We will inevitably end up talking about the iPad so let’s start with some general eReader news items first.
Plastic Logic release delayed till Summer 2010
The New York Times point out that the 10-year-old Plastic Logic have delayed the release of the Que ereader. It’s not much of a surprise since releasing a $799 professional eReader in the same month as the $499 iPad would be suicide.
We have various Plastic Logic people adding their thoughts -
Richard Archuleta, Plastic Logic’s chief executive, said the company needed to “fine-tune the features and enhance the overall product experience,”
Betty Taylor, a Plastic Logic spokeswoman, said in an e-mail message that the company was “confident Que is going to remain on the most-wanted list of mobile business professionals — and that there’s still ample room in the nascent e-reader market to compete.”
if Plastic Logic hadn’t delayed their release to early this year they could have come out at a time when there was no iPad and established some sort of foothold in the business market. Well, perhaps even that was unlikely given their Que eReader models are priced at $649 and $799. At least they would have had a better chance than they have now.
Entourage Edge gets reviewed and panned by Engadget
Joanna Stern at Engadget reviews the Entourage Edge and by ‘reviews’ we mean beats it up with a baseball bat -
Yes, the Edge is a combination e-reader and an Android tablet — it just doesn’t quite work well as either. For $499 there are just too many issues with it, including its chunky body, skimpy e-book selection, frustrating touchscreen, poor battery life and lack of Android apps.
While promised software updates may yet fix enough issues and enable enough features to perhaps make it a decent textbook replacement for some students, we just can’t say that its worth the cash right now.
We have a device that has an eInk screen you can write on, a LCD screen that runs Android, and a $499 price tag - It still gets treated like Rodney Dangerfield.
The review starts with Look and Feel (always a bad sign – Why would you start an ereader/tablet review with looks?) and apparently the Edge belongs in a sterile hotel room.
The Reading Experience of the Entourage is rated quite strong -
… we really found the overall reading experience to be pleasant.
Speaking of the touch, it’s pretty nice: you can underline/highlight text and jot down notes in the margin or in a separate journal page with the included stylus, and you also can save a marked up page or journal document as a PDF and then easily transfer it to the LCD screen and email it to a friend
But then again the review starts panning the Edge for not having the eBook range of Amazon or B&N.
Basically it’s a review assuming it’s the third generation of a device and it should have gotten everything right. It’s sad to see someone bring an innovative dual screen device to market at a very reasonable price point and then get crucified because they aren’t better than every other product (and specifically in each product’s speciality).
Is there an unrealistic bar for eReaders?
Reading the Engadget review makes it apparent that the main-stream technical blogs have a very precise picture of what they want in an eReader -
- They don’t really care about the reading experience – That’s why the Entourage with its pleasant reading experience and pretty nice note-taking still gets blasted.
- They care the most about looks and whether it’s pretty and cool and will impress everyone around you.
- It has to have Android and come with lots of Android Apps. It has to be an eco-system that lets people pirate and steal and lets other companies make money off of it.
- It has to have as much range as the Kindle Store and have cheaper book prices.
- It has to be fast and responsive and have a great color screen – all while having a really low price.
- It can’t have DRM and it should let readers read library books.
- It should support Flash and HTML5 and should come with a webkit browser.
- It should have WiFi and lots of USB ports and expandability.
There’s just one problem with this ‘ideal eReader image’ that the tech blogs are creating - It’s impossible.
There’s never going to be a device that beats Apple on looks and Kindle on simplicity and prices and Linux on openness.
- Apple is making a ton of profit and that’s why it can afford to lovingly and painfully handcraft its products.
- Amazon is building for a future stream of revenue and that’s why Kindle Store books are so cheap.
- Android has a ton of search revenue supporting it and it can afford to not make any money.
Every eReader review by the main-stream press is overly critical – It’s like they’re just waiting to talk about how it’s not as pretty as the iPhone and not as fast as their desktop and how it’s priced too high.
You’d think they would be happy that Nook and the Edge both have Android – they’re not. There are a million complaints -
Android isn’t implemented right. It’s not open enough. There aren’t enough apps. It’s not fast enough.
Perhaps eReader companies should just realize that they can’t win over the main-stream press. No matter what they do they’re never going to get a decent review. Might as well focus on people who love books and read books and who are actually going to buy eReaders.
Lab 126 Jobs keep growing
The Careers Page at Lab 126 is like the never-ending story. They now have 68 open jobs – including 3 jobs added 3 days ago and 9 added in March itself.
The Press have been starved for news and when they found that Amazon were hiring a browser engineer they naturally ran with a story on how Amazon was going to improve its browser to compete with the iPad.
In typical Press style they ran a February 8th job posting as a news item around March 8th. No wonder they’re dying.
It’s disappointing that they didn’t go with the other big story -
Kindle releases new line of Kindle Teddy Bears that read bedtime stories to your kids.
That’s the only possibility given that Lab126 were hiring a Soft Goods Designer with some very specific requirements -
Extensive knowledge of and experience with a range of soft good materials including: nylon, leather, and natural fabrics.
Knowledge of manufacturing and assembly techniques including tooling, injection molding, textiles, pattern making, stitching/sewing and related production methods.
Speaking of speculation we have some iPad speculation.
Apple aficionados try to estimate iPad sales figures
Someone bought two iPads half an hour apart and subtracted the order numbers and is now running around claiming 25,000 iPads an hour were being sold.
At an Apple forum there are people actually tallying up the order numbers and trying to estimate sales and getting happier and happier.
The articles are getting a bit much -
… that means Apple is selling $10MM/hour. Of course that is not sustainable, but if they did it for a year, it would be $87.6B.
The iPad may very well be a huge hit. However, the estimate of 25,000 iPads being sold an hour is based on two rather undependable sources -
- A blogger who bought two iPads a half hour apart and compared order numbers.
- A forum’s members who compared 15 orders in the span of 2.5 hours.
It’s a little too early to be saying that the iPad is going to be a bigger success than the iPhone (yes, an Apple fan site actually said that) - Especially when it’s based on assumptions and a few random data points.
Filed under: eBook Reader Devices Tagged: | bias, ereader delay
