Books posts

No press release, no big fanfare, but reader Chris sent in the news earlier tonight: Amazon's long-awaited Kindle application for Mac is ready for download. The 22 MB free application works on Intel Macs running Mac OS X 10.5 and above, and reports a version number of 1.0.0 beta 1. The app has been anticipated since last October, back when the iPad was still a rumor. [Update: The press release was a couple of hours behind the software release, but 9to5 spotted it; it notes that full-text search and annotation features will be coming soon.]

The app allows you to download Kindle books you already own, and read them at leisure on your Mac; synchronization of your progress through the book is automatic, and will keep track with your Kindle or iPhone reading. It displays your bookmarks and highlights from your Kindle reading sessions, but doesn't let you create new highlights. You can adjust font size and line length to suit your visual acuity; turning pages is accomplished by using the scroll wheel on your mouse, or with the arrow keys.

It's definitely no-frills, but it's good to see that the Mac app for Kindle reading is finally seeing the light of day, although it's too bad PowerPC and Tiger users are left out of the fun. Thanks, Amazon... now, about that iPad app...

If you want to try out the Kindle app while lacking an actual Kindle (or the iPhone app), and you don't want to invest in costly ebooks, no worries; Glenn Fleishman at TidBITS points out that there are scores of free titles available for download, including some excellent public-domain classics.


Thanks Chris!

The announcement of the iBookstore wasn't particularly surprising -- analysts had expected such a move from Apple for months. What was somewhat surprising was that as of the initial announcement of the iPad and its tie-in with the iBookstore, there were no announced plans for international versions of Apple's e-book marketplace. Up until today, the only officially announced venue for the iBookstore has been the United States.

According to MacRumors, a new job listing has been posted on Apple's website for "Manager, iBooks Asia Pacific & Canada." Part of the managerial position's role includes being "the primary person responsible for building the book business in Asia Pacific and Canada" -- for now, "Asia Pacific" is only loosely defined as "Australia, New Zealand, and other countries." It stands to reason that Apple will eventually want to expand its iBookstore to all markets currently served by the iTunes Store, but as MacRumors notes, no job postings have yet appeared for Europe, Asia, or other regions.

Considering how prohibitively expensive paper books are here in New Zealand, I'm greatly looking forward to the launch of the iBookstore. In the US, ebooks generally aren't priced competitively compared to their paper cousins (something I've never been able to comprehend), but in the South Pacific, ebooks are very attractive alternatives to paperbacks, which can cost upwards of NZ$20 each. Once the iBookstore makes it down here, Apple has at least one guaranteed customer -- as long as the iBookstore isn't restricted solely to the iPad, that is.

[Via MacRumors]

Steve Jobs is an intensely private man. He values his privacy so much, he's had no qualms fighting the Times of London about a profile they wrote on him last summer. Four years earlier, Jobs played hardball with Wiley & Sons, the publisher of 'iCon Steve Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business'.

Jobs told Wiley & Sons to halt publication of the unauthorized biography. Wiley & Sons refused to back down so Steve punished them by pulling every book by Wiley & Sons from all Apple retail stores. Talk about hitting someone where it hurts; some of Wiley & Sons' biggest selling books were titles like The Mac OS X Bible and Mac OS X Tiger For Dummies (you can see a full list of their Mac titles here).

It looked like anyone hoping for a look inside Steve's past would be hoping forever. Not any more. The New York Times is reporting that Steve himself is set to collaborate on an authorized biography, to be written by Walter Isaacson, the former managing editor of Time magazine. The New York Times says the book is still in its early planning stages and would cover the entire life of Jobs, from his youth through his years at Apple.

Isaacson is the author of two best-selling biographies, "Einstein: His Life and Universe" and "Benjamin Franklin: An American Life." All of his books have been published by Simon & Schuster who, coincidentally, got the center spot in the iBookstore participating-publishers slide during the iPad unveiling.

Neither Apple or Isaacson would comment on the rumors, but seeing how Apple is now in the book business, now's as good as time as any for an authorized Steven P. Jobs biography. What do you think? Buy an iPad, get the biography of its creator for free?

The iPad is still a few months away from actual release, but it already has publishers scrambling to be in the right place when the revolution comes. First, Amazon gave in to Macmillan's bid to raise prices on their own store, and now HarperCollins is putting the pressure on that same site to raise eBook prices from $9.99 up to $14.99 or higher. Amazon finds itself in between a rock and an iPad -- if they don't give in to publishers' demands, they could find themselves abandoned for an exclusive Apple deal, but if they do raise prices, sales will start dropping even before the iPad appears. Jobs predicted about this much last week in an interview with Walt Mossberg, saying that publishers would run afoul of the Amazon store, and Jobs would be more than happy to pick them up in iBooks.

