Competition for the Apple iPad and the tablet ecosystem market is getting really interesting.
A miscellany of news items that caught my eye this week:
- JK Rowling, who had been very anti ebook, decided to launch her own online presence – Pottermore. See the FT’s Rowling casts spell on digital publishing. This bypasses the iTunes store and its commissions. Same thing has applied to the (excellent) new FT App. Maybe not everyone has the power of the Harry Potter and the FT, but it does show that Apple doesn't always get it all its own way.
- A study by Pew found that US adults were turning to e-readers more rapidly than tablets. Apparently 12% of US adults now own e-readers (like the Kindle) compared with the 8% who own tablets (like the iPad) I must admit I find both figures surprisingly high. However, for many, it is not ‘either/or’ it’s ‘both’. Indeed a recent holiday convinced my wife that the iPad just couldn’t be used by the pool. The screen is so reflective. So she bought a Kindle as well and is mega pleased. At just over £100 (little more than a decent pair of sunglasses) it wouldn’t be a complete disaster if it got lost or damaged.
- Amazon announced that ebook sales from its US site had overtaken sales of all printed books for the first time. In the UK ebook sales have overtaken hardback sales. It took two and a half years to reach that milestone in the US - in the UK it has taken nine months. Also John Locke has become the first self-published author to hit 1m digital sales.
- Apple might face its stiffest competition yet with the launch of the HP Touchpad. See the FT’s Chris Nuttall review – A tablet that is ready to take. Although Nuttall does have quite a few reservations. In particular, HP still lacks the Apps ecosystem that is so appealing in the iPad. By the way, my wife thinks Jeremy Clarkson etal should pay the BBC to do Top Gear as they obviously have too much fun. I think the same for Nuttall (and Paul Taylor before him) who do the tech reviews in the FT!
- News Corp has announced that they now have over 100,000 digital subscribers for The Times and Sunday Times with over 35,000 editions of The Times downloaded every day. 250,000 people subscribe to the newspapers in all their formats - the Holway household being one of them. The discount for subscribing is such that you wonder why anyone other than the most casual readers would not. This made using the iPad version a no-brainer as it was bundled in free. We now have the interesting situation that I often put The Times paper edition unopened into the recycling as I read it all on my iPad. Maybe I should save money and cancel the print version? Hardly what News Corp wants! (For those remotely interested, if you buy the Times and Sunday Times each day (with no access to the digital versions) , it will cost you £8.70 a week, if you subscribe to all editions, it will cost you £6 a week, if you buy the iPad editions only, it will cost you £4.29 a week)
It really is amazing how the iPad, e-reader and tablets in general have changed so many markets in such a short period.