The iPad Mini version 1. Don't pack up the backpacks yet!

I have not yet seen the presentation tonight for the iPad Mini, but I must say that I am a little disappointed by what I have seen on the specs page.  There is one glaring omission from the specs that I fully expected to see at the rollout:  The Retinal Display.

I suspect that it must be very difficult and indeed expensive to produce retinal displays.   This is the only reason that I can fathom for Apple not having one included on the iPad Mini. And this is a big deal!

The iPad Mini has been touted for schools and reading, with an updated version of iBooks available today on account of the iPad Mini's presence.  Further confirmation that Apple is promoting this as a reading tool to take on Amazon, Google and Barnes & Noble.  But take a look at the following Specs and we can see that this is not going to be a pleasurable long term reading experience:








Amazon Kindle Fire HD $249.00  7"   1280 x  800   (216 ppi)*   720p HD.











Google Nexus 7  $249 (16 gb) WXGA (1280 x 800) LED backlit IPS panel,  (216 ppi)













Apple iPad Mini  $329  1024-by-768 resolution at (163 ppi)







* ppi  "Pixels per inch or PPI is a measure of the number of pixels displayed in an image. A digital image is composed of samples that your screen displays in pixels. The PPI is the display resolution not the image resolution."   (http://desktoppub.about.com/od/glossary/)

(To learn more about ppi, go to About.Com (http://desktoppub.about.com/od/glossary/g/PPI-Pixels-Per-Inch.htm)) 




If you are looking for a comparison, look no further than the non back lit Amazon Kindle Keyboard and Kindle Touch.  Both display e-ink wonderfully in sunlight, but the display is made for this type of resolution.  Both have resolutions of 167 ppi.  A fourth generation iPad costing over $300 should not be on par in resolution with either a $69 or $139 device which are the respective prices for the Kindle Touch and Kindle Keyboard.  Granted, one will do a lot more with the iPad Mini than with a Kindle, but if you are going to tout the excellent reading experience, any PPI < 200 should not even be considered for long term casual, let alone technical reading.   It's just not a suitable device to do this.  Additional eye strain will ensue when reading as it did with the glaring screen resolution of the iPad 2, which I own.

Perhaps the advertising gurus at Apple will tout the ECO-System that Apple has, along with the automatic scaling of current apps to the new display and screen size; or  tout the iPad Mini's excellent form, relatively fast chip and convenience.  Perhaps.    But what cannot be touted with version 1 of this device is the aspect of long term reading.  This is just not the device to do that.  And for this I am afraid that I will have to pass on the iPad Mini for my own kids who were initially excited about the device, but who are now, for the reasons that I have just explained,  sad and disappointed.  You see, this device would have doubled as a textbook holder for about 3 thick textbooks which are also available online.   Add to that, the iBook store and Amazon's Kindle store having all of the books needed for their English and Drama classes and that large back pack would have been downsized.

Not to worry kids, we all know better than to buy version 1 of a Tech Product.   Version 2 may give us everything that we really want.

Dear Amazon and Apple, We Need Family Accounts

We live in a land that has food, clothing, water and electricity.   We have gadgets that make a mockery out of those shown in the 60's.  We have bought into the commercialization of "must have it" gadgets, not just as individuals, but as a group and more aptly, as a family.   So why is it that after falling for all of the commercials, rantings and sales pitches, we the people cannot get two of the best companies in retail to get their acts together and create a family account?

Both companies have succeeded in getting consumers to purchase multiple devices that bare their name.  With integration via Whispersync for Amazon and now iCloud for Apple, both companies have made it possible to download files to all devices - ie Kindles or iPod Touches, iPhones etc from one account, without having to pay additional funds for the privilege.

But where both companies fall short is in the implementation of a real family account.  Apple has iTunes linked to one owner.  All who own an Apple device who want to share from the same iTunes account, must have links to the same Apple ID.  Hence, your son's iPod Touch must use the Master ID to access iTunes and download media.   It's not a bad system, particularly if you download apps, but recently, with the advent of iCloud, the system has gotten a little more disturbing.  Apple assumes that all devices - your kids, your wife's, etc - linked to the iTunes Apple ID account all belong to one person - the person with the Apple ID.  So, it will automatically download an app to your wife's iPod, kid's iPod Touch etc., without your permission.  This includes songs and other things as well.  It may not be in your best interest to do this all of the time and it can become downright annoying.

