Apple Tablet

[thrice]

But my biggest current gripe is Apple's indirect role in making eBook prices go up, literally just months after I bought into the idea via the Kindle. Now honestly I'm more pissed at Amazon for not cowboying up and being more slick about the whole affair, but Apple's control on certain markets it enters cannot be denied. Now I mostly read older books, so maybe the price increase won't have much of an effect on me. Time will tell.

It's yet to be seen how the new iBookstore will operate... but it might (I hope) be better than Amazon. With Amazon, you are locked into the Kindle and Kindle related software. I'm hoping that Apple talked to the publishers and will do the same thing they did with music.... ok, you want variable pricing, how about no DRM then. They are going with the ePub format which isn't proprietary at it's core, so that's a good thing. I think Jobs did mention that you could wrap an eBook in the ePub format with DRM... we'll see.

[n_maher]

Ebook prices will and should be market driven, not driven by Amazon's arbitrary pricing structure. I'm just as upset with Amazon over how they are handling this business compared to Apple stepping into the fray and not only providing some much needed competition but letting the distributors set the prices for their own goods. Is the current setup looking like it's worse for consumers with the higher pricing, sure, but I think things will find a natural level on their own better compared to price dictation.

[grawk]

What amazon had been doing was using their market power to try and establish a monopoly. Apple just happens to be big enough to compete anyway. As long as the ipad can use unprotected epub documents, and continues to allow the amazon kindle app to work, they're allowing pretty open competition even right on the device. If the apple bookstore wins, it will be on merit.

[postjack]

you all make excellent points. I certainly wasn't thinking long term in terms of the market and competition.

[blessingx]

On both sides of the debate, remember Apple fought labels rather publicly on keeping music prices artificially locked to a lower $.99 @track for quite a while, so there unfortunately is an inconsistency on Apples stance (as their is between the two markets). I'm not sure I'm against setting artificial pricing expectations before releasing it to the whims of the market. Would be nice if the cost savings of internet distribution is at least partially passed on to the public before publishers use 'convenience' as a reason to offset. Then again, over time lossy music files and label expectations have dropped back down to many offerings below $.99.

[blessingx]

Speaking of...

Turf War at the New York Times: Who Will Control the iPad? - ipad - Gawker

[postjack]

ok, so talking free markets, competition, etc. as a consumer I always admired the amazon model of "you want us to move a shit ton of product? we will at x price." this felt very free market to me, as opposed to the Grado method of "sr225 for $200, sell for less and you get none to sell." I understand the reasoning behind both methods, but to call the amazon/kindle or original apple/iTunes method arbitrary... isn't the Grado method just as arbitrary? is it the manufacturer or the distributor that can better read the market?

[grawk]

grado's using small business economics. Grado doesn't sell the only headphones, they just sell their own. Amazon is trying to control the entire electronic book market, not just the books they produce themselves.

[n_maher]

No Jack, it's completely different (at least how I see it). When Grado (the manufacturer of the goods) dictates a price at least part of the justification is so that their margins stay in line with where they need them to be to survive. They know how much it costs them to make a 225, TTVJ doesn't. So, when Amazon dictates a price, they dictate the price to the manufacturer and therefore dictate what the manufacturers profits/margins will be. Granted it's not quite that simple and there are others far better equipped to explain it.

[thrice]

On both sides of the debate, remember Apple fought labels rather publicly on keeping music prices artificially locked to a lower $.99 @track for quite a while, so there unfortunately is an inconsistency on Apples stance (as their is between the two markets). I'm not sure I'm against setting artificial pricing expectations before releasing it to the whims of the market. Would be nice if the cost savings of internet distribution is at least partially passed on to the public before publishers use 'convenience' as a reason to offset. Then again, over time lossy music files and label expectations have dropped back down to many offerings below $.99.

There were other issues at play as well. Music piracy was (and probably still is) a much bigger issue than piracy for eBooks. I have to wonder if there was some market research on Apple's part to help determine the sweet spot for pricing digital downloads. I wonder if they felt like they needed to keep the price low to get people to pay for that which they were getting for free via file sharing. Good experience plus the right price=sale. Then once things get going, pricing and DRM gets negotiated. Just speculating of course...

Certainly there are parallels, but the issues surrounding digital downloading music vs. books is a little different. Music is easy to copy to a computer and there were already devices that could play non-downloaded music (music ripped from CDs).

