“We’ve gotten not one, but two bits from separate, trustworthy insiders that Apple’s not satisfied merely vending Audible’s books-on-digital-audio solution. With the iRex iLiad and Sony PRS-500 Portable Reader both right around the corner, is it possible the next iPod might catch the eBook bug? We’d say the possibility is very real, since according to a source at a major publishing house, they were just ordered to archive all their manuscripts — every single one — and send them over to Apple’s Cupertino HQ. A separate trusted source let us know that the next iPod will have a substantial amount of screen real estate (as we’d all suspected), as well as a book reading mode that pumps up the contrast and drops into monochrome for easy reading,” Ryan Block reports for Engadget.
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “LinuxGuy” for the heads up.]
Go apple great idea!!!!
I just want some major innovation to make the Microsoft copycat product obsolete before it’s released.
I have been thinking for a while that I would love an iTunes for my PDF’s. I have a lot of Japanese lessons/tests in mp3 format along with matching PDF’s, and this would allow me to manage my library so much better.
And I totally agree LordRobin, wouldn’t it be funny if Apple releases a newer, much more innovative, iPod around the same time (perhaps earlier) than Microsoft’s typical copycat rubbish. Heck, they will likely do the same thing with 10.5 vs Vista as well
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nice idea. but i can think of a thousdan better features for ther iPod. why this one?
Is the iPod slowly turning into a higher tech Newton that was axed a while ago?
@Newton,
One can only hope, one can only hope. I’ll take two thanks.
Apple is just making its iPod franchise more powerful and defensible. They will lock in yet another segment of the iPod market that did not know that it was part of the iPod market. Apple must — and undoubtedly will — keep innovating on both the device and applications side of this market.
The iPod ecosystem is rich and diverse and becoming more rich and more diverse. Microsoft’s assault army will hit the iPod castle walls with a splat. The only things that will remain are bloodstains on the castle wall and some chairs in the moat — Ballmer’s fingerprints and all.
Sounds like one more tidbit suggesting the screen on the full-sized iPod will soon grow to nearly cover the iPod’s entire ‘face’.
Trying to visualize reading more than a few paragraphs on such a modest screen. Visualizing taking an imaginary aspirin for my trouble.
Imagining reading a right-sized version of my Google News page on my WiFi-equipped, large-screen iPod while commuting on the subway. While listening to a “right-sized” play list. Imagining the commute morphing from “too long” to “surprisingly short” for my efforts.
OSeX,
What is different today that would make the inconsequential Newton of yesterday a must have product for the 21st century?
Excellent idea – a large-screen iPod with adjustable auto-scroll and nice, high-contrast typography would be great for portable reading. I sincerely hope that this is true and that Apple makes it possible not only to buy books, but also to format your own books (.pdf?) from places like the Gutenberg project.
I want a Tablet by Apple with a normal OS on it!!!!!!!!!!
Anyone know a good piece of shareware that will format text files for easy formatiing on an ipod screen? i want to make some charts that will appear correctly formatted when i pull them up on my ipod.
Great — another Newton. Here is yet another disaster from the people that bring you exploding laptops and iPods that kill people. No one is interested in spending a zillion dollars to read penny novels on their way to work. As usual, only the rich will be able to afford these slow, overpriced and incompatible pseudo computers. The rest of us doing real work will stick with Dell and HP laptops that are lighter, faster and run the fast and efficient Microsoft Windows. There is a reason businesses all over the world run Windows, it can be trusted to be safe and runs any type of application employees could possibly need. Unlike the Macintosh where you are lucky to find 10 or 15 dusty programs hanging on the bin at CompUSA vs. the thousands of programs available in the same store for Windows.
Time is ticking til the end of Apple. Do your retirement account a favor and short the living daylights out of Apple stock!
Lighter? Faster? EFFICIENT? Dear Lord, someone get this man some sniffing salts. I think he’s going down for the count. Goodness…is this supposed to be humor? Trusted to be safe, eh? Also, I’m not sure I’ve ever EVER bought software from CompUSA. Any good Mac user needing software knows that typically they can either download it or pop into the local Apple store, where they’ll find a plethora of fantastic applications to handle any task. And please know that Mac users buy waaaay more software than most Windows users because we actually use our computers to create output. Most Windows users – and we’re talking about consumers here – use their computers for email and internet….oh and games too. Oh and when it comes time to do “real work” as you say, Microsoft has actually provided Mac users with an Office suite that’s a tad more advanced than the one you’re stuck with on the Legacy platform. Oh and when it craps out and springs a memory leak or three, OS X is there to clean it up and keep it from dragging the rest of the OS down. We can just kill it and move on with our work, not wait for a reboot which is pretty much required when that happens in the Windows world. Why? Because Windows doesn’t do memory management very well. But then again you probably know all of this already and I’m the big doof for taking time out of my life to respond to your troll drivel. Oh well, I needed to vent. Thanks for being such a good listener.
iPod users read???
