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Consumers Now Buying More Amazon Kindle E-Books Than Print Books | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

May 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Just how popular are e-books? Amazon announced Thursday that its customers are now purchasing more Kindle books than print books.

“Customers are now choosing Kindle books more often than print books. We had high hopes that this would happen eventually, but we never imagined it would happen this quickly—we’ve been selling print books for 15 years and Kindle books for less than four years,” Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO, said in a statement.

In July 2010, Amazon announced that sales of electronic books for its Kindle e-book reader surpassed sales of hardcover books on the site. Six months later, sales of Kindle books surpassed that of paperbacks. Now, customers are downloading Kindle books more than hardcovers and paperbacks combined.

Since April 1, for example, Amazon has sold 105 Kindle books for every 100 print books purchased. Amazon did not count free Kindle books in its tally; if it did, that would make the number even higher, the company said.

Kindle sales have helped create Amazon’s fastest year-over-year growth for Amazon’s U.S. book business, in units and dollars, in more than a decade. So far, Amazon has sold three times as many Kindle books in 2011 as it did during the same period in 2010.

Bezos also championed its latest Kindle device, the $114 ad-supported Kindle with Special Offers. For $25 less than its standard Kindle device, the Special Offers e-reader features advertisements and deals as its screen saver and on the bottom of its home screen.

via Consumers Now Buying More Amazon Kindle E-Books Than Print Books | News & Opinion | PCMag.com.

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David Pogue’s Techies Review of the iPad – NYTimes.com

March 31, 2010 By

Review for Techies

The Apple iPad is basically a gigantic iPod Touch.

It’s a half-inch-thick slab, all glass on top, aluminum on the back. Hardly any buttons at all — just a big Home button below the screen. It takes you to the Home screen full of apps, just as on an iPhone.

One model gets online only in Wi-Fi hot spots ($500 to $700, for storage capacities from 16 to 64 gigabytes). The other model can get online either using Wi-Fi or, when you’re out and about, using AT&T’s cellular network; that feature adds $130 to each price.

You operate the iPad by tapping and dragging on the glass with your fingers, just as on the iPhone. When the very glossy 9.7-inch screen is off, every fingerprint is grossly apparent.

There’s an e-book reader app, but it’s not going to rescue the newspaper and book industries (sorry, media pundits). The selection is puny (60,000 titles for now). You can’t read well in direct sunlight. At 1.5 pounds, the iPad gets heavy in your hand after awhile (the Kindle is 10 ounces). And you can’t read books from the Apple bookstore on any other machine — not even a Mac or iPhone.

When the iPad is upright, typing on the on-screen keyboard is a horrible experience; when the iPad is turned 90 degrees, the keyboard is just barely usable (because it’s bigger). A $70 keyboard dock will be available in April, but then you’re carting around two pieces.

At least Apple had the decency to give the iPad a really fast processor. Things open fast, scroll fast, load fast. Surfing the Web is a heck of a lot better than on the tiny iPhone screen — first, because it’s so fast, and second, because you don’t have to do nearly as much zooming and panning.

via State of the Art – David Pogue’s Review of the iPad – NYTimes.com.

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Apple Launches iPad Tablet, iBooks Bookstore – Reviews by PC Magazine

January 27, 2010 By Leave a Comment

After years of rumors, speculation, and leaks, Apple today announced its long-await tablet, the iPad.

Chief executive Steve Jobs complemented the introduction of the new device with a new e-bookstore, called iBooks, together with partnerships with four major publishers, and showed off new versions of its iWork application and third-party applications.

Jobs kicked off the company’s launch event in San Francisco on Wednesday by highlighting the history of the company’s mobile products. “We’re the largest mobile device company in the world,” he told the audience, showcasing the iPhone and the company’s line of MacBook products.

“There is room for something in the middle,” he told the crowd. “If there’s gonna be a third category, it has to be better at [Web browsing, e-mail, photos, video, music, games, and e-book reader]—otherwise it has no reason for being.”

While netbooks have attempted to address the space, Jobs added, “netbooks aren’t better than anything…They’re just cheap laptops.”

The key, he insisted is the tablet—a new device the company has christened the “iPad,” one of several rumored names, including the “iSlate” and, simply, the “Apple Tablet.” The iPad features a 9.7-inch, full capacitive multi-touch IPS display, weighs 1.5 pounds and measures 0.5 inches thick—”thinner and lighter than any netbook,” according to Jobs.

Pricing for the iPad starts at $499 – far lower than the early $1,000 projections of many analysts. The 16-, 32-, and 64-GB devices run $499, $599, $699 – with an additional $130 for 3G capability. The device will begin shipping in March.

For the chipset, the company went in-house, designing a 1-GHz Apple A4, contrary to rumors that the device would be powered by an Intel or Samsung chip. The iPad comes in three capacities: 16-, 32, and 64GB. It features built-in 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, an accelerometer, company, speaker, and microphone.

via Apple Launches iPad Tablet, iBooks Bookstore – Reviews by PC Magazine.

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DOJ: Kindle in Classroom Hurts Blind Students – PC World

January 13, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Three U.S. universities will stop promoting the use of Amazon.com’s Kindle DX e-book reader in classrooms after complaints that the device doesn’t give blind students equal access to information.

Settlements with Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Pace University in New York City and Reed College in Portland, Oregon, were announced Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Justice. The National Federation of the Blind and the American Council of the Blind had complained that use of the Kindle devices discriminates against students with vision problems.

The complaints about the Kindle were based on the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability.

The three universities were among six schools participating in an Amazon.com pilot program testing the use of the Kindle DX in classrooms. On Monday, a fourth participating school, Arizona State University, also reached a settlement with the DOJ and the two organizations representing the blind.

via DOJ: Kindle in Classroom Hurts Blind Students – PC World.

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Kindle for PC Released, Color Kindle Coming Soon? – PC World

November 10, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Amazon released a Kindle for PC app, available as a free 5.17MB download for Windows 7, Vista, and XP. Much like the Kindle for iPhone app, Kindle for PC syncs your Amazon e-book downloads and shows them on your computer for convenient reading either when you’re away from your svelte e-book reader or if you chose not to buy it in the first place. A Mac version, Amazon says, is “coming soon.”

via Kindle for PC Released, Color Kindle Coming Soon? – PC World.

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Kindle for PC Released, Color Kindle Coming Soon? – PC World

November 10, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Amazon released a Kindle for PC app, available as a free 5.17MB download for Windows 7, Vista, and XP. Much like the Kindle for iPhone app, Kindle for PC syncs your Amazon e-book downloads and shows them on your computer for convenient reading either when you’re away from your svelte e-book reader or if you chose not to buy it in the first place. A Mac version, Amazon says, is “coming soon.”

via Kindle for PC Released, Color Kindle Coming Soon? – PC World.

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