Adobe’s product manager for RoboHelp has posted a RoboHelp script to allow the program to generate EPUB-format e-books. I used RoboHelp during my previous job; it is basically a highly-specialized HTML editor designed to create help files, manuals, and documentation—very versatile and reasonably easy to learn. But at $999, it is not exactly the kind of thing the average self-publishing writer is going to go out and buy. (Found via The Digital Reader.)
Even though the iPad sold one million units in less than a month, it does not appear that iBooks e-books are exactly flying off the shelves. Staci D. Kramer at PaidContent reports that overall, only about 1.5 iBooks have been downloaded per iPad—not counting the Winnie the Pooh e-book that comes with the iBooks app.
Of course, this doesn’t mean people aren’t reading e-books on their iPads from the other available sources. Amazon offers a greater selection and more cross-platform versatility than iBooks with its Kindle application, for instance.
The Android-based WePad is now available for pre-order at Amazon.de, reports Siobhan O’Leary at Publishing Perspectives. Its launch is scheduled for August. The 16GB wifi-only version will cost 449 Euros (about $593) and the 32GB 3G version will cost 569 Euros (about $752).
If the WePad ever gets an American release, I’d expect the prices to be $100 or so lower; everything costs more in Europe.
The annual meeting of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons that kicked off on May 3rd has made an interesting change to this year’s program—they replaced this year’s program, ordinarily a 165-page book, with a free iPod Touch for each of the 3,000 attendees.
With the Touch, medical attendees have been able to prep for the meeting in the months leading up to it via podcasts, and can now use their iPod Touch to access every aspect of the AANS meeting, from social events and seminars to maps and social networking with other attendees.
Given that registration costs up to $750, the cost of giving an iPod Touch to each attendee was probably relatively unnoticeable, especially taking cost savings from not printing the paper program into account. It is going to be interesting to see what other professional conferences start replacing their program guides with free digital devices.
A quick comment about the WePad story and your “analysis” of European pricing. Typically we pay more because the US-based companies can (and do) gouge us on pricing. As a prime example check out the pricing (excluding taxes) of any of the Adobe Creative Suite prices especially the US/UK difference for “localisation” or should that be “localization”.
The only way the US will get the WePad for $100 is if the network operators subsidize heavily – which is what Amazon (DE) aren’t doing given that they aren’t a network operator.