn’t use it. extrapolating, no one will use it
There’s no f’ing way I would attempt to read a book on an iPhone. The screen is too small. All of you geeks who DO read books on your phone are simply asking for eye strain injuries — and a pair of glasses earlier than you would have gotten them.
Eye strain injuries?? You can resize the text, dumbass.
1) I’ve read quite a few books on Amazon’s Kindle iPhone app, and the backlit screen really isn’t all that bad. It allows you to read in the dark without a reading light, and that’s pretty cool.
Reading a book with a backlight, is like staring 10 hours into a light bulb. You might find that fine, 99% of people will never find that an acceptable experience.
http://www.yout...Q5Kl6w#t=06m06s is a color LCD screen technology that can also turn off the backlight when in e-reader mode and provide the same quality as the E-Ink Kindle screen.
i would like someone to explain to me why or point to a relevant study/paper. i find that i can stare at my computer screen for hours before i get tired. adjusting the brightness to make it comfortable is usually enough. Of course i presume a good quality screen.
continuous fixation may cause fatigue . but you won’t avoid that even with e-ink devices.
does anybody remember the original Palmpilot with its green screen? Who in their right mind would prefer this rudimentary screen when a color screen is available.
Screen brightness and the background color can be adjusted.
Besides, there’s no more eyestrain on the iPhone than there is trying to read a real book (or worse, a Kindle) by the light of the average dim 60-watt bedside lamp.
“99% of people will never find that an acceptable experience”
Do you often make up stats to support your own opinions?
I suspect there is a distinct lack of actual experience by many who automatically dismiss reading from a screen like the iPhone. I was certainly skeptical but after reading several entire books this way I no longer dismiss high density color displays for reading.
The convenience factor is just huge. The ‘books’ are always with you and I often carry my small white dock so reading only requires the occasional finger tap. People should try it before declaring it to be untenable.
I think the biggest challenge is if the tablet is too large to share enough of the convenience factor of the iPhone (I actually use the iPod touch).
I have to disagree – reading on e-ink screens sucks, but I think that everyone is afraid to say is because everyone out there seems to think that they are the best thing since sliced bread (and speaking as someone who bakes, sliced bread really isn’t all that hard to beat).
I have returned a couple of readers at this point, due to the cruddy black on grey tint, the inability to read in dark places without annoying light, etc.
Here’s a test for you – which is worse, reading off an illuminated screen at it’s lowest setting, or trying to use the glaring and poorly aimed reading light in your airplane seat?
Or when trying to read at night? The low level illumination or another reading lamp that isn’t ever at the right spot?
I know the answer to both of them. Perhaps it’s different from everyone else, but I think that most of the people that are on techcrunch.com reading about this don’t usually sit outside all day reading, rather they are usually on the move, in a plane, trying to do some catch or relaxation reading in a space that isn’t well it enough to read in without some form of illumination.
If Apple can make a screen for a tablet that matches the iPhone, and also have the intuitive controls that have made it such a success (hell – for a reader any kind of thought going into the controls would be nice – the current batch all have horrid control placement for most reading positions) then they will take on and easily beat the current crop of readers.
The problem (as usual) is going to be price. Kindle starts at $299. There’s no way that Apple is going to hit that low of a price target. The only reason that Apple was able to bring down the price of the iPhone is the fact that it’s heavily subsidized by AT&T, the exclusive wireless carrier. Yeah, they could put WiFi in it, but that isn’t much different than a netbook — and Apple ain’t gonna compete on price in that market, either. So, how do they differentiate? Wireless broadband? Who wants to pay for that?
Nope. Sorry, not buying this rumor. Apple can’t make enough money on these units — or the e-publishing deals — to justify going into this market.
If you look at it solely as an ebook reader, yes. But an ebook reader and a TV/video media player and an email/messaging device and an internet browser and an RSS reader and a game machine and a notepad and a sketchpad and…
You get the idea. Kindle’s are dead because they do pretty much one thing and one thing only. And do it badly, to boot.
Apple won’t make that mistake.
