B&N has been selling the older NOOKcolor for $199 since the NOOKTablet burst onto the scene. Now it looks like B&N is aiming to retire the NOOKcolor and (hopefully) face off against the Kindle Fire with a NOOK Tablet for $199-the only catch is that it will only have 8GB of memory, and not 16GB like the original NT.
eBooknewser reported today that Amazon quietly shut down Mobipocket, an ebook store that those of us with PDA roots probably remember fondly. Amazon purchased Mobipocket and still uses their format as the basis for Kindle books. After reading the post, I headed over to Mobipocket and found what appears to be the internet equivalent of a broken, abandoned storefront. There’s no announcement that Mobipocket is gone, but the files appear to have all disappeared. Bestsellers, fiction, non-fiction, everything is just gone, with the exception of a handful of classics that appear on the main page. Meanwhile, things aren’t exactly hopping…
There’s an interesting (and honestly, inevitable) trend in the book world lately: no one’s talking hardware anymore. Yes, there’s new devices, and sales are touted when they’re impressive. But the big announcements that come up again and again are “ebook sales are increasing by these triple digits/these authors are making this much money through ebooks/we have this many free ebooks, etc”. Plus, all those lovely ebooks are available on tablets, computers, smartphones and dedicated ebook readers…so does it pay for a company to offer the hardware without the ebooks anymore? In my view, the answer is no, and I think…
Big news from B&N today! They’re looking to push down the price of the NOOK and drive more subscription services, so they’ve combined the two! You can get a free NOOK Simple Touch or a $99 NOOKcolor with a subscription to the New York Times through B&N ($19.99/month). Alternately, if you are more of the entertainment news type, there’s always a $199 NOOK Tablet with a subscription to People! This is potentially huge for the ebook industry. It turns the reader hardware into a commodity, not the main show. It also pushes prices down while also lining up ongoing cash…
Every now and then we are invited to review something that just looks… well… ridiculous but we end up agreeing to take a look anyway. When the “ridiculous review item” first arrives and we open the box our first impressions are, for the most part, confirmed. Yes, more often than not the product is silly, looks like a bad joke and poses a bit of a challenge with regard to actually writing the review. Every now and then however, once we actually start using the item we discover that our first AND second impressions were actually wrong! Sure, the item…
I swung by my local library today and discovered they put together a very clever way of promoting library eBooks. They had free “gift cards” out for “free eBooks”, which was just a printed card with the library’s website on the front and QR code for the site on the back. The marketing campaign signs around the library suggested people could give them alongside Kindles, NOOKs, etc.
The new NOOK Tablet is out, and slowly but surely more details about how it is different from its NOOKcolor predecessor are being released. For most users, the Tablet is a great upgrade; better screen, more memory, more multimedia options…it’s a win all around. But what about the people who loved their NOOKcolors for their supreme hackability? According to The Digital Reader, it appears that B&N has locked the bootloader on the NOOKTablet. In English, this means they’ve added an additional level of security, making rooting (and installing the Android marketplace, etc) a far more difficult proposition. It’s hardly the…
Last month I reviewed the TruConnect ‘pay as you go’ mobile broadband solution, saying: TruConnect absolutely delivers on their claims of a simple device, easy setup and configuration, and clear pricing of as little as $4.99 per month. Beyond that, every person needs to make their own value judgement in terms of the data fees. For light or occasional use, you can get 250MB for less than $15 a month, but once you break 1GB of monthly data you might be better off with a full access plan. The good news is that you have no contract and no termination…
I wrote about the Android app TouchDown by NitroDesk as an ‘App I Can’t Live Without’, so naturally when I got my Kindle Fire, one of the first things I did was load up TouchDown from the Amazon Appstore for Android to configure my work email account. The problem came when I went to switch from a ‘trial’ to licensed mode. On any other Android device I would simply download the TouchDown License from my ‘purchased apps’ on the Android Market. But, since there is no access to the Android Market, I couldn’t do that on the Fire. Further, when…
Dear B&N, I want you to succeed. Really, I do. I know it’s hard to believe, being the former Borders’ girl that I am. And sure, my personal library is pretty heavily Amazon-focused. But I like the competition. And I like bookstores. And you bring both. But come on, you need to step up your game, and it seems like you’re falling behind at exactly the wrong time. Let’s look at your main competition, Amazon. They have the Kindle Fire tablet coming out, and the “special sauce” is their ecosystem. Point for point they offer more value to a new…
The votes are in, and I know you’re all thrilled to learn the results of our “What’s your primary ebookstore” poll. As it turns out, Gear Diary readers break down fairly similar to what’s widely assumed about ebook demographics. Amazon’s Kindle was overwhelmingly first, with B&N pulling a solid second place, but far behind Kindle’s numbers. Meanwhile, iBooks and Kobo duked it out for the remaining share, with one vote for “Other”. So what does this mean? As I said, this was highly unscientific, and you could argue there’s a lot of factors skewing the results: our readers may be…
