I wrote about the emergence of ebooks in this week's
Tangents but there are some things I left out for various reasons.
One is the EU (and now US govt) investigation of whether Apple colluded with some top publishers on the ebooks front (price-fixing).
The issue here is, there is hardly any material cost involved, why do ebooks have to cost so much?
Anyways, the battle between Amazon and Apple on this front promises to be an epic one. Amazon, to their credit, have tried to keep prices down - for a long time most Kindle books were selling for $10. But when Apple introduced iPad, things changed, I think, because the publishers now had a choice and Apple was more amenable to their pricing schemes. Amazon, otoh, was apparently quite tough with publishers.
In the meantime, I understand that Barnes and Noble is betting their entire farm, so to speak, on the Nook.
I have not seen the new Kindle Fire yet, so do not know how good their graphic display is, but it is Amazon's volley against Apple in the ebooks wars. But ipad has a leg up on the b/w Kindle when it comes to illustrated and photo books. OTOH, the Kindle is great for reading text. Really great.
sistunes
Saturday, December 10, 2011