STFU && RTFM

Note: Eirik Newth is a Norwegian writer and lecturer, who blogs interestingly and well about eBooks. Here’s his take on the iPad and its impact on the eBook market. The original article (in Norwegian) can be found here.
 
A few days after the announcement of Apple’s netbook challenger, anyone would be hard pressed to say anything definitive about how it will affect the publishing world. Journalists in Norway are insisting that the world will never be the same, as they have over the last few months in their attempt to convince themselves that salvation for print newspapers is near. The norwegian publishing industry’s premiere pundit on eBooks, Gyldendal’s Bjarne Buset, has remarked to the norwegian newspaper Aftenposten that the iPad will lead the way, without really being given the opportunity to expand on what he means by that statement. Here are a few reflections on the subject:
 
The iPad will lead to increased sales of eBooks. Even if it proves to be a MacBook Air, rather than an iPhone, sales to the fanbase alone will likely be in the millions of units. Many of these will want to try out the iBooks-bookshop, which will mean an increase in a market that, for the time being, is based on a eBook reader customer base of two to three three to four million units.
 
The iPad will lead to increased attention to eBooks. As previously mentioned, Apple has an ardent following among journalists. Anything they do about the iBooks store will most likely get broad coverage in the media, with corresponding followup in various sosial media services, especially blogs and Twitter.
 
The iPad wil not be the final breakthrough for eBook readers. I’d be hard pressed to envision an average reader of books being tempted to invest in a gadget that is both bigger and heavier than the typical book, and that most likely will cost somewhere betweeen NOK 4000 and 6000 (plus the cost of the 3G subscription for those who get that). The size and pricing rather indicates the textbook market as the likely target audience. In that event, the decision to launch an overgrown iPhone is hard to understand, given no support for Flash and multitasking.
 

 
The iPad does not herald the end for Kindle 2, as indicated by, among others, Forbes. The iPad is big and heavy compared to other eBook readers, is much more expensive both to buy and to use. We should also take into account the low battery capacity and the backlit display. Not to be forgotten is the fact that the Kindle Store is the largest, cheapest and most advanced eBook shop in the world. You can be certain that Amazon will do their utmost to keep that position for the year to come.
 
The iPad will probably push eBook reader prices down. As a dedicated device, the convensional eBook reader will need to be considerably cheaper than a multi-feature device. Count on somewhat lowered prices for the Kindle 2, as well as the basic models of Sony et. al., as well as considerably lower prices for the larger and more expensive models, such a the Kindle DX and Sony Daily Edition.
 
The iPad will probably not change the price for eBooks. The standard price in iBooks will be 2-5 US$ above the 10$ mark set by Amazon. Apple and the publishing houses are obviously counting on the users willingness to pay an added “Apple tax”, and Amazon has little to gain by pushing prices further down.
 
The iPad heralds the en for the Kindle format. Over the last six months, I’ve spent a lot of time saying that Apple would choose one of the two major formats (EPUB and Kindle), rather than develop a third, and that the choice would probably be EPUB. That turned out to be a correct analysis, and even though the Kindle users will be able to read their books on the iPad using an app, the smart choice for the long term would be converting the store to the industry standard, like Sony did with the Reader Store just befor christmas.
 
The iPad does not herald the end of consumer format confusion. At the moment, it looks like Apple have chosen their own DRM-standard for EPUB, rather than Adobe Digital Editions. The result? Books bought in iBooks will not be readably outside the iTunes system. ADE-encrypted books can be read using an app, and publishing houses will thus be able to sell eBooks for the iPad, even if iBooks doesn’t open in Norway anytime soon. The result? In half a year, we might see eBook customers with three separate, mutually incompatible, book collections on the same device. Day what you want about DRM, consumer friendly it ain’t.
 
To sum up: This is unlikely to be an “iPod moment” for the publishing industry. Even if it is, it needs time to develop, just like the real iPod-moment did. For the Norwegian publishing industry, the important thing is to keep eyes on the target, and make sure that as wide as possible a selection of EPUB-titles are available for sale i March.
 
