Nasty iPad Side-Effects
I have been watching the little spat between Macmillan and Amazon.com with some interest, since I think it represents a very important turning point in the publication industry. Amazon.com published their side of the story, and Macmillan published theirs. In the end, Macmillan won, and you and I lost.
The gist of the story, Macmillan insisted that Amazon.com start charging between $12.99 and $14.99 for the Kindle versions of Macmillan’s books. Amazon has generally charged $9.99 or less, and wanted to keep it that way. Amazon stuck to their guns for a couple of days, going so far as pulling all Macmillan publications from Amazon.com. Well, today Amazon caved, and Macmillan’s new release Kindle books are now between $12.99 and $14.99. On the bright side, Macmillan promises that older books will reduce in price, to the $6.99 range. How good of them!
I for one bought Kindle books because they were cheaper than their hard-backed counterparts. All other things being equal, I’d prefer the physical book to the electronic one. So, when I’m not saving anything by buying the Kindle version, it’s not likely I will be buying the Kindle version.
You can bet that very soon other publishers will follow suit, and all new Kindle books will be roughly the same price as their paper equivalents. This is 100% due to the greed of the publishers. Electronic books are cheap to produce. Much much cheaper than paper books. There is no logical reason to raise the price of electronic books, and frankly, even $9.99 was more than they should have been.
What’s truly unfortunate is that this is Apple’s fault. They are entering into similar deals with publishers (to sell books in the $15 range), and publishers are undoubtedly playing this card against Amazon. “Do what we tell you, or we’ll enter an exclusive deal with Apple.” Amazon’s hands are tied, and we, the readers, lose.
Sorry Apple, sorry Amazon, I don’t intend on buying any ebooks as long as their cost is comparable to the physical book. Here the publishers win, because they know that we’re all suckers for new releases, and they’ll get their $15 one way or another. Ass holes!
Why I Will Wait To Buy My iPad…Maybe
Anyone that knows me is expecting me to run out and buy an Apple iPad the day it becomes available. Ok, I probably will, but am considerably more hesitant to do so than I would/should be. Why? Because I think version 2.0 of the pad is the one I want.
Most of my problems with the iPad can be solved with software updates, and (you read it here first) will be solved by Apple before, or shortly after launch. The most glaring of which is the very iPhone-like home screen and “springboard”. Apple doesn’t do ugly, and the 4 x 4 icon arrangement with about an inch of padding around each icon is about the ugliest thing I’ve ever spied. This is a placeholder so they could get developers working on iPad software with the iPhone OS 3.2 SDK. The long-term home screen will NOT look like THIS!
My other problems are decidedly hardware based, and I expect them to be fixed in 2.0. First, as you can see above, the bevel around the iPad screen is huge. It can be about 75% of that size, no problem, and probably will be in the next version.
Second, I’m VERY surprised that there is no camera. It doesn’t make sense. I’m sure there is some kind of technical reason for this that will be solved for version 2.0
Third, there doesn't appear to be a compass or GPS. While these aren't entirely necessary for the most likely use (sitting on your couch cold chillin') it would be a nice to have for any location-based functions.
Finally, there’s no way (currently) to either use the iPad as an external display, or use an external display with the iPad. This might be solved with an adapter, but how cool would it be to use the iPad as a 2nd display for your laptop?
Of course, I could always play the “get 1.0 and then get 2.0 and give 1.0 to my wife” trick. It always works.