Kindle vs. iBooks

Prologue

Paper is dying…

And I’m all in.

Kamran Hashmi

Jan 22, 2012

Chapter 1: Access

You can access Kindle books via the following:

Kindle Reader

Kindle app on iOS

Kindle Cloud Reader

Kindle Reader for PC/Mac

Kindle for BlackBerry

Kindle for Android

iBooks only supports iOS devices. iPhone-iTouch-iPad. And unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past four years, you have seen hundreds (if not thousands) of images of these iconic “i” devices.  So forgive me but I’ll skip on posting the images.  You know what they look like.

Chapter 2: Whisepersync

Question: What is a bookmark on steroids?

Answer: Amazon Whispersync

Yes. The mind numbingly awesome sync tech that enables you to pick up where you left off regardless of what device (see above) you’re using.

iOS has the same syncing tech but I find the kindle implementation better because it offers more data.  It notifies the user about the current page as well as the furthest page read on whatever device.  In the screenshot below, the iPhone Kindle app is notifying me that I’m further along in this book when I last accessed the book via the iPad 2.  Do I want to sync to furthest page?  I like this granularity and level of control.  iBooks just syncs to the most recent page. There’s no context. Bleh.

Whispersync in action

Chapter 3: Kindle Public Lending

Last year, Amazon made an arrangement with public libraries. Instead of using a proprietary app to read a digital book loaned from your public library, why not read them on your Kindle app/reader? Use whispersync, takes notes, and highlight with abandon. In case you didn’t get to finish the book in the allotted period of days, you could just purchase the digital title from Amazon.  All your notes and highlights would be retained.  Here’s a link to the Amazon website describing the program:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=200747550

Sounds too good to be true right?  It is…

With everyone and their mothers receiving tablets/ereaders over the past year and change, demand for digital titles at public libraries is dramatically out of proportion with supply.  The reasons for that imbalance is beyond the scope of this post. What it boils down to is that you have to wait a long time to borrow a kindle friendly book from your local library. Longer for popular titles. And some titles are just aren’t available to begin with.

Where do you access and search for digital titles? I don’t know about other states, but in NJ, you go to www.listennj.com to search for digital books and audiobooks.

Below is an example of a popular title.  Notice the number of copies available and the number of patrons on the waiting list:

You place a book on hold and once its available, an e-mail is sent notifying that the digital loan is available and will be on hold for 72 hours.  Once you check it out, you will have the option to select from 7, 10, and 14 day loans.  Below is an example I recorded earlier today:

Chapter 4: Kindle Owners Lending Library

This program sounded cool until I discovered that it was only for Kindle hardware owners. Basically, if you’re an Amazon Prime member, you get access to one free ebook per month.  Cool deal for folks who are already paying for prime and happen to have a dedicated kindle reader. For everyone else, its perhaps not that compelling.  For more information on this program:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/?docId=1000739811

Chapter 5: Kindle Lending

Before any lending, there was Kindle lending.  Last year, my sis-in-law loaned me all three books of the Hunger Games series, which she had bought from the kindle store. Its a pretty cool feature, when its available.  Not all titles are lendable and even if they are, you can only lend them once, which is bizarre since I can loan my paper book unlimited # of times. Its probably the work of some overzealous publishing lawyer.  But when it works, its sweet.

There are also some third party sites that have created a business from kindle lending where readers gather together to lend and borrow lendable books.  One such site is Book Lending dot com

Chapter 6: Usability

This is my final point and probably more subjective compared to the above.

iBooks default view is heavy on animation. While the faux bookshelf does look super cute, the faux book (or book metaphor) complete with page turning animation is a distraction and a complete waste of time-literally.  I prefer the Kindle app’s sparse look with just the black text on white background and no distracting animations.  You tap on the screen to flip. Done.  On some level, I find the iBooks layout insulting. I know I’m reading a book and don’t need nor appreciate having it wrapped for me in a “book like” format.