Note: Eirik Newth is a Norwegian writer and lecturer, who blogs interestingly and well about eBooks. Here’s his take on the iPad and its impact on the eBook market. The original article (in Norwegian) can be found here.
Note: Comments closed due to massive amounts of comment spam.

In my last post, I covered why I am not going to get the iPad. Those reasons were my reasons, based on my needs and wants. I’m not expecting everyone to have the same needs and wants as me, so here are a few more reasons not to spring for it.
 

1. No free software
   • Now, keep in mind, this is “free” as in “freedom”; not as in “beer”. By disallowing users to install apps other than from the app store, even though users might not have to pay money for their apps, they don’t have any actual freedom as to choice of applications.
2. No installing apps from the Web
   • This goes to the above point; lack of freedom means users aren’t allowed their basic consumer right of decision as to how, and for what, they use their devices.
3. No sharing music or books
   • Again, lack of freedom. When I download a book to use on my ebook reader, provided the licence allows for it, I can share it with more or less as many people I want. Same thing goes for music.
4. Apple can remotely disable your apps & media
   • Now, this is the real whopper. Remember a while back, when Amazon recalled, and deleted, George Orwell’s book 1984 from users’ Kindles? Remote wipe is nasty, and should never, ever be used against consumers. We are basically looking at the worst parts of Orwell’s dystopic future, right now.

 
Now, I am pretty certain I will not go for the iPad, for the reasons detailed in this, as well as in my previous post. If you still want to, be my guest. My goal here isn’t to kill Apple, who I think are doing a lot of exciting things. My goal here is for as many people as possible to know the drawbacks of this specific device.
 
Note: These reasons are taken from Defective by Design’s campaign as well as the article about it at Ars Technica.

Yesterday, Apple announced the long-anticipated, much hyped iPad. Looking like an overgrown iPhone, it sports a 9.7″ screen, with a resolution of 1024×768, multi-touch and your choice of WLAN (all models) 3G (some models) and 16, 32 or 64 GB memory.
 
A commenter at NRK Beta said it was disappointing that it didn’t have some sort of eInk technology. Now, while eInk is GREAT for reading comfort and battery time, it has a deadly flaw for a device like the iPad; it has a screen refresh rate on par with, well a book (never mind the fact that eInk is so far only available as black and wh … err … gray).
 
To me, the iPad is NOT ideal for reading, for the exact same reasons why a device with eInk is; backlight and screen refresh. The backlight and screen refresh makes your eyes go tired much quicker, and, eInk having neither, it is actually like reading off darkish paper.
 
The book function being less than interesting to me, my interest, which, I admit, is piqued, is fading. As a websurfing device, well, it just doesn’t fo it for me. If I want an instant-on, touch screen device, I’ll use my phone. If I want to seriously surf the web, I want a computer, complete with a mouse and a keyboard.
 
Playing music? Sure, I could, but why not use an iPod or a Creative Zen; they’re smaller and have better power usage times. As for reading and editing documents, I’d rather have a computer to edit and either paper or eInk to read, so that’s out. Photo viewing and editing? Again, I want a computer.
 

The iPad
 
The form factor looks good, but I am still critical of both the weight and how long the battery will last. I notice that, like the iPod and iPhone, the iPad does not look like you can exchange the battery yourself, which I find a curious choice. Sure, for a tiny unit like the shuffle, I can understand it, but for an everyday usage unit like the iPhone? I don’t get it.
 
Using iPhone OS is an obvious, albeit exciting choice. Apple are basically saying that the iPhone OS is mature enough and powerful enough to be used on this kind of device. Also, by all accounts, it does exactly what an OS for a device like this should do; IT JUST WORKS.
 
While the tech geek in me goes “OOOH! SHINY!”, the sensible guy sitting somewhere deep down, right next door to the justification department, is going “Meh. Yet another device I have no use for.” And that, really, is what it all boils down to, isn’t it? The answer to the question “Do I have any real use for this?”
 
