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!

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.

We're very proud of what we did with this app.  Check it out at the iTunes App Store.

I originally realized that BorrowMe had finally be released when checking out AppShopper, a site that makes it much easier to keep up on what's new in the AppStore (Thanks, Pedro!)  Here's the link to BorrowMe on that site:

http://appshopper.com/lifestyle/borrowme

I’ll admit, I had some very high expectations for this book. The samples on Erica Sadun’s web site offered a peek into what to expect. Not only does the book meet my expectations, but it impossibly exceeds them.

The first surprise was the first chapter, a great primer for iPhone development. I wish I had this in my hands when I first started doing iPhone development, as chapter one explains some key concepts important to understanding iPhone development. The first chapter alone is worth the price of admission for those new to iPhone development.

The rest of the book is filled with examples of how to accomplish magic in all aspects of iPhone development. Some that you would figure out yourself given enough time, but most true gems. And a few with non-public API calls (use at your own risk).

Check it, out! You won’t regret it.

Not to toot my own horn, but toot toot, I have an app available!  MPG

I've also launched a new site to support my iPhone apps.  iPhoneCodeMonkey.com.

Check it out!

So, guess what!?! You can post these public journal entries (blogs) to...you guessed it...your blog.

So I’m going to give that a try. If this looks weird or doesn’t work, blame MacJournal.

I haven’t figured out how to use them yet, but apparently MacJournal also supports goodies like smilies ☺ and wiki text as well (not sure what that means yet.)

Looks like you can set tags. It seems to know something about categories, though I can’t figure out how to set it. Maybe it will do that when I upload it to the server.

EDIT: Just tested editing an existing entry from MacJournal as well. Pretty cool.

As I create more entries in MacJournal, it will automatically link to them. That’s sweet.

I thought that I had finally found that excuse with the introduction of iTunes Movie Rentals. What an awesome idea! I can sit down, on a whim, and just start watching a movie (after a brief delay while I wait for the download.) Instant gratification! It's the American way, baby!

Alas, I will likely never buy an Apple TV, because I will never use the rental feature.

The hell you say? You heard me right, sucka, I will never [again] use the iTunes Movie Rental feature...not in its current incarnation anyway. Why? Because I'm not in the habit of throwing my money away...much.

I have the same problem that a lot of folks are complaining about (see articles from Mark Bozsko, Glenn Fleishman, Rob Griffiths, David Pogue, Michael Rose). The movie industry is more interested in shooting itself in the foot than taking part in a true entertainment revolution.

Whatchu talkin' 'bout? Well, I'm going to tell you! If you rent a movie from Apple, you have a very generous 30 day period in which to start watching that movie. Once you start, however, you only have 24 hours to complete it. Mark Bozsko has an almost workable technique for getting around this, but even it sits a little outside of real life.

So what's the problem? Well, like those listed above, I lead a busy life that includes very little time for a couple of things: entertainment and sleeping. Sometimes my wife and I try to squeeze in a little entertainment time only to have sleep decide it is more important. So we'll get about half way through the movie and one of us will say, "how about we stop here and finish this later?" This isn't an occasional happenstance, this is the norm. This is my life. Welcome to it.

So what's the big deal? Finish the movie the next night, but start watching it a little earlier. If only it were that simple. Ok, lets pretend we're in the DVD world, using a little service called NetFlix. Tuesday night we manage to get the kids in bed, and get our real-life commitments taken care of, by 9:00 PM, and we sit down for a nice romantic evening of American Gangster, a movie that happens to be nearly 3 hours long. About an hour into the movie, my wife says, "I'm really enjoying the violence, but I'm pooped. Can we finish watching this tomorrow?"

So, along comes Wednesday, and we go through the same routine, and manage to sit down to finish the movie a little earlier, at 8:30 PM. We watch another hour or so and my wife cuddles up to me and says, "All of this violence, pervasive drug content and language, nudity and sexuality has got me randy baby, yeah!" So off goes the TV and sleep soon follows.

Thursday we finally manage to make it through the rest of the movie and shove the DVD in the mailbox Friday morning.

How does this jive with the iTunes 24 hour restriction? It dunt!

No doubt, though, that I can start and finish any movie within 72 hours. I'm good like that!

This isn't an Apple problem, by the way. It's the dumbass movie studios. Those robots are just incapable of thinking like real people, apparently.

I've got an idea. Go and grab a pen and paper, and I'm going to tell you how to be a billionaire. The first one to the finish line gets to loot. (Apple, I hope you're paying attention, 'cause this will work, and I'm rooting for you! You already have most of these right, after all. I know you're going to have to convince the studios of all of these items, but if anyone can do it, you can!)

How to hit a home run with on-demand movie rentals:

• Price at $2.99 to $3.99 for standard resolution movies, and $3.99 to $4.99 for HD. (With the occasional "special" of $0.99 or $1.99 to suck people in like the drug dealers you are.)
• Allow me to transfer movies to and from my computer, iPhone, iPod, and Apple TV. But also allow me to transfer a movie I rented in HD on my Apple TV to my iPhone to finish watching. How? Download both the HD and standard versions to my Apple TV, and transfer only the standard version. (Duh!)
• Allow me a 72 hour window to watch a movie from beginning to end. 72 is the magic number. I don't want to have to pay extra for this, either. On this, there is no negotiation. And this is the tipping point. The company to implement this will win the on-demand rental wars. Of this there is no doubt.
• Allow me to transfer a movie while I'm off-line. Yes, there is some technical weirdness you'll have to figure out, but when I'm on a 16 hour flight, and I'm watching a movie on my MBP but the battery is about dead, I should be able to finish watching it on my still-charged iPhone, and if I turn on my wireless, by golly I might just crash the plane.

I'm easy. If I get the 72 hour window, I will go out and buy an Apple TV and will be one step closer to being an Apple home. I'll be happy, Apple will be happy, and even those crusty old movie studio types will crack a hint of a smile. You want on-demand movie rentals to take of? Put the consumer first. It's amazing how effective that can be.