Page Turning Animation

Lanscape View

Apple did fix this issue (almost half heartedly) with an update late 2011, which gives you the option to view the book in Full Screen.  The option is still buried beneath two settings menu taps and it does not do away with the page turning animation.

Full Screen Mode

The tappable area on iBooks seems to be smaller compared to kindle or just not optimized enough, because sometimes, the taps just don’t register. Regardless, page turns are not as immediate compared to the Kindle.  Don’t take my word for it. Do your own testing.

I guess I’ve wasted enough time making a point that nobody really cares about.

And I’ve two public library Kindle books to finish. Time’s a-ticking.

Media Stats 2011

Time for the Media Stats blog post for 2011.  So how did I do?

Movies

Although I watched 9 more movies in 2011 (compared to 2010), the Bollywood genre went down drastically (for reasons I don’t want to get in to). My Cinema consumption more or less stayed flat compared to 2010 when I had watched 9 movies on the big screen. I rented 21 movies in 2011, which is also pretty much consistent with 23 rentals in 2010.  The real uptick in my movie consumption was a result of subscribing to Netflix and HBO/Showtime. Of this, I watched 8 movies on Netflix, and the rest on premium TV channels. I also made it a point to rate every movie on Flixster for my Facebook friends.

You’re welcome.

TV

I watched three new shows this year, which are at the top of the list. Here, Netflix shines as I watched multiple seasons of Breaking Bad, and Weeds. The $7.99/month streaming plan is money (more than) well spent.  I had HBO for a couple of months and watched Game of Thrones and used HBO Go to watch season 1 of Entourage.

Advice to HBO: Unlink HBO Go from the $16.99 TV subscription and price it separately, similar to Netflix and Hulu Plus ($7.99).  Considering HBO Go is available on iOS, the web, and X-BOX live, there is not doubt in my mind that this will add to the subscriber base.

Books

Thanks to my iPad/iPhone and Amazon Kindle app, I doubled my consumption to a dozen books this year.  Unfortunately, my non-fiction consumption dropped from 50% in 2010 to 31% in 2011.  Hopefully, I can bring it up in 2012.

I highly recommend the kindle library lending program (USA only). You can borrow up to 5 kindle books from your local library.  To setup, go to your local library and get your electronic pin.  Then go to your state specific URL to access the digital library.  For example, in NJ it is http://listennj.com The only downside is that you have to wait a while for popular books. Libraries have limited copies and there is a almost always a lot of patrons in line for the same book.

Audiobooks

13 audiobooks in 2011 versus 12 in 2010 seems flat until you dig in to the total hours listened. In 2010, it was just over 100 hours.  In 2011, thanks to a couple of “longggg” books, I ended up logging 300 hours and change. That is just colossal. If it isn’t painfully obvious, I’m somewhat of a fantasy fiction nut (we all have our vanities). However this year, I also dabbled in Science Fiction with the critically acclamaied Dune and Ender’s Game. I didn’t enjoy either. Perhaps scifi isn’t my thang.

If you’re a fantasy fiction fan and you havn’t read George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice & Fire series, then you are nuts.  No ifs or buts.

If you’re a fantasy fiction fan and have read the above, and looking for something fresh, check Patrick Rothfuss’s KingKiller Chronicles trilogy.  Two books of the trilogy have been released so far and they’re pretty good.

RSS & Podcasts

Google Reader only gives me a 30 day history. So if I were to extrapolate the results (while staying uber conservative) for 12 months, I combed through over 30,00 articles (combing includes just reading the headline) and actually read 4% or 1200 articles in 2011.  Unfortunately, I didn’t track results in 2010 so I have nothing to compare it with.

There are tons and tons of interesting podcasts available and hardly anytime to consume it.  I pre-dominantly listen to one podcast on a regular (can’t miss it) basis and depending on the discussion, to some others. In 2011, I listened to 49 episodes of the Talk Show with John Gruber, 2 episodes of HyperCritical with John Siracusa, couple episodes of Leo Laporte’s MacBreak Weakly and couple episodes of Gillmor Gang with Steve Gillmor and gang. So a tad over 50 podcasts. Again, I’ve nothing to compare it to, so can’t say what these numbers mean in a vacuum.

