Toward a true iPod of e-books: How Google and Apple could cooperate to sew up the market in months

please oh please oh please oh please!

Do you really think that Apple would NOT saddle this thing with intrusive DRM? …In the same way they didn’t saddle the iPod with restrictive DRM?

Hahahahahahahaha!

I agree with the sentiment but it really is naive to think there is any chance of DRM free ebooks from Apple.

…content on a PC that’s pushed to the device

So last-century, David. This would only make sense if there was a market for downloadable offline ebooks, of a size that would interest either Apple or Google. There’s precious little evidence that that’s the case. (Hey! I could be wrong! Please show me the evidence.)

But Google already has a huge lead on the real ebook market, through books.google.com. Books readable on-line, just like the New York Times, or Wikipedia, or your email. And the iPhone already has an access system for this, through WiFi and Safari. So they don’t have far to go.

See here. There’s entirely too much of this obnoxious tabloid style nicknaming going on ( Tom-Cat, Branjolina). Don’t YOU start. GooApp indeed!

“Branjolina”

I deny everything!

Well, Bill, as I keep saying, I love Web-based books but just don’t want them to displace other kinds. What to do if the feds order Google to unplug you? Or far more likely, suppose Google or a rival imposes onerous terms on you someday so you have to give up your personal online “library.”

Please. Let’s look beyond the technical issues to the human, civic and business ones.

Meanwhile, within the technical realm, let’s remember that even with Google’s WiFi efforts and those of others, technology is a long way from being omnipresent .

Again, I get a big kick out of reading your valuable visions of the fun things ahead–keep at it! I just want multiple alternatives.

Thanks,
David

“I love Web-based books but just don’t want them to displace other kinds.”

By the way, see Michael Wolff’s article in Vanity Fair:

Newspapers may be absolutely ending, but people within an industry, any industry … are the last to be able to see its absolute end. (Whereas for people outside the industry, especially outside the newspaper industry, especially among the growing majority who don’t read a paper at all, the end seems to be almost inconsequential.) It’s impossible to believe that something that defines your life, something that exists as big as life … will just cease to be.

That’s a fascinating article about newspapers, Bill–thanks very much. Now answer my arguments about books, such as users’ fears of loss of control. They want to own the damn things for real 😉

If you must go outside the realm of books, remember that even Google Gmail allows people to people to keep on using their usual e-mail clients and forward mail to and from other accounts.

Simply put, I love Web-based books, but, yes, you’re darn right, I don’t want them to displace the file-based variety–at least in the case of books I prefer to keep.

Thanks,
David

I, too, am intrigued with web-based books, mainly because high-quality renderers (i.e., browsers) are available for essentially all platforms under the sun.

However, in this discussion there is an unnecessary limiting assumption that using these browsers requires the digital content be accessed over a network from a server. Such content can also reside on the client (user-side) and rendered locally.

There is a certain appeal in having access to a huge, centralized digital library where one remotely views content over a network using a web-browser. (Btw, nothing prevents someone building a web browser to provide a “book-like” rendering experience.) But there are some types of publications that a large number of people will want, for a variety of reasons, to indefinitely keep on their own “server” — this is called ownership.

So, in essence, both approaches can sit side-by-side and use the same standards. In one the access is over an external network; in the other the access is over the “internal network” of one’s hardware device.

Now answer my arguments about books, such as users’ fears of loss of control. They want to own the damn things for real.

But David — having some segment of the reading population either wanting or not wanting something to some indeterminate degree isn’t necessarily going to make that thing either happen or not happen. It’s just one factor, and often not the deciding one.

By the way, I think Jon makes a good point here. But I think the “server” he refers to here is going to be without quotes :-); that is, it will be a real “personal server”. And it may even be administered for you by Google :-). After all, do you keep all your money in “real money” — gold coins under the mattress? Most people used to, but now don’t. Because it’s more convenient not to.

So, Bill, Google is as trustworthy as the U.S. Treasury? 😉 Hey, it’s OK for Google to store copies of my favorite books. I just want to be able to do the same. – David

There are two instances of trust in the example you give, David: one that a certain coin will have a certain value. The US treasury “betrayed” this trust in 1933 when it abandoned the gold standard.

The other trust is the one you have in the bank: that they will pay you the money you have in your accounts upon your request. Banks typically are private companies, like Google.

The difference that matters here is not whether Google is as trustworthy as your bank (if you believe it isn’t then you are probably very naive wrt the trustworthiness of banks), but whether copyright law is as fair to you as laws that describe what you are allowed to do with your own money. And as we all know, it isn’t. DRM makes your property a rental.

“And as we all know, it isn’t. DRM makes your property a rental.:

Exactly why we shouldn’t trust Google and the rest! As for banks, here in the States we have FDIC insurance. It’s far from perfect, but, hey, the odds of getting into trouble are far less than with DRM and consumer-hostile copyright laws. Remember, Google and similar companies operate under these laws and in the future may push them to the limit against consumers—especially if Google itself gets more into the content creation business.

Thanks,
David joining you in the angels-on-a-pin mode

David has summed up my position. I want to be able to buy e-books that I can download to a lightweight, portable e-ink e-reader and keep for as long as I want to. If I can’t own the e-books I would probably stick to old-fashioned paper books except in cases where I needed to rent a chapter, if that option is available, in order to do research.