Kobo is like the Rodney Dangerfield of eBookstores — they get no respect! Here they are, pumping out app after app for every smartphone platform, pushing the social envelope with “Reading Life”, created a touch-based ebook reader…yet they’re still an also-ran. As Nate over at The Digital Reader notes, Kobo never gets mentioned alongside B&N and Amazon, and his sources indicate Kobo has, at most, 5% of the ebook market. Still, for a tiny presence Kobo has a big voice. They promote themselves heavily, so they often get coverage on blogs, but in my conversations with everyday people I’ve only…
I want to root for B&N. They’re fighting for survival, and facing off against a seriously tough market. But their behavior this week makes me think the wheels are coming off a bit at B&N HQ, and that fear and stress, not strategy, are running the show right now. They’ve pulled 100 DC Comics titles from their physical stores (the titles are still available online), all over anger regarding DC’s exclusive deal with Amazon to bring the same 100 titles to the Kindle (Fire and tablet apps). Teleread picked up this report from Bleeding Cool about Amazon’s exclusivity: Well now…
Bad news for Blackberry and B&N fans; you’ll have to pick sides soon. B&N is notifying Blackberry users that effective January 1st, they’re dropping all support for their eReader app. Of course, if you want to go through contortions, you can always sideload your books via USB. Or you could switch to Kobo or Amazon, both of whom offer fully supported ebook apps for Blackberry. According to Crackberry, this is the email B&N has sent to affected users: We are writing to inform you about important changes being made to the BN eReader software for BlackBerry. Changes to the BN…
Borders is officially gone, but if you were a registered Borders Rewards or Borders.com user, your data is still out there. B&N owns it now, in an attempt to both secure your business and block competitors from luring your dollars to them instead. For most people, this is not a big deal since you likely are ok with a bookstore having information about you. However, if you always regretted being bullied into that Borders Rewards card (sorry about that!) or you gave your email address and never used the coupons, this is your chance to make sure that data gets…
In case you missed it, Amazon debuted not one (or even two) but FOUR new Kindle models this week. Even more shocking, only one of them was rumored! Apparently, Amazon has hired Apple’s rumor crackdown team; either that or everyone was so excited for an Amazon tablet we didn’t see the signs of new Kindles right under our noses. So here’s the new Kindle family: -Kindle: $79 [eInk] -Kindle Touch Wifi: $99 [eInk] -Kindle Touch Wifi+3G: $149 [eInk] -Kindle Fire (Android tablet: $199 [color] Note that the three eInk Kindle prices are the “special offers” versions. Non-subsidized Kindles are available…
The NOOKcolor is a great device, but like all electronics it needs a certain degree of protection. Loose in a bag there are too many things that could scratch, crack, or damage the screen or plastic body. But cases that offer total protection often add significant bulk, or are awkward to hold, or have various other tradeoffs. The Speck FitFolio appears to address all of that; is it the perfect blend of protection and size, or a swing and a miss? Read on to find out! First, here’s what Speck has to say: Protective padded cover with microsuede interior Custom…
When the Grid 10 was announced by the ever-reliable Chandra Rathakrishnan last month, it was said to run Android apps but not be an Android device. This was later clarified to mean that it is actually an Android kernel running the show, but thoroughly skinned and possibly even forked to a version of Android incompatible with future Google-backed updates. We’ll see someday, maybe. Now TechCrunch is reporting that Amazon’s long-rumored tablet will be hitting the market in a couple months, running a completely forked Android kernel. This one is apparently pre-2.2 (how far pre is undefined) and has been so modified…
The Hype: For those that like to use their E Reader without a cover, we’ve designed the Oberon E Reader Sleeve with extreme portability in mind. Lighter and thinner than our E Reader Corner Cover, our sleeve fits easily into a purse, backpack or briefcase. Our sleeve is leather lined and our magnet closure ensures the security of your device. We designed our sleeve so that the magnetized strap is on the front of the cover and our signature Britannia pewter strap attachment is on the back to avoid any potential scratching of the E Reader screen. All of our…
I had written about my nifty new Nook Touch a couple of months ago, and it has really become my constant companion for ebook reading. My family got me a basic cover from Barnes & Noble that clips in the device and closes with a magnetic strip. It gets the job done, but not nearly as stylishly as the cover my wife and son have on their Nooks. So when I had the chance to check out the new covers specifically for the Nook Touch by Oberon Design, I jumped at the chance! Let’s see how the new cover in…
Carly said it best – A picture is worth 1,000 words… Carly just posted about Amazon removing store links from their Kindle app. Now Barnes & Noble has done the same. Here is the description of their update: What’s New in Version 2.1.2 You can read any NOOK Book you have purchased on this updated NOOK for iPhone app, however the Shop link has been removed so to buy NOOK Books from your iPhone, open your Safari browser and go to nookbooks.com. This is just the latest in an evolving saga that has basis in a single Apple policy they…