When all’s told, my interest is piqued, but I am not convinced, and I doubt that I will shell out the $499-$699 for one of these units. There are three main reasons for this:
 

1. Lock-In
   • To a certain degree, Apple=Lock-in. Now, if they’d announced an Android version in addition to the iPhone OS version, I might be more interested. Now, Apple is obviously never going to do that, which is fine, but it is, to me, an argument in the “Cons” column. I also keep in mind the problems with applications in the App Store, and I assume that Apple will, in practice, have total control over the iPad, and what’s on it.
2. Not enough connection options
   • Once more, I’m annoyed at Apple’s insistence on using their own proprietary solutions for connection and charging, as well as the fact that they have not included what I would have thought was an obvious feature for a device such as this; a memory card reader. The counter argument, I suppose, is what memory card format to choose, which I would counter by telling them to give us an SD(HC) reader, which is likely to cover the needs of most users.
3. Size
   • To me, the iPad would be too big and heavy to use as any kind of music device, while it’s too small for a lot of other tasks, such as photo viewing and (especially) editing, document editing and web browsing.

 
In the end, to me it comes down to this: If I have a small-ish laptop (say 13.3″) and my ebook, I am covered, and with better battery capacity than I would have with the iPad. Sure, I’d lug around more weight, but I don’t always have my laptop with me. I almost always have my ebook with me.

Monday last marked the end of an era. Since 1995, Geocities has offered free hosting to anyone who wanted their own piece of the net. It has been the last bastion of the <BLINK> and <MARQUEE> tags for years. Monday, October 26th, 2009 marked the end of that, with the closure of Geocities
 
Seriously though, I know a lot of people around the world took their first steps as inhabitants of the world wide web at Geocities. I had my second site there, and seem to remember having chosen the username FizbanAR back then, a testament to my fandom of the Dragonlance Chronicles books.
 
I will certainly not miss Geocities, but a part of me keeps thinking “Well, it would be kinda nice if all that information would not get lost”. The rest of me just scoffs and says “Yeah, get real!”

The miscarriages of justice made possible by the two acronyms I loathe the most (RIAA, MPAA) just keeps piling on it seems. First it was the lawsuits against dead people and infants. RIAA recently announced their decision to stop pressing these lawsuits.
 
Later on there was the suggestion of three strikes legislation to fight piracy – first accusation gained you a warning, the second meant your bandwidth would get strangled, and with the third accusation you’d lose your net connection altogether.
 
Most recently, I learned that New Zealand are planning an even stricter law: upon the first accusation, you are immediately assumed guilty, and your connection is cut.
 
Now, I believe very strongly in the principle of the accused being assumed innocent until proven otherwise. For an assembly of elected officials to even think of proposing a law like this should be anathema, never mind actually really looking to put it into legislation.
 
You can think whatever you will of piracy, filesharing and so on, this is just wrong.

I’ve been using computers more or less actively for about 10 years now. My first encounter with a computer was a hulking 386, which I never really got the hang of. Since then, I’ve encountered computers in many different ways, but the first time I can remember getting a “So that’s what it’s all about” feeling, was back in the summer of 1996. Using Word (!) I constructed my very first website.
 
Ever since, the web has been a mainstay of mine. I’ve had an email adress since then, and I’ve used it for such things as keeping in touch with friends, maintaining several websites and blogs, applying for jobs, finding an apartment, and so on. The list is nearly endless.
 
About six or so years ago, I started fiddling around seriously with computers, and one of the first things I realized was that I had already experienced three webbrowsers (Internet Explorer, Opera and Netscape), and settled on a preferred browser (Internet Explorer). I also started to question why I had settled on this one, and so began my quest to find a different browser.
 
I had some sort of very faint notion that there must be something better than what I had, but I didn’t know what. Not, that is, until I found Mozilla Firefox. Since then, I have challenged my opinion on Firefox repeatedly, but it still sticks out as the best I’ve found so far.
 
I have two main arguments for Firefox, they are security and usability. Security, not because it is necessarily a more secure browser (as has been shown, it too has its share of problems), but because I believe there’s an innate level of security to not having you webbrowser built into the OS Kernel. As for usabiity, I realise Opera was way before Firefox with tabbed browsing, but I still don’t find Opera the user friendly browser I do Firefox.
 