Digital books is different.... you can't copy an analog book without a significant amount of effort and/or hardware (at least initially) and the devices for digital books are leading the market for the content and not vice versa. Add to that the fact that there isn't a compelling and ubiquitous format for eBook (like MP3) and the fact that the publishing industry might actually try to learn from the music industry's failure to embrace new tech and distribution models. So yes, on the surface it seems like an inconsistency, but it also seems like there's more to it than that.

Edited February 16, 2010 by thrice

[postjack]

thanks Dan and Nate.

[Grahame]

I can't help feel that that the creative destruction that the iPad/iTunes store offers content distributors is similar to the situation with Wal Mart and manufacturers.

You are offered the Faustian Bargain of access to a huge market, but at a cost of ceding control. Consumers initially see low, low prices; But what happens long term?

A race to the bottom?

http://2010.newsweek.com/essay/a-decade-of-destruction.html

oh, and

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html

Edited February 16, 2010 by Grahame

[postjack]

ok! here is another thought on pricing of digital media after reading the NYT article and thrice's comment. at what point is a dinosaur of an industry only hurting itself by setting a price so high to cover the expenses of a dying operation? reading about the NYT wanting to set a monthly price of $30 to help pay for it's print side makes me want to turn my mouth around and eat my own brain. same thing with a music industry broken by piracy and a poor product.

so maybe apple and it's $.99 a song price point was correct. hard to deny it's success.

I guess my whole point in harping on this mess is maybe it takes somebody who understands the market better to tell the manufacturer "you need to sell it for x, and if that doesn't cover your costs then you need to cut your costs." I would think that such a situation would encourage market innovation rather then industry stagnation.

yes, I'm still approaching this from a consumerist perspective. I want low prices, damn it.

[grawk]

the ipad thread isn't the right place for a diatribe against walmart. I bet there's a forum for that over at the huffington post tho.

[Grahame]

No pro/con position on forcing efficiencies on intermediaries whose business model was distribution of physical artifacts, which can be done more efficiently / cheaper in the digital domain. Just an observation.

[thrice]

Make Your Own (Paper) iPad and iPad Sighting at NYC Starbucks - Mac Rumors

Make your own analog iPad.... sell cheap.

[Dusty Chalk]

LOL @ paper iPad.

Printing it out now...

[Dusty Chalk]

same here. you can print to pdf and then mail it to your handheld, which is something i do sometimes, but some kind of bonjour app for that would be great.

I wanna show you something, this is my "woot" face -- I just did this with this thread. Can you say, "Ouroboros"? Me neither.

Yes, it could be more convenient, but the bigger challenge is "browsing" to whatever I want to read on the Kindle itself.

[blessingx]

The next iPad. Well next after next after next ... *

The iPad Is Step 1 In The Future Of Computing. This Is Step 2 (Or 3).

* Though I still think the gloves and lack of portability will make a more direct derivative of iPad more likely even when this is a technical possibility.

Edited February 17, 2010 by blessingx

[Dusty Chalk]

@1:10: "insert special character"

I still want those 3 oversize monitors. [billy]Can you imagine running iTunes on that?[/billy]

[thrice]

http://www.insightcruises.com/top_g/mm11_top.html

I saw this cruise and my head almost exploded. Seriously, I gotta figure out how to do this cruise.

[manaox2]

that looks like a highly irritating computer interface.

Yah, sometimes a person might want their hands free at the computer.

Well, unless Sherwood is willing to lend a hand.

[blessingx]

Maybe e-book prices won

[blessingx]

Still, he’s cautious about predicting how the tablet market will develop, and what gadget will become the new must-have. “If anybody tells you they know exactly what’s going to happen here, they’re either Apple, or they’re smoking dope,” Mr. Thode says.

Dell Goes Small in Tablets as It Prepares iPad Competition - Digits - WSJ

[episiarch]

heh. well, i know one thing, the company that doesn't have a full content infrastructure in place isn't going to win. does nobody but Apple get it? is it really that tough?

I think you're entirely right but I differ a little on the particulars. I think a successful iPad competitor needs to have a really clean, simple, unified content buying experience built in. But I don't think it matters a lot who provides the content infrastructure or whether it's one infrastructure or several aggregated ones, as long as the product's Content Shoppe thoroughly hides the details and the complications from the end user. That said, I would be pretty surprised if any company but Apple (and maybe at some point Google) actually does realize that kind of clean unified buying experience in practice.