Amazon's system is a lot worse because it revolves around books.  For the Apple iBook store the same problem applies, but since Amazon's main dish is books, this is more of a problem.  I recently purchased Kindles for my kids.  I have a lot of books in my archive space - this is Amazon's cloud storage for your books (a nice system since you can archive 100's of books and only keep a few on your Kindle, thus saving space).  Due to the fact that both kids will be reading the same books a few years apart from each other for required reading at school, it behooves them to have the same account.  I have found out that the master account, which is mine, is not the best place to do that.   My son, in no time flat, began downloading free books without a password and is now only steps away from ordering from Amazon with One-Click to my credit card !  As of Christmas day, one required a credit card to open an account at Amazon and an email address.  So I will have to create a whole separate account with a prepaid credit card to "Stop The Madness."

Both of these solutions are obviously riddled with problems.  Both were created with one end user in mind and both systems have not modified their programming to include multiple users in the same household.  Both have successfully placed commercials showing the benefits of kids having a device with happy, smiling family faces and cute little children pressing touch screens.  But the reality is this. If you're on Amazon and you've got yourself a Kindle and a host of cheap Kindles for your family, your 8 year old could be downloading from your archive Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians or the unabridged works of James Joyce and D.H. Lawrence!   Apple is not immune to this.  The same holds true for their iBook store as well.

What we need is the following:


1.  A Master Account (MA).

       This account would tie all of the other accounts together and would have an Archive that may or may not be visible to those who have a secondary account tied to the main account.       This would be similar to Windows/Linux/OSX Main account in the OS. 

2.  Secondary Accounts (SA).

        Secondary Accounts link to the Master Account with separate permissions in place, ie.  Each secondary account may have its own password and download books to the Master Account, but  release the book to anyone tied to the Master Account (MA). 

        The holder of the Master Account (MA) would have full access to all Secondary Accounts including the ability to terminate Secondary Accounts and to not download from the MA archives.  Additionally, it would have the ability to shield secondary accounts from actually seeing the entire catalog of the Master Account and allow visibility access to only those who get permission to view it.        

I am sure that more restrictions could be placed, such as limiting the secondary accounts to no more than six people living in the same household or something like that.  But this would eliminate the multiple separate accounts that need to be created for both Amazon and Apple in order to separate media from kids.  The way that this exists now means that if you own Amazon Account A, you cannot download books belonging to the same family member with Amazon Account B.  In the Master and Secondary account structure detailed above, the parent will still have control over the subsidiary accounts and not have to purchase an item twice.

TIPD.


Attributes:

Liz Peeking Picture taken from Scholastic (http://www.scholastic.com/magicschoolbus/games/coloring/liz_peeking.htm)

Side by Side  taken from Step up to the Call blog (http://stepuptothecall.blogspot.com/2010/08/review-kindle-3-first-impressions.html)

Amazon Announces Library Lending. Is it Game Over?

Perhaps the biggest news of the day, sans the Apple blow out earnings report of course, was the quiet announcement from Amazon, as reported by Andrys Basten on Kindleworld, that local libraries will begin placing Kindle formatted books at local libraries - 11, 000 libraries to be precise.  This is huge!  It is a game changer and as I tweeted earlier today, it may be The Endgame! 

The ability for an inexpensive device such as a Kindle to get into the library system and to have Amazon succeed in getting its own proprietary eBook system accepted is not only remarkable, but places Amazon on a path that will be hard to follow, let alone beat. 

To understand this you have to understand that Barnes and Noble has been available to the library system for a while, using The Nook, but it hasn't really caught on.   If Amazon can make this work, then they will have Kindle eBook readers everywhere, from the proprietary Amazon hardware to every Apple iPad, iPhone and/or idevice imaginable.  If you can borrow a textbook in color, why bother going go the library to borrow it or worse, why buy it?  As we can surmise, if this catches on, there will be more books in the proprietary .AZW format.