I have to disagree – reading on e-ink screens sucks, but I think that everyone is afraid to say is because everyone out there seems to think that they are the best thing since sliced bread (and speaking as someone who bakes, sliced bread really isn’t all that hard to beat).
I have returned a couple of readers at this point, due to the cruddy black on grey tint, the inability to read in dark places without annoying light, etc.
Here’s a test for you – which is worse, reading off an illuminated screen at it’s lowest setting, or trying to use the glaring and poorly aimed reading light in your airplane seat?
Or when trying to read at night? The low level illumination or another reading lamp that isn’t ever at the right spot?
I know the answer to both of them. Perhaps it’s different from everyone else, but I think that most of the people that are on techcrunch.com reading about this don’t usually sit outside all day reading, rather they are usually on the move, in a plane, trying to do some catch or relaxation reading in a space that isn’t well it enough to read in without some form of illumination.
If Apple can make a screen for a tablet that matches the iPhone, and also have the intuitive controls that have made it such a success (hell – for a reader any kind of thought going into the controls would be nice – the current batch all have horrid control placement for most reading positions) then they will take on and easily beat the current crop of readers.
Nobody likes graphic novels in black and white.
Thanks for the information
what about:
“Uh, oh, Crunchpad”
looks just bud timing for crunchpad.
btw, i can’t wait to see both devices
!
Typical paid Techcrunch postervisement. How about the price of the said Apple Tablet? Double, 2.5 times the Kindle?
New Techcrunch motto “Surviving on its feet by generous contributions by Apple.”
sure, more expensive, but will also do a lot more than the kindle, presumably.
for 1 year, until chromeOS powered tablets appear on newskiosks for (almost) free
There is no need to do more. A book has one function – turn its pages and read it comfortably. That. Is. It.
Why not watch movie, listen to music, browse the web, be a pda while you are at it? I mean seriously, would you rather carry 3-5 devices along with their set of accessories or just one device with just one set of accessories?
there are a lot of functions that could be implemented in a book that would be extremely useful. Instant translation for people who are reading in a foreign language, possibility to underline text and present only the underlined text (eliminating the rest), possibility to link paragraphs in books, add comments, etc.
Considering that the iPhone’s web browser has HTML5 and can respond to multi-touch calls, you can pretty much bet that publishers can sell content directly through the web browser.
Heck, if the stodgy old New Yorker has an iPhone-friendly website…
http://iphone.newyorker.com
…Then you can just imagine what Random House, Simon & Schuster and other publishing houses could do with a mobile Safari web app if they really put their minds to it.
incidentally, New Yorker’s first article is “Can the Kindle really improve on the book?” – written at a future time
That “Pleasantville” reference was straight to the point !
Good job MG !
Unsubscribe…
How can I get only Arringtons posts? This was the proverbial straw that broke the techcrunch iphone fanboy back.
You’re an idiot…
Second of all…
http://techcrun...-arrington/feed
Apple will need to make big improvements to their batteries to compete with Kindle as a reading device.
Agreed.
The Pixel Qi screen http://www.yout...Q5Kl6w#t=06m06s uses 50x less power in e-reader mode (same quality as Kindle) than a regular backlit LCD.
Or go to low-power OLEDs…
MG,
I’ve got to say things have really gotten better around here with your posts. Techcrunch is a much better publication. I like Robin’s posts as well. Mr. Arrington doesn’t post often enough….
Where does the Crunch pad fit in with these devices?
Amazon will be seen as the low-margin catalog retailer it is….
I seriously hope this isn’t the direction the industry is heading towards with regard to Ebooks. Reading hundreds of pages of text on a backlit screen sucks.
http://www.yout...Q5Kl6w#t=06m06s would be the only perfect screen for a 10″ tablet that has both color with LED backlight and black and white reflective mode without backlight.
interesting.
Hey, Chabs! Good to see you lurking around here! Do you think Apple has been in talks with Pixel-Qi??? You’ve tried the thing, I feel sooo envious … Since those Taipei demos you shot (plus those of JKKmobile), nothing has been heard, has it? Transflective LCDs … not the definitive breakthrough, but certainly an e-ink killer, and e-book publishing booster! How come the rest don’t know about this? There’s another (German) manufacturer in the game: .tl-electronic Can you tell us something about it?
