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Posts Tagged ‘e books’

19 Mar 2010

Amazon this morning released a version of its Kindle e-book software that works on Mac computers — a small move, but one that underscores the company’s efforts to maintain its share of the market as Apple launches its iPad.

: Amazon’s Kindle for Mac allows users to read e-books from Amazon on their Mac computer.

Although e-books sold for the Kindle are locked into Amazon’s ecosystem, the company is keen to emphasize that they can be read on a number of other devices that allow for Kindle software. In its press release announcing the Kindle for Mac, Amazon pointed out that those devices include PCs, the iPhone, the BlackBerry and “soon the iPad.”

Kindle for the Mac allows Amazon to highlight the portability of its products, but an early review from Wired raises questions about how useful people will find this particular reader, at least in its early form. The review calls the free software “pretty bad” and “bare-bones,” although it does say it’s “nice to have a way to read on a computer.”

Apple’s upcoming iPad launch and the company’s deals with publishers have created worries about Amazon’s ability to maintain its hold on the e-book business. The online bookseller has been able to dominate this market because it had the first popular e-book reader in the Kindle and because its agreements with publishers allowed it to sell e-books at a discounted price.

Recent articles in Publishers Marketplace and the <a href="New York Times highlight Amazon’s concerns and detail what the articles say are contentious dealings with publishers over distribution agreements.

But analyst Jim Friedland at Cowen and Company calls the concerns about Amazon’s ability to compete with the iPad “overblown,” saying Amazon’s “superior book buying experience” and customers’ ability to read Kindle books on the iPad will ensure that the bookseller retains a significant share of the market.

Readers, what do you think? How will the entry of the iPad affect Amazon? Would you rather have an iPad or a Kindle — or both?

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Tags: Amazon, book software, cowen and company, distribution agreements, e book reader, e books, ipad, new york times, online bookseller

E-books, Flash, and Standards

In: web resources

10 Mar 2010

In Issue No. 302 of A List Apart for people who make websites, Joe Clark explains what E-book designers can learn from 10 years of standards-based web design, and Daniel Mall tells designers what they can do besides bicker over formats.

Web Standards for E-books

by Joe Clark

E-books aren’t going to replace books. E-books are books, merely with a different form. More and more often, that form is ePub, a format powered by standard XHTML. As such, ePub can benefit from our nearly ten years’ experience building standards-compliant websites. That’s great news for publishers and standards-aware web designers. Great news for readers, too. Our favorite genius, Joe Clark, explains the simple why and how.

Flash and Standards: The Cold War of the Web

by Daniel Mall

You’ve probably heard that Apple recently released the iPad. The absence of Flash Player on the device seems to have awakened the HTML5 vs. Flash debate. Apparently, it’s the final nail in the coffin for Flash. Either that, or the HTML5 community is overhyping its still nascent markup language update. The arguments run wide, strong, and legitimate on both sides. Yet both sides might also be wrong. Designer/developer Dan Mall is equally adept at web standards and Flash; what matters, he says, isn’t technology, but people.

Illustration by Kevin Cornell for A List Apart.