Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Readability of iPads vs E-ink, Stephen King, Amazon Qtr 1, AT&T non-phone rev

IPAD vs E-INK: READABILITY
ZDNet's Jason Perlow has a report on a rather intense experiment with iPads, Kindles, Sony e-readers under varying light conditions.  They detail days, times and environmental conditions.
 As expected, the Kindle and Sony readers seem to cause less eye-strain during long-form reading under most daytime conditions, and there is no contest outdoors in the sun, where the iPad can barely be read.  However, the iPad is easier on the eyes at night or where there's little light.  It's definitely an interesting read and VERY detailed.

NEW ON KINDLE: STEPHEN KING'S ILLUSTRATED NOVELLA, BILLY BLOCKADE
Billy Blockade, the new novella by Stephen King will be published May 25 (hardcover $25 but $10.11 at Amazon) and is surprisingly out in Kindle format in advance, for $$7.99.

  Customers complain that the price is too high for what is essentially a short story, but the Washington Post gives it a good review and writes:
' [Re the narrative voice that King has conjured up for Granny Grantham] Funny, sharply observant and casually profane, it is the voice of a quintessential baseball insider who happens to be a natural raconteur.  Equally important is the lovingly detailed evocation of the game as it was played in 1957, when, with few exceptions, the players were neither celebrities nor millionaires but "working stiffs" who earned, on average, $15,000 a year.  King's descriptions of these tough, hard-bitten men and the hardscrabble contests they engaged in add both a dash of nostalgia and a touch of gritty reality to this dark, absorbing portrait of a vanished era. '
AMAZON'S APPARENTLY IMPRESSIVE 1ST QUARTER RESULTS
According to Forbes (and other financial websites), Amazon will be announcing some very good numbers, far exceeding last year's numbers.  As for the iPad's effect on Kindle sales, they write:
' Even the iPad isn't necessarily a clear threat to Amazon's profit machine, according to Citi's Mahaney.  He points to a recent comScore study that showed that 14% of respondents said they planned to buy a Kindle.  That's just under the 15% who planned to buy an iPad, and would represent a tripling of the Kindle's user base. '
The Kindle edition features the illustrations from the limited edition hardcover version of the book.

AT&T INCOME FOR NON-PHONE SUBSCRIBERS
The AP story carried by Boston Herald reports that AT&T suffered a downturn in new contract customers.
  Maybe of interest...Of the 1.9 million wireless subscribers added by AT&T in the first quarter this year, 1.1 million were not using phones.  Instead they were on e-readers, such as Amazon's Kindle, and GPS units.

  The Associated Press report had an illuminating figure in it: "...each device doesn’t yield much revenue: perhaps $3 to $4 per month, compared to $62 per month for the average phone subscriber under contract."



See the ongoing Guide to finding Free or Low-Cost Kindle books and Sources
  Check often: Latest free non-classics, shortcut http://bit.ly/latestfreenonclassics.) Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

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