This Blog Is Now Over And Done With

Apple: Kill My Blog, Please!

Apple didn’t do what I expected. Yet I still expect them to.

I can either stick around spinning my wheels until then or use my time productively.

Without this blog, I will have time …

It’s Time To Laugh At Microsoft Again

Now really, doesn’t this look like crap —

— compared to this —

Have a laugh at the video after the break.

Apple And eBooks: A Horror Story

This is the most difficult post I’ve ever had to write.

Steve Jobs hates ePub. He hates eBooks.

How can anyone with his refined sense of taste not hate them?

They’re an abomination. A tasteless — and incompetent — techie committee solution to electronic books.

Seriously, can any of you see Apple creating ePub? (If you can, leave now. You don’t know Jobs or Apple.)

And iBooks? iBooks?!!!?

From the company that gave us the delightful CoverFlow …

… we now get shelves?!

iPad: The Portable Personal Social Computer

This is my reaction to seeing the Stevenote. I will save the bit about iPad and books til tomorrow.

This is the bit where some people got it:

Click = big

That’s Stephen Fry there. Entirely coincidental. I didn’t highlight the guy next to him even though he has the same expression of delight because I suspect that’s Jon Ive himself. Look at that woman. And the guy. They’re kvelling!

Kobo: We’ll Have iSlate eBooks In February

They are very sly about that in this press release:

KOBO ANNOUNCES AVAILABILITY FOR TABLET COMPUTERS IN FEBRUARY 2010

Applications in Development for Windows 7, Android, and Additional Operating Systems

TORONTO, ON — January 22, 2010— With applications in development for Windows 7, Android and additional operating systems, Kobo, Inc. today announced that the service will be available for various tablet and slate computers in February 2010. Kobo (www.kobobooks.com) is a global eReading service that offers mobile applications on the iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Palm Pre, as well as support for netbooks and dedicated eReaders, like the Sony eReader. Kobo’s selection of popular books includes more than two million titles with content from major publishers including Random House, Harper Collins, Hachette, Simon & Schuster, Penguin and Harlequin.

“This announcement is in line with our mission to deliver the best eReading experience on any device,” said Michael Serbinis, Chief Executive Officer of Kobo. “2010 is proving to be the year of the tablet and we are working with major OEMs to ensure that Kobo apps are made available on those devices. Tablets give Kobo an opportunity to deliver eBooks, newspapers, and magazines to readers on yet another screen that is well equipped for reading.”

Free Kobo applications for tablet computers will be available beginning February 2010. Kobo’s applications will provide support for Windows 7, Android, and other key operating systems. Running on these platforms, Kobo will remain in sync across various devices, allowing users to read on their iPhone then switch to their tablet and continue where they left off.

Core to Kobo’s strategy is making eReading available everywhere and on any device, and the company believes the tablet platform is a significant new form factor for eReading. Kobo aggressively supports open standards like ePUB format, which gives readers the flexibility to read on any device.

Boldfaced red emphasis added by me.

Kobo is being aggressive here, pre-empting whatever publisher announcements happen on Wednesday. Barnes & Noble can’t be happy. Nor Amazon.

But Kobo customers will be.

Kobo Books

Previously here:

Shortcovers Changes Name, Goes Galactica

The iSlate Factor People Are Missing

The introduction of the iSlate is going to be a Richter-scale value shock in the industry.

Even if it comes in at a whopping US$999 (which I really hope it will not!), it’s going to reset the scale of value of everything.

From time to time, I go to J&R in Manhattan, a large electronics retailer. I go to check out prices and to see what’s new. And sometimes even to buy.

CES, The Death Of eInk, And The Asus Factor

If you want to see what the eBook announcements were at CES, visit this one page. They’ve done great work compiling that list, even if they forgot Cool-er (which is understandable!).

Everything there that uses eInk you can ignore. They’re already d-e-d.

Some notes on the non-eInk devices after the break.

Google, The Vampire

Ah, the true colors are emerging. And they are not the happy hues of their logo!

Google open-source boss comes clean on Android

This is going to sound really cynical, but the only thing that really matters is how many of these we ship – how many Android phones.

Boldfaced emphasis added by me.