But the real question is: how much will Apple charge? Historically, Jobs has been pretty antagonistic on pricing against content providers, only recently giving in to the first price increase in the history of iTunes. At the Apple event the other week, Jobs said on stage that prices on the Kindle and the iPad for books would be "the same," so while fleeting images of the iPad showed bestsellers at around $10 (which is what Amazon charges), it's possible that Jobs would go with the $14.99 price to woo publishers over to his side.

It'll be an interesting battle -- when the iTunes music store first opened, there basically were no strong competitors in terms of other online music retailers. With the iBooks service, Jobs and the iPad are wading into already populated waters. And while Amazon is feeling the heat of the iPad even before it's on store shelves, odds are that they're not going to go down without an eventual fight.

McGraw-Hill's CEO Terry McGraw is obviously very excited that he's been asked to work with Apple on a brand new type of computer, and he just couldn't wait another 24 hours to tell somebody -- he showed up on CNBC today to talk about his company's latest earnings, and he more or less spills the beans, saying that Apple will "make their announcement tomorrow," that the tablet will be "based on the iPhone operating system," and that it "will be transferable" (so anything on iTunes now will go straight on the tablet?).

He also says that they've got 95% of their materials up and ready to run as e-books, and it's not a stretch to think that Apple has made similar deals with other major publishers as well. This still isn't official confirmation of the tablet (remember, it's not real until Jobs is actually holding it on stage), but man, we're about as close as we can get at this point. Watch the whole video after the break, with the Apple stuff starting around the 2:50 mark.

"iSlate" isn't the only less-than-exciting name that Apple may be considering for their rumored upcoming tablet release. MacRumors has uncovered another possible trademarked name for the new device: iGuide. They found what appears to be a shell company created by Apple a while back (December 2007, around the same time that the iSlate trademark was filed) designed to trademark the name "iGuide" for a new device or service. The purpose of said service? To browse, transmit and play many types of multimedia content, including videos, audio, movies, photos, and even electronic publications like books, magazines, and blogs.

Obviously, this is a pretty vague stab in the dark, but paired with recent rumors that the new tablet will include some Kindle or Nook-style reader functionality, iGuide could certainly be a delivery service for the new device, sort of an iTunes but for all kinds of media, designed to deliver content directly to the reader. We're just giving out ideas here -- as I said yesterday, this thing isn't real until it is. But the possibilities are very interesting for sure.

[If you want to see more speculation and prognostication around the tablet in convenient video format, check out Mike R.'s appearance on Fox Business News earlier today.]

Can't figure out what to put on the iPhone or iPod touch you got as a gift? We've got the prescription: holiday giveaways galore! Here's an app giveaway that will help you catch up on the classics while you're on the go: the $9.99 ereader Eucalyptus [iTunes link], which gives you access to over 20,000 volumes from the Project Gutenberg online library. We've got ten copies to give away to ten eager readers.

Just leave a comment on the post letting us know about your favorite classic book, and you'll be entered in the giveaway.

• Open to legal US residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia who are 18 and older.
• To enter leave a comment on this post letting us know your favorite classic/public domain book.
• The comment must be left before Tuesday, 12/29 at 11:59PM Eastern Daylight Time.
• You may enter only once.
• Ten winners will be selected in a random drawing.
• Prizes: each winner will receive one promotional code for Eucalyptus (ARV $9.99).
• Click Here for complete Official Rules.

Your iPhone/iPod touch listening options just got a lot larger. Audiobooks, [App Store] a free app, gives you a large catalog of public domain classic works from Dickens to Verne for your listening pleasure.

The books come from the LibriVox library, a non-profit project that has volunteers read the books and then releases the free recordings.

The app is ad-supported, but the ads are not obtrusive in my view. The books I listened to were competently read. Downloading was quick over WiFi, quite a bit slower over 3G, but usable.(Mea culpa. Books can be downloaded over WiFi only. I confused this with another e-book app I am reviewing.) You can start listening while the book is completing the download, which is a plus.

Downsides are that every chapter starts with disclaimers about the book being in the public domain, which kind of breaks the mood.

The search function works well, but would be better if you could search by genre. There is a nice surprise me button, which gives you a book at random, but in practice that isn't really that helpful.

The developer of this app also sells audiobooks at the iTunes Store, which we have reviewed. These audiobooks show the text synced to the audio, but I do not find that a compelling feature. I think the new app is the way to go.

Here are a few screen grabs:

Author Joe Kissell has been informing and entertaining Mac users for years through his books, TidBITS columns and Macworld articles. He's recently finished a pair of books for the Take Control ebook series that will help you learn how to keep your Mac running at its most efficient pace, as well as tell you what to do when something does go wrong.

In the first book, "Take Control of Maintaining Your Mac, Second Edition" (US$10), Joe describes actions you can take weekly, monthly, and annually to enjoy top performance from your Mac. He also tells you what not to do, illustrating tasks that take a lot of time and provide few benefits.

The second book is an update to Kissell's "Take Control of Troubleshooting Your Mac" (US$10). Joe's expertise really shines in this ebook as he tells you what to do with Macs that won't turn on, how to react when you're getting repeated kernel panics, and actions to perform when internet connections go down or printers are balking.