Darn! I thought you tech savvy guys knew! I’m just a folk armed with a tiny ass netbook! Come on, get the grips, ha ha. Now seriously, what technologies could beat e-ink (and similar) other than this improved transflective one. It seems transflectives have been around for some time, as crappy sun-readable displays for car mp3 players or cellphones. But now, check Google patents: it’s US Pat. 11897588 (”Dual Mode Display”). Enough said.
why? when i was a student i ‘d barely print out papers. always lost them. certainly flipped through thousands of pages and it didn’t suck when the screen was good enough
The only usable LCD screen for a 10″ tablet would be the Pixel Qi 3Qi screen: http://www.yout...Q5Kl6w#t=06m06s
Pixel Qi 3Qi is LIKE E-ink quality in e-reader mode, it’s fully sunlight readable and works fine for touchscreen technologies as well, especially good for capacitative.
Going to repeat this often?
I really really hope this tablet comes true as it will be a boon for my new startup.
Can’t write anymore. Got lots of planning to do….
Yes, we designed a platform that can generated magazines and catalogs as applications. Essentially, it is a CMS system for deploying custom content. Check it out!
This will be successful for a few reasons–
1. Multi-touch gesture based interface (like the iPhone, but on a larger scale)– have you used the “Classics” app? Think that, but on a large screen– 2 pages up at once like a real book.
2. Built in book/music/movie/app store– all media in one spot accessible via wifi
3. People will overlook the advantages of eink displays in light of a high resolution color screen with a fast TUI (touch user interface)
4. Battery life will be good enough for a few hours of use a day– reading before bed (with color images, movies, links to more info, etc), catching up on news during the morning commute, playing a few games here and there.
i’m not holding my breath for the release … but i wouldn’t mind being pleasantly surprised.
moi aussi.
The idea that a backlit device that will inevitably weigh more and have a shorter battery life than the Kindle, and won’t provide the really convenient free wi-fi service (I’m guessing) and bookstore that Amazon provides, will somehow trump the e-book market is ridiculous.
Eager to watch this movie…
All I can think is that Apple has its hands on some amazing breakthrough color e-ink technology. The two most cutting edge companies that I can think of in the space are Plastic Logic and iRex. Both of them have said that color e-readers are still years away. There are some Japanese and Korean companies doing it, but none of the prototypes that I’ve seen look like they are up to Apple’s hardware standards.
I think it seems more like the Wizard of Oz w/ Dorothy landing in the Emerald City than Pleasantville…and I agree, I’m happy w/ my kindle app on my itouch and will wait for something to include color (thinking of ability to review design books, color applications, preview before and afters…etc….)
Does this just validate the idea of the Crunchpad and then put it out of business?
hahaha but i think arrington said the apple tablet is/will be a good thing. i don’t think that it necessairly negates the existance of the crunchpad before it even exists. there are all kinds of tablets and maybe all these people can compete with each other to come up with something worthwhile.
well all tablets until now have been miserable failure. that’s not going to be much different this time around
yeah i know. it’s so sad. i love the idea of a tablet. i just wish i could pay half my kidney (worth lots of thousands of dollars on black market
) to pay for a good one.
i looked at that pleasantville pic and thought, uh oh, what’s apple doing now. i don’t use a kindle although i wanted to buy one, but i didn’t like the look and feel of the actual phsycial product…so here’s me looking forward to an apple tablet that will be like the i pod…or i phone but better…or not better since it just seems like recycled tech but with a bigger screen and maybe more flash. someone needs to show amazon how things get done though and if they kill the kindle in the process then that’s good because there’s nothing better than having a product where i can browse, do work, watch a movie, listen to music, and read a book all at the same time. i hope they get it in for christmas time or early next year. too bad MS couldn’t have done it with windows os…but i think it’s a given that they suck at marketing themself. in the meantime i will stick with paper products, buying cd’s or vinyls, and dvds.
thanks for bringing tobey maguire into the convo.
