Are You iWatching?

I have just bought a 1936 Imperial Companion 1 portable typewriter and it now sits proudly on my desk alongside today’s technology. Is it practical? Well not with my poor spelling and tendency to rework things. Does it work? Yes and has a black and red ribbon which will one day need replacing. Did I buy it to work? Well not really, I thought it of it as more of a fusion of art and technology and a statement. The typewriter played a major role in influencing where we are today. With my wife being granted a Royal Warrant for her bookselling, I also love the Royal Warrant stamp on the Typewriter dedicated to the late King George V.

So what has this to do with last week’s latest technology announcement of an iWatch from Apple?

Well no one will expect the iWatch to survive nearly eighty years and work. With our consumable technology today it’s hard to find one of those early brick mobile phones let alone some of the early portable PCs and the life expectancy of many is a mere few years. However, it is possible to see the iWatch as an evolutionary step to shrink technology, change app development and create a fashion icon to rival the Sinclair C5, Delorean car, Google’s Glass and others. But as an investment it is very high risk and not even a gamble.

Apple has with the iWatch put a placeholder on the market re wearable technology. The iWatch itself is not the first technology watch, remember those very first digital watches and more recently the eink ones and even more recently the competitors to the iWatch. Apple has the clout and the followers to sell enough to cover their stake, but is it a game changer? Do you want to buy the mark1 version knowing mark2 is probably in the labs today and it will only have a life expectancy of some 2 years?

I look at my analogue Longines watch, it is a designer statement, practical and been around for many years. Would I replace it with a clunky piece of technology that says ‘look at me iam a geek’?

Wearable technology will happen but exactly how and when is debatable and the challenge it has is that it now has to compete with smartphones that can do everything it can do and much, much more.

Eink technology was transient and could never be anything else than a monochrome offer in a Technicolor world, but they established ebooks. Tablets were always going to be caught between the home and the smartphone and when the smartphone fits into a pocket and laptops became lighter and thinner, there was only going to be one mobile winner. Print on demand would show the potential to do short runs but fail to deliver the ultimate ‘distribute and print’ model.

So as devices themselves become ‘smarter’ and connected does the smartphone become the communications hub as predicted by our friend and futurist Ray Hammond? As Bluetooth and WiFi expand does wearable technology move close to the sensor nodes and speech, gestures, image and smell recognition become the real wearable technology?

Jill O’Neill, Director Professional Development, NFAIS, raised a interesting comment ‘Why can't Apple design and build the Star Trek tricorder instead?’ Now we both would be very interested in one of them!   

Bibliophile Granted Royal Warrant

Booksellers are often the unsung heroes of the book trade. They are the ones that engage with the consumer, entice them to buy and effectively provide the shop window to sell the books. Today all booksellers face challenging times and therefore it’s good when they get their recognition.

We are very proud that a Royal Warrant of Appointment has been granted to Annie Quigley of Bibliophile Limited into the place and quality of Booksellers to H.R.H. The Duke of Edinburgh, for whom they have been supplying books for over 20 years. A royal warrant is often referred to as a peerage for the trade and they are not given away freely but have to be earned by years of providing service and quality to the royal household and the purse of the Queen, Duke of Edinburgh or Prince Charles.

Bibliophile now joins the elite group of some 800 other warrant owners and only two other booksellers Hatchards of Piccadilly and G Heywood Hill. It is somewhat fitting that we now have a High Street book retailer, a specialist book dealer and a mail order book club and internet bargain book retailer. This clearly shows that the royal household like many other is eclectic in its taste and needs when it comes to books.

In 1992 on the death of her mentor and Bibliophile owner Bill Smith, Annie was given the unique opportunity to buy the highly acclaimed mail order book club. Some 19 years later she has developed the business into the largest independent book club in the UK with over 80,000 active members who buy from the mail-order catalogue and Internet www.bibliophilebooks.com.

The Bibliophile mail order catalogue is a newspaper, full of personalised book reviews and published 10 times a year. Each month, her team selects, review and introduce over 350 new titles to add to the 3500 stocked inventory. Bibliophile despatch over 3.5 million books a year from their 5 miles of books.

Annie is not only the owner of Bibliophile, but also the buyer, editor and bookseller. Her passion for books came from her parents, Aileen Armitage and Deric Longden, who are both writers. Due to her mother Aileen’s blindness, at a young age Annie out of necessity learnt to proof read and edit. Aileen was voted Woman of the Year in 1988 for having written 34 novels although blind. Annie says: “I was born in a book!”

Annie has also brought public domain out of print titles back into print under the Bibliophile imprint for Print on Demand and has just published Deric Longdens’ Lost for Words and Diana’s Story as Bibliophile’s first ebook publications with many more being planned in the near future.

Read her book review blog at anniesbookreviewsforbibliophiles or on facebook

This Saturday, The Times will have a feature supplement ‘Raconteur’ on Royal Warrant holders and Bibliophile’s great achievement for booksellers.