If you already own an earlier edition of either one of the books, you can get a discount on the upgrade. New buyers can bundle the two books for just $16 for a top-notch set of guides.

In the interest of full disclosure, TUAW blogger Steve Sande has written several titles for the Take Control series.

Way back in December, our Christmas Gift Guide featured our pick of the many OS X-related books out there. One of the recommendations was the (very excellent) Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X by Aaron Hillegass - commonly referred to as 'The Bible' in the Mac development community.

At the time the book was a little outdated -- however in the last couple of weeks an updated third edition has been published. New sections feature Objective-C 2.0, Core Data, Garbage Collection, Xcode 3 and Core Animation, meaning this third edition is all ready for many of the new technologies in Mac OS X Leopard.

At just $32 (via Amazon.com), this updated version clearly ought to be on every developer's bookshelf (and aspiring developer's wishlist).

You may recall us posting about Apple's winter iPhoto promotion. This promotion provides 20% off of books and calendars. This promotion was set to expire on February 29, 2008; However, according to Macworld, Apple has extended this promotion until March 7 (giving you a couple extra days to stock up on calendars and photo books). A recent thread on the Apple Discussions board prompted Apple to extend the promotion due to errors that users were experiencing during checkout.

The codes for North American users are:

• NAWinterBook08 for books
• NAWinterCal08 for calendars
  

We haven't heard if this extended promotion applies to UK users or not, however, if you would like to try, the codes for the UK books / calendar are: EUWinterCal08 and EUWinterBook08.

[via Macworld]

iPhoto users in Australia and New Zealand can finally purchase iPhoto books, calendars and cards from Apple. You'll need iLife '08 with iPhoto at version 7.1.2. Picture Books start from $39.99, calendars are $26.99 and postcards and greeting cards range from $1.99 to $2.69.

Now that you've got access, here are some cool things you can do

• Teach your students a foreign language
• Make a flip book
• Create killer gifts (grandparents especially go nuts for these)
• Demonstrate martial arts forms (Record with a video camera, export to frames with Quicktime Pro, import into iPhoto, make a flip book)

There's more, of course. Now have fun.

[Via APC Magazine]

Scott Stevenson has posted a very short but sweet preview of Delicious Library 2, due out sometime after Leopard hits next week (according to Wil Shipley, it may be as late as February). The already beautiful program (that coined a generation) looks better than ever, and it's made better, we're told, by all the great stuff going into Leopard, from Core Animation to the new Quicklook (you'll be able to drag books and DVDs out of the library to make little files of their own, which will then be viewable in Quicklook itself). And there's other touches, too-- selected items glow, when you delete a book it "shatters," and details don't just appear, they "pop into view" like on the iPhone.

And there are updates behind the graphics, too-- a faster barcode scanner, some super seekrit features (that is "worth the purchase price" for parents-- ??), and sharing features, which means finally, this program has a real purpose other than just staring at the stuff you own. You'll be able to share your collection with friends and even strangers-- can't wait to see how that works.

Sounds like fun. Stevenson says he wants Delicious Library 2 to set the benchmark for the first generation of Leopard apps, so we can definitely expect big, shiny stuff from these folks. Please, Delicious, show us how it's done.

The venerable David Pogue has worked his relentless magic yet again to conjure up yet another manual that apparently should have been in the box with iPhone: The Missing Manual (though one could certainly argue that there would have been no way to fit a typical book in the iPhone's impressively compact packaging anyway). As the promo email that I just received states, Pogue's iPhone coverage is summarized into four primary categories: the phone and organizer, the iPod, the Internet, and the hardware and software. Pogue even tackles such issues as synching an iPhone with multiple machines and ways to solve the iPhone's lack of a spam filter. Heck, Mr. Pogue is so into the iPhone, he even sang about switching to it.

If you're already hooked and itching to both buy and read, O'Reilly is offering a bundle deal right up your alley: though the $20 book doesn't ship until sometime in August, you can purchase a $24.99 bundle to get a PDF copy right now. Either way, you can find out more details at O'Reilly's product page for iPhone: The Missing Manual.

Tim O'Reilly, he of the animal books (as I like to call them), often posts about how O'Reilly's book sales can be indicative of tech trends in general. Thanks to zealous statistic keeping Tim has a wealth of knowledge about his sales (as as good business man should). The latest trend that Tim has set his sights on is OS adoption, specifically that of Vista/Tiger. Clearly, O'Reilly has sold more Vista related books vs. OS X books (darn marketshare), however, after 6 months Tiger books completely replaced sales of Pather books while XP books are still selling strong (though Vista sales are 50% higher than XP).

What does this tell us? Mac users, at least those that buy tech books, are more likely to upgrade their OS to the latest version while Windows users are taking a wait and see approach with Vista.

How many of you are planning on upgrading to Leopard as soon as it comes out?