More importantly, the ePub system may actually die a painful death because of this.  If all of the "good books" are in a proprietary Amazon .AZW (or .MOBI) format, then ePub will become a thing of the past, since Amazon's Kindle system does not recognize the ePub format at all.   I particularly like the ePub format as it seems to accomodate a lot of other ereaders outside of Amazon.  But this announcement could also put a dent in the Apple proprietary ereader iBook as well, since it too does not recognize .AZW.  Amazon will win the format battle.  I have to admit that Amazon's .AZW (and .MOBI) format is quite nice, but .ePub is equally as nice and I would hope that we will still have a choice in formats.  Nevertheless, this is huge and I am surprised that more attention has not been payed to this.

One thing that I will have to say is that if Amazon can get this right with over the air downloads, instead of going through Overdrive on the desktop, they will win hands down.  If you have to be tied to the desktop in order to borrow books, that could put the brakes on the whole thing.  Overdrive is the software needed to facilitate the two-way encryption, DRM and authentication keys to ensure that the book expires after say 2 weeks. 

A copy of the actual news release is listed below and if you get the chance, go to Kindleworld, Andrys Basten's great blog about all things Kindle.

April 20, 2011 09:15 AM Eastern Daylight Time 

Amazon to Launch Library Lending for Kindle Books

Customers will be able to borrow Kindle books from over 11,000 local libraries to read on Kindle and free Kindle reading apps

Whispersyncing of notes, highlights and last page read to work for Kindle library books

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--(NASDAQ: AMZN)— Amazon today announced Kindle Library Lending, a new feature launching later this year that will allow Kindle customers to borrow Kindle books from over 11,000 libraries in the United States. Kindle Library Lending will be available for all generations of Kindle devices and free Kindle reading apps.

“We’re excited that millions of Kindle customers will be able to borrow Kindle books from their local libraries”

“We’re excited that millions of Kindle customers will be able to borrow Kindle books from their local libraries,” said Jay Marine, Director, Amazon Kindle. “Customers tell us they love Kindle for its Pearl e-ink display that is easy to read even in bright sunlight, up to a month of battery life, and Whispersync technology that synchronizes notes, highlights and last page read between their Kindle and free Kindle apps.”
Customers will be able to check out a Kindle book from their local library and start reading on any Kindle device or free Kindle app for Android, iPad, iPod touch, iPhone, PC, Mac, BlackBerry, or Windows Phone. If a Kindle book is checked out again or that book is purchased from Amazon, all of a customer’s annotations and bookmarks will be preserved.
“We're doing a little something extra here,” Marine continued. “Normally, making margin notes in library books is a big no-no. But we're extending our Whispersync technology so that you can highlight and add margin notes to Kindle books you check out from your local library. Your notes will not show up when the next patron checks out the book. But if you check out the book again, or subsequently buy it, your notes will be there just as you left them, perfectly Whispersynced.”
With Kindle Library Lending, customers can take advantage of all of the unique features of Kindle and Kindle books, including:

• Paper-like Pearl electronic-ink display
• No glare even in bright sunlight
• Lighter than a paperback – weighs just 8.5 ounces and holds up to 3,500 books
• Up to one month of battery life with wireless off
• Read everywhere with free Kindle apps for Android, iPad, iPod touch, iPhone, PC, Mac, BlackBerry and Windows Phone
• Whispersync technology wirelessly sync your books, notes, highlights, and last page read across Kindle and free Kindle reading apps
• Real Page Numbers – easily reference passages with page numbers that correspond to actual print editions

Amazon is working with OverDrive, the leading provider of digital content solutions for over 11,000 public and educational libraries in the United States, to bring a seamless library borrowing experience to Kindle customers. “We are excited to be working with Amazon to offer Kindle Library Lending to the millions of customers who read on Kindle and Kindle apps,” said Steve Potash, CEO, OverDrive. “We hear librarians and patrons rave about Kindle, so we are thrilled that we can be part of bringing library books to the unparalleled experience of reading on Kindle.”
Kindle Library Lending will be available later this year for Kindle and free Kindle app users. To learn more about Kindle go to www.amazon.com/kindle.

Reference:  


http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110420005787/en/Amazon-Launch-Library-Lending-Kindle-Books Link

Other interesting reading:

Book lending on the Nook
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/mobile-gadgeteer/how-to-loan-ebooks-on-the-nook-with-lendme-service/2250 Link