Another thing is of course that knowing my way around Firefox, I can use it on whichever OS I wish. When I use Kubuntu, I don’t use Konqueror, I use Firefox. When I use Mac, I don’t use Safari (which isn’t half as much an integral part of the operating system as MSIE or Konqueror), I use Firefox.
 
Microsoft Internet Explorer was a decent webbrowser, oh about ten years ago. They then stopped developing it, while other software-manufacturers kept developing theirs. Among the prominent webbrowsers today are Mozilla Firefox (Windows, Mac, Linux), Opera (Windows, Mac, Linux), Safari (Mac OS and Windows), Internet Explorer (Windows Only), and Konqueror (Linux only). I prefer Firefox, for a range of reasons, the first being the fact that it is Open Source, and constantly being developed. Another is the fact that it is not an integral part of the OS. Should I tire of it, or wish to remove it for some reason (although I cannot now imagine how that would happen), I can remove it, and all trace of it with a minimum of moves.
 
Yet another argument is its adaptability and options for customization. It comes with a bare minimum of options, but you can easily add extentions that make your life easier. Mine shows the IP-adress of the site I am visiting, the hebrew date, and has a GUI-button that I can click to disconnect it from the web.
 
If you want to switch, or think you might like to try it out, please do. Find Firefox here, or Opera here.
 
It annoys me that there are still developers out there that don’t write for all browsers, and only test their sites in MSIE. I feel this practice is exclusivist and elitist, and I hate it. If I can avoid using these sites, I do. I also inform the webmaster that this is so, and should they remedy the situation, I’d like to be notified. The problem is that MSIE, like many others (Firefox included, though to a lesser degree) has inherent non-compliance issues. This is a problem because many sites don’t work properly (if at all) in other browsers.
 
The point, in the end, is not about what you choose, but that you do choose. Only through making conscious, informed decisions can we better our days as users of these electronic gadgets many of us love so dearly. Good luck, and good night.
 
Note on the links in this article: All links to Firefox are rerouted through a program called SpreadFirefox.com. Should you wish to download Firefox, you will be rerouted directly to the download site, and my account with SpreadFirefox.com gets one download added. I do not earn money from this, only recognition. The links to Opera lead directly to the website of Opera Software. Whichever you choose, I think it is important to make a choice.

Net Neutrality has become a heated topic over the last few years. The debate is whether an Internet Service Provider (ISP) should be allowed to decide what their customers are allowed to use the service for. Examples are many, and range from the Norwegian ISP Telenor attempting (however unsuccessful that attempt might have been) to charge content providers (notably the Norwegian Broadcasting Company) for Telenors clients to gain access to content.
 
Other recent examples include North Carolina telco Madison River’s blocking of Vonage VoIP traffic, for which Madison was fined by the Federal Communications Commission in 2006, and anti-union actions of the Canadian ISP Telus, which stopped on-site employee’s access to a labor union Web site set up to publicize disputes with the company and Canadian ISP Shaw Communications’s proposal to charge a CA$10 “quality of service enhancement” tax on VoIP streams.
 
A coalition of European and US-based consumer organisations, TACD, have recently published a resolution declaring: “Net neutrality is a state in which users have the freedom to access the content, services, applications, and devices of their choice.” TACD, representing 65 groups in Europe and the US, have clearly invested a lot of time in the resolution, notably Seven rules for Net Neutrality, as well as a clear(er) definition of what Net Neutrality actually is.
 
One of the problems with arguing for Net Neutrality has been that there is no good, clear and logical explanation of what up to now has been a vaguely defined concept. TACD defines a “neutral internet” as one in which consumers have three basic rights:
-To attach devices of their choice
-To provide and/or access private content, services and applications of their choice
-The ability to use these rights without discrimination according to source, destination, content, or type of application
 
Thomas Nortvedt with the Norwegian Consumer Counsel commented, saying: “The Consumer Council has been involved with the formulation of the TACD resolution, and Net Neutrality is one of the points on our plan of operations for the year. In connection with this Net Neutrality is a separate point in our contributions to the BEUC consultative statement to the Norwegian Department of Communication Telecompackage.”
 
For more information on Net Neutrality, you might want to visit the websites of organizations such as Save the internet and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.