Hasta La Gadget!

Well, what do you know? Turns out you don’t actually need to invest in a Nook e-reader to enjoy the experience on your existing smartphone. And considering that the average Android smartphone will boast a display larger than your face within 2 years (if current trends continue, anyway), we’d say we could be onto something good here. At any rate, B&N’s own eBookstore app is now available for Google’s dear mobile OS, landing just weeks after Amazon pushed its Kindle app out into the same marketplace. Of course, B&N’s not shying away from the competition, dubbing its app “the only Android e-reader application to offer eBook lending.” It’s available to download now on devices rocking Android 1.6 or above, and yes, even Android users can pick up on another platform where you leave off on your phone. Fancy.

Continue reading Nook for Android now available to download, offers eBook lending

Nook for Android now available to download, offers eBook lending originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 22 Jul 2010 11:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Barnes & Noble  | Email this | Comments

Surely you remember the Entourage Edge, the dual-screened, Android-powered tablet/netbook that we concluded just wasn’t worth your time — nor your $500, at least. That said, you may not have heard of Cengage Learning, but they’re a massive publishing conglomeration that prints everything from Chilton auto manuals to those giant hair style books found at salons and full of Zoolander rejects doing their best Magnum impression. Between those literary extremes falls a whole raft of textbooks, content that these two companies will start sharing in time for the fall semester, helping to boost the Edge’s street cred as a legitimate satchel replacement for scholarly types. Now all Entourage needs to do is boost the battery life, up the responsiveness, and knock a couple-hundred bucks off the price.

Continue reading Entourage Systems partners with Cengage Learning, bringing lots more digital books to the Edge

Entourage Systems partners with Cengage Learning, bringing lots more digital books to the Edge originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Jul 2010 09:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Continue reading Gemei outs GM2000 color screen-boasting e-reader

Gemei outs GM2000 color screen-boasting e-reader originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Jul 2010 14:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Akihabara News  |   | Email this | Comments

Kindle e-books are outselling hardcover books by almost 50%, according to Amazon. For the past three months, Amazon has sold 143 Kindle books for every 100 dead-tree books. Paperbacks are not included in these figures. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos:

Amazon.com customers now purchase more Kindle books than hardcover books—astonishing when you consider that we’ve been selling hardcover books for 15 years, and Kindle books for 33 months.

As reported by my silver-tongued editor Dylan Tweney over on Epicenter [ED: flattery will get you nowhere], this has accelerated in the last month, with Amazon shifting 180 Kindle copies for every 100 hardbacks, and this is due to the price drop which saw the Kindle go from an expensive $260 to an affordable $190. Breaking the magic $200 mark has caused Kindle sales to rocket. Bezos again: “The growth rate of Kindle device unit sales has tripled since we lowered the price from $259 to $189.”

While the “growth rate of unit sales” is far too cryptic a metric to go by (note that the actual sales have not tripled) it shows that people are ready for e-books and e-readers, if they are priced right. It also shows that they completely disregard the big advantage of the paper book: buy it and it is yours. Whereas a Kindle book is pretty much still the property of Amazon, and can be deleted from afar whenever it likes, a paper book can be lent, resold and used to prop up a wobbly table.

The same limitations never held up the iTunes MP3 store, however. And the fact that you can read your Kindle books on almost any platform certainly helps to hide these problems. One thing is certain: with the number of e-book-capable screens we carry around today, it won’t be long before the paperbacks also fall into a minority market.

Kindle Device Unit Sales Accelerate Each Month in Second Quarter [Amazon. Thanks, Kinley!]

Photo: Charlie Sorrel

See Also:

• Amazon.com Kindle 2
• Could a $50 'Paperback' Kindle Beat the iPad?
• Amazon Cuts Price of the Kindle

While Amazon is being as coy as usual when it comes to an actual number (still keeping to the vague “millions” figure), the company has revealed that sales of its Kindle hardware has tripled since the price took a plunge from $259 to $189. While it’s hard to gauge just how many champagne corks are being popped over that statistic, news that downloaded kindle books has overtaken its hardcover brethren is certainly cause for major celebration. According to a press release, 143 Kindle books have been sold for every 100 hardcovers in the past three months, and that ratio is a more impressive 9:2 if you only look at this past month. Before you start asking about the obvious caveats, the data both include sales of hardcovers where no Kindle equivalent exists and exclude free Kindle downloads — meaning if those weren’t considered, the ratio would be even greater. Guess the agency pricing model didn’t deter too many customers. Since you’re in such a good mood, Amazon, how about a slimmer model to satiate the remaining holdouts?

Kindle’s digital book sales overtake hardcover, device purchases triple after price drop originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Jul 2010 19:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink NYT, All Things Digital  |  Amazon  | Email this | Comments