And:

Google to mobile industry: ‘F*ck you very much!’

Today, some of the biggest tech companies in the world, who thought they were Google’s closest partners, will begin to understand how, say, copyright holders have felt for some time now. For the first time, I suspect, they’ll be enjoying that recurring tingle of amazement and disbelief that (as Chris Castle explained here), Google would even try and pull off such a stunt. It took EMI Publishing six months to realise that Google had claimed digital rights to its songs, for example. But even if the decision to shaft its closest Android partners and biggest customers is an aberration, a one-off, a fling that Google will later regret – then the size of the parties involved means it’s going to have lasting repercussions.

Boldfaced emphasis added by me.

If you’re scratching your head wondering what the big deal is, then I suggest you do a quick news search on the number of stories containing the phrase ‘Google superphone’. Imagine how this looks to a punter. There are over a dozen Google phones. Only one is a real Google phone. Only one is a Google superphone. And you can only get that from Google. Won’t Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Acer and Samsung be feeling pleased today? Sony Ericsson’s X10 has a fairly identical spec (plus Sony branding) or better – but it’s not a ‘superphone’. And not the ‘real thing’.

Boldfaced emphasis added by me.

Thanks to Scoble, I saw the Google Nexus One launch via UStream.

That “superphone” appellation was calculated for maximum PR and positioning effect.

It wasn’t a shot against Apple — it was a shot to the head of all of Google’s sucker partners.

And you still want to trust Google with all of our books?

This company is quickly making the greed and hubris of Microsoft in its heyday look like cheap hucksterism.

Google has been very, very clever not to have one person — a Gates, a Jobs — as a face, as a single and recurring public spokesman. By not having one point of evil to focus our wrath on, we can’t get a handle on who is doing any of this. In that respect, they have learned well from every human bureaucracy in history. Anonymity disperses accountability.

Perhaps this is why there hasn’t been the expected flood of Android mini-tablets at CES. Word has been spreading around the alleyways of tech that partnering with Google is not a contract — it’s a suicide pact.

Previously here:

Now Google Can’t Be Trusted To Be Google!
I Don’t Like The Future Apple And Google Are Creating
The Authors Guild Leadership: 21st Century Chamberlains
Writer Ursula K. Le Guin Nails Authors Guild
And You Will Trust Google With All Of Our Books?
This Is Print Publishing’s Final Warning
Mark The Words Of Dave Winer
Sergey Brin: Also Absolutely Inexcusably Clueless
Google Thinks It Owns Our Books!
The First Step Towards A Google Book Search Solution
Google Always Had POD Planned
God Bless Marybeth Peters Of The Copyright Office!
Google Books Settlement Notes #2
Tomorrow: Google Books Settlement Deadline For Writers
Cooler Adds Google’s One Million ePubs Of Crap!
Google Books Settlement Notes #1
Google’s Great Writer Rip-Off
Google’s One Million eBooks Of Crap!
The Capitulation Of Print Publishing
Reject The Google Book Search Settlement!

Sony Dash, Part One

Watch this YouTube video:

This seems to be the first time Sony has really gotten something in the past four years.

I’m sitting here with a PC sabotaged by Microsoft Windows updates that makes YouTube videos look like slideshows now. It didn’t start out that way.

I’m the perfect candidate for the Dash. I could use it right now just for YouTube. The US$199.00 price is also amazing.

Unfortunately, it won’t be out until April. And much can change between now and then.

I’ll have at least one more post about the Dash as further information comes in.

CES 2010 Note 1

There won’t be a parade of device announcements on this blog. Go elsewhere for that.

So far the only thing that intrigues me is the Sony Dash. I’ll post more once I know more.

The parade of landfill-ready eInk devices continues. I’ll probably do one big post about that procession of FAIL.

My initial take on Blio was that it was shit, then I caught a two-second glimpse of it running on an iPhone. Why didn’t they say so from the bloody start? Their website is pathetic for useful information. This is no way to go about doing things.

I’m still waiting for information about the Notion Ink tablet and Pixel Qi’s partners.

That hp mini-tablet Ballmer held up last night? Puhleeze. It’s fingertip-hostile Windows 7. Next!