Two words: battery life.
yeah. i was thinking this thing is going to have an epic crash. i’ll wait to hear more details about it. already the to backlight/not to backlight issue is coming up again.
dear apple,
for your new tablet, which is just a rumour and apprently hasn’t been confirmed yet (yeah right), please consider improving the battery life or alternatives to how users can keep their experience ongoning without being interrupted. it’ll be appreciated.
-future tablet user
also appreciate you making it affordable.
All I can tell you is that manufacturers sort of *shrug* when faced with Amazon.com as competition. Getting the Kindle right (which they did not) wasn’t as key as plastering it all over Amazon.com’s front page for a year and a 1/2. It’s not a great product. Not considering all it does NOT do. It just had premium marketing real estate. Location, location, location.
That said, does Amazon.com have retail space in most malls? Nope. Is Amazon.com known for its feature-rich (if pricey) consumer electronics? Nope.
I own a Kindle (last in long line of ebook readers, starting with a Palm about 10 years ago). To be honest, I don’t see much difference in e-ink vs. TFT for the amount I read. Nor do I care about the battery life. OTOH, full color would make a huge difference to me. Read a book on a plane, then watch a movie, then read full color magazine PDFs? Count me in.
me too. if it’s a good product it will be my first foray into becoming an apple customer. all that money i set aside for getting a kindle, a mac, a sony vaio will go to this new apple gadget.
Books with pictures are for idiots, colour pictures even more so. Most books I read and carry around with me have little or no colour in their content.
I hope the mac touch doesn’t suck like pleasantville did. The movie had a great premise, but the execution was terrible.
Wouldn’t a tablet run hot? That would be a big reason I would hate to use a tablet. Sitting on a beach and having to hold a hot PC would suck..not that they make beaches where I am from.. maybe a nice warm tablet would be nice with the winters in Canada…
hahaha yeah we can use the tablet as our heaters.
i kept thinking okay so i’m going to have this thing resting on my legs…and it might end up overheating because i am doing too much. what do i do then. do the ipod’s overheat? not that i know of.
I think Amazon could care less how many Kindles it sells. It launched the Kindle to launch the e-book market, and now it has succeeded – as evidenced by the sudden interest in electronic books. Amazon is the biggest distributor of e-books by a long shot. They just need to create an ‘app’ now for the Apple tablet masses (which incidentally will be a much larger group than Kindle owners) and BAM they are rolling in profits. The competition in hardware sales is a non-factor in Amazon’s strategy.
DRM! DRM! Ack ack!
Books are meant to be shared. You read them, toss them in a pile, hand it to your nephew, who reads it, then sells it in the second hand books market to buy a new comic book, and the book goes on and on until its binding gets frayed, the pages become yellow and the text starts blurring out.
Books are like big currency notes. They are MEANT to be circulated.
And does anyone here really, really love the feel of a nice hardcover? Me, I’d buy the Kindle. But I would still like to buy paper books.
Think of this pitch this way:
Steve Jobs: “Book and Music industry. You are getting commoditized because you have no differentiated platform for extending/re-inventing your product for the online age. We just so happen to have a set of tools that have proven compelling to the tune of 1.5B downloads, field-tested across 65K apps and with a current footprint of 46M devices.”
Music/Book Industry: “There is no way we can re-create that value proposition, and we already see the writing on the wall with Amazon. If they are successful, they will be telling us how much money we can make or worse, go direct to writers and musicians, and design us out of the equation. How do we get started?”
This is the consummate 1+1=3 for a segment that is otherwise facing a 1+1=<2 future.
For more fodder on this one, check out:
Old Media, New Media and Where the Rubber Meets the Road
http://bit.ly/zwTw8
Cheers,
Mark
How is this Apple Tablet going to affect CrunchPad sales???
Kill it. Completely.
Geez!
So you guys are already giving up? Where the heck is the Crunchpad update?
Go on Apple so is it the Tablet vs Kindle???