Conclusion

So I’m a data nut.  Sue me.  I find it fascinating to log and chart my media consumption and I wish I’d been doing it way before 2010. It would have made for some very interesting analysis. I guess you gotta start somewhere.

Happy New Year!

The Proverbial Straw

RIM’s outlook darkens with delay of new smartphone

Marlow reports:

Both Mr. Lazaridis and co-CEO Jim Balsillie said they were disappointed with the BlackBerry’s precipitous drop in popularity in the United States, the company’s most important market, and blamed much of the failure on marketing and advertising – which they promised to overhaul with a “comprehensive” blitz to drive sales of its latest batch of BlackBerrys

RIM is failing not because their “marketing” sucks. It’s because their products do. Abbot & Costello continue to remain out of touch with reality. How long can this show possibly go on?

Remembering Steve

Strangely befitting Job’s legacy, I read about his demise on my iPhone.

I then continued to post articles, tributes via my Macbook Pro.

And while in bed, I read some more tributes on my iPad.

I thought that I’d remember Steve by sharing some of the tributes I really liked.

Walt Mossberg (the most interesting story Walt shared was when Gates and Jobs shared the stage at the fifth D conference)

Stephen Levy: Wired (Steve happens to be author of In the Plex-an excellent book on the history and success of Google)

Stephen Wolfram (Wolfram Alpha is now integrated with Siri-the new voice AI debuting on the iPhone 4s)

Eric Schmidt (This was an interesting read considering the fallout between the two)

Job’s official biography has now been pushed up a second time-slated to launch on October 24th. I can’t wait to read it.

Your Humble Personal Assistant

Apple’s event today left a lot of people disappointed.  People who were clamoring for a new design. Sorry folks. There is nothing wrong with last years design. It’s drop dead gorgeous. Why should apple “fix” something that ain’t broke? Its the “inside” that counts.  And here, Cupertino delivered.

But more on that later.

For people who follow the Apple beat, the signs were always there that year 2011 was going to be more about what was under the hood. These signs included:

The lack of an iPhone announcement at WWDC in June.

The event being held at Apple Town Hall vs the Yerba Buena Center or the Mascone Center

Past history with the 3Gs

The event invite and its simultaneously cryptic, yet clear message: There is only going to be one iPhone and we will talk about it.

The initial hour of the press event was dedicated towards updated platform stats and re-hashing the features available in iOS5. Why re-hash something when you’ve already beat it to death at WWDC? Again, clear message from Apple, that the spotlight still belonged to  iOS5.  A reminder that something super cool comes our way. Something that supersedes a new design.  I’ve already discussed some of these new features in a previous post. Here’s a sneak peak on iCloud to get your juices flowing:

Under the Hood

I’m going to pick on a few key items:

A better camera: With a better sensor and lens (not just more megapixels) the iPhone continues its assault on the Point & Shoot market. Full 1080p video (curious whether video clips also get streamed to other iOS devices via iCloud?).

Faster Processor: Means amazing graphics.  Did anyone see the Infinity Blade 2 demo?  As Phil Schiller said.  It was “killer”.

Antenna: Re-designed (I’m curious on its effects on attenuation, not that it was ever an issue). It supports speeds of up to 14.4 Mbps. Unfortunately, thats going to be meaningless stateside.  For more on that, read Apple Insider’s post (it also has a pretty nice chart comparing the hardware specs between the 4 and 4s).

Even though the first half of the keynote was a bit dull, Apple ended it on a very high note with a mind-blowing demo of Siri (72 minutes into the presentation). I’m surprised they didn’t label it as the “one more thing” item.  Hands down, it was the WHOA! item of the day and reason enough to buy the 4s-period Here’s a preview:

I expect the review units will be shipped today to the usual suspects (Mossberg, Pogue, Gruber, Inhatko, and others). This will give them little over a week to play around with it and have their review ready before the embargo is lifted on Thursday, October 13th (not fact-just mere speculation).