Mobile eReaders Just Got Smarter

Ebook reading has moved from being restricted to one device, to being interoperable and enjoyable across multiple devices. We now have to acknowledge, not just the emergence of the cloud, but a new breed of mobile app readers which are emerging and quietly slipping into the market.

First there is TXTR which is focused at the iOS and Android devices. The app can play on iPhones, iPads the Samsung Galaxy tablet and Android smartphones. Txtr has teamed up with Holland’s largest ereatiler, Bol.com, to sell into the Dutch eBook market. The app allows readers to buy new titles and ‘side load’ existing ePub titles protected by Adobe’s DRM. The key is the capability to support Adobe’s ACS4 DRM which means that files bought on many sites can now be securely read on many mobile devices.

Another ACS4 mobile reader has been developed in the US by Bluefire Productions and has been adopted by one of the US’s largest book retailers, Books-A-Million. The app was released only at the end of November and is already turning heads. It allows users to easily customise their reading experience by choosing the background colour, font size, and either portrait or landscape format,is free and again importantly is fully compatible with ACS4 encrypted titles.

These new generation of DRM enabled mobile readers could prove very popular and have the potential to free users from single application readers and further stimulate the demand for iPad and Android tablets next year. They also offer resellers the opportunity to create branded mobile offers and engage fully with the market, sell ebooks through platforms such as Google ebookstore and do so without having to have a dedicated reader.

Plastic Logic Demo

If you want to look at the Plastic Logic from Wall Street Journal 'Plastic Logic: The Full D7 Demo'

Looking at the demo it looks still like a prototype. It sounds like a technology looking to solve a problem and one that was announced very early, no pricing, still crude and clearly shows they have some way to go yet.

Books on Sticks?

We have seen the Barbie on a stick, we have seen the podcast on a stick so why not an ebook on a stick? Why not go one better and have a browser reader embedded on the stick which would give you device independence and also consistency of presentation? So you buy a stick with content and it becomes the ebook you share between devices, friends whatever and what you can and can’t do is dictated by a program that effectively lives of the stick. You could even be allowed to override the book with another.

How many books could you store on a stick? You could even have personalised or branded sticks. They could be sold online or through existing channels?
So before all the technocrats blast my logic the 64 dollar question is whether it would it have an appeal to the consumer?

Our digital friend Bill McCoy at Adobe pointed out an interesting piece from Moconews.com. SanDisk the makers of SD memory cards we all use in our digital cameras, are to offer pre-loaded micro SD cards for mobiles.

Obviously one thinks about pre loaded MP3 music that could potentially play on any music enabled phone. But why not apply the same logic to other media? You simply slot the tiny card into the little slot on the side of your phone and you have potentially a huge mobile library that is device and network independent. It is reported that 770 million phones were shipped this year with micro SD slots and an additional 900 million are planned for next year. SD an 8 gigabyte micro SD card, and a 16 gigabyte card is coming.

As the old saying says, ‘there are many ways to skin a rabbit’. Sorry we didn’t mean the Nabaztag Rabbit.