Uh oh, Crunchpad
die kindle die!!!
The only way I can think that this could be delivered in a short time frame and possibly work well would be if it used an OLED display. That would give it great contrast and brightness, several hours of battery life, etc.
The obvious problem is cost but to some extent that is a function of display size and sales volume. What would a 5 inch X 7 inch OLED screen cost at a level of 2,000,000 units per year and say 125 dpi to 175 dpi? If the screen alone costs $200, $300, $500, then why bother?
But suppose Apple could make a deal with Samsung for a 30 to 35 square inch OLED display at 150 dpi for $100 each in quantities of 1,000,000 per year with a three year purchase commitment?
Suppose Apple can do that and makes the device in at least two flavors (1) Standard and (2) LX. If the standard is ONLY a color e-reader with a touch-screen OLED display (no movies, no camera, no Internet access), how much is that going to cost, even without the ebook cellphone download feature that people seem to like in the Kindle? $500? $750?
If Apple could deliver a touch-screen OLED (with a brightness control) e-reader for $399 it would be a terrific Version 1.0 product and probably would sell a million units in the first twelve months. Get it down to $149 and Apple would be selling a million units each month.
But I guess the answer to the pricing questions is up to Sony or Samsung.
I have $100 riding on a bet that Apple’s device will use a Pixel Qi screen which will be better than the Kindle’s for reading in sunlight. Any takers?
Not buying anything from Apple until they stop blocking third-party software for no good reason. At least Amazon make a grovelling apology if they block stuff – Apple just look smug and let their fanbois give the World the finger.
the battery life will be too short for purpose.
Looks like books are ready to die, and booksellers as well. Not long before free digitalized copys flood the net and, just like music before, books become unsellable. The end of civilization as we knew it, in fact. I’m not sure this new world will be a better one.
About 18-24 months ago, someone posted on a forum that they had insider information that Apple were quietly buying up the rights to millions of books. iTunes is perfectly suited to delivering eBooks to a future daylight readable video frame rate based eInk or eInk hybrid display device. Apple are renowned for introducing ground breaking technologies. They were the first to make WiFi a standard feature of their laptops, the first to put a large hard drive in an MP3 player (hence the success of the “1000 songs in your pocket” iPod V1) and one of their most underrated but brilliant inventions, the MagSafe adaptor is a life/laptop saver. So, a 10″ tablet that offers the world the first practical method to consume former print publications comfortably in the same locations and conditions as print would be a logical next step from Apple.
Video on the go is not as practical – movies are better viewed in full, while books and magazines can be dipped into on the go or on the sofa. The Kindle is a short lived foot in the water, and will be a distant memory the second Apple do their thing.
Anyone remember Napster?
Exactly.
if the iphone was the right device for reading books, bookstores would be full of pocketbook-sized novels, which they are not.
Anyone who suggests a backlit, probably 3-4 hour battery life device is a market competitor to Kindle doesn’t understand the basic premise of e-ink.
A coloured e-ink reader now would scare Amazon, but anything else sounds like a revival of the tablet PC.
I had completely tits OP windbreaker back in 1982. Reason it was so cool? It was reversible. Red on one side, blue and yellow on the other.
Somebody do that with the Kindle-Apple tablet.
It would appear to me that most of the comments above are pitting the iPAD (or whatever) with some one other device. I love my iPOD Touch but wow would I like it to be larger. I would then be comparing it with the e book reader, the HP 12C calculator, a flashlight, a DVD player, a music player, a terrific game machine, a computer (I can’t wait to have my excel checkbook with me at all times), a with me all the time internet portal, a calendar, a contact listing, a note taking device, a Photo data base and editor, a learning device (who needs teachers), oh and if allowed a VOIP phone. How can you beat this. I am excited and believe the $800.00 price tag is very low compared to what I am getting. All of this syncing seemlessly with my desktop computer where I can type to word and edit my final cut movies. Lets see, I might carry this around with me all of the time, but it won’t be on all the time and I can recharge it at night. So what is the heart burn with the battery. I can’t wait and I will be in line for the first one.