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Some book reading info:
One-third of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives. Many do not even graduate from high school.
58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school.
42% of college graduates never read another book.
80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year.
70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
57% of new books are not read to completion.
Most readers do not get past page 18 in a book they have purchased.
63% of adults report purchasing at least one book during the previous three-month period. (Most were probably exaggerating).
“80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year.”
Now we know why the government gets away with the crap they do. No one takes time to become informed.
“80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year.”
Well, then this might be a ripe market for growth, no? Bring back reading. You never know what will take off. 5 years ago, folks were saying AAC was crappy, that iPod was a fad, that they wouldn’t use it outside the gym. Today, folks have fm transmitters, use itunes to drive their home stereo via airtunes & are running movies into their TV from the laptop/ ipod and itunes.
Smaller, faster, more capacity will only take the’pod so far- 30gig is plenty for me. VOIP iPhone capacity may be coming. expanded movie capability may be coming. The ipod is morphing into a swiss army-knife, but with a simple interface. Apple is a moving target, and I think new rinky-dink but easy to use (and easy to implement) features will drive it to the next level and broaden the market. Apple just may be targetting phone, palm, reader, AV and stereo markets in one swoop. The next “big” thing. If these features stay simple, and price point stays as is, what vendor will be able to compete?
Ps- I’ve got 4 friends/ fam members who have switched to mac, or plan to over the next month b/c of the halo effect. My PC switcher sister bought a 20″ iMac to watch movies instead of a new TV! The mini is a viable DVD player/ CD player alternative for the average schmo. The Apple vacuum is reaching critical mass!
90% of statistics are made up on the spot.
Nolan,
These statistics do not seem correct to me. Would you please some citations for these figures.
Yeah, nice stats, how about mine:
US Book Market 2005:
Company… North American Sales
Barnes&Noble; / B. Dalton…$4.54 billion
Borders / Waldenbooks…$3.45 billion
Amazon Media…$3.05 billion
BN.com…$0.44 billion
Total …$11.48 billion
ELEVENT POINT FOUR EIGHT BILLION, and that does not include all the millions of other book sellers.
The mean age of book buyers
1997: Age 15-39: 26.5% of the books bought
2001: Age 15-39: 20.8% of the books bought
1997: Age over 55: 33.7% of the books bought.
2001: Age over 55: 44.1% of the books bought
–Ipsos NPD reported in Publishers Weekly, January 6, 2003
———-
More books reading, buying, etc. info here:
http://parapublishing.com/sites/para/resources/statistics.cfm
An iPod that displays eBooks is a nice idea, but it doesn’t sound like a big enough idea to be the next big thing.
If a new iPod is to have eBook capability, then it must have more computational ability than iPods currently have. Therefore I would guess that the eBook features are just a minor aspect of something much more comprehensive. Maybe not full OS X, but still something powerful and versatile.
Couple this rumour with those rumours of iPods with a touch screen and wireless capabilities. You could get a new device that allows true remote control of a Mac-based media system, with a versatile graphical interface and it will still play your music or videos for you.
People have talked about Newtons, Mac-Tablets and electronic books. There’s no reason why one device couldn’t be all of those things and more.
There’s another thing it could do too. It could take the wind out of Bill Gates’ sails.
Nolan – thanks for the link.
I hope not nolan, rs and others can read all that documentation and all the links.
——-
And for Zetsurin, saw this note there:
Nearly all bestsellers come from five publishing conglomerates.
–National Arts Journalism Program
“There’s another thing it could do too. It could take the wind out of Bill Gates’ sails.”
How do you know his iPod killer, Zune, won´t be able to do the same thing?
———
And you folks are missing the big idea to an eBook….as
in reading a daily newspaper or comic books or product manuals or training mauals…
Anyway, it doesn’t just have to be about the US, take Japan for example. Just like they have a Japanese iTunes store I am sure they would have a localised Manga channel. The amount of comics/novels that the Japanese churn through is amazing.