Barnes & Noble

The iPad is great for reading not only eBooks but digital magazines too, and the list of available titles is growing all the time.  In addition to our own personal favorite, Project, and Zinio, where digitized editions of popular newsstand magazines can be purchased; here are ten recently released iPad magazine apps which show just how much this genre is diversifying on Apple’s tablet. Guys can now know what girls want thanks to the release of Cosmo for Guys, an iPad magazine filled with advice, tips and guides to help you become ‘a trusted authority on women’.  Sounds hideous, but it’s there if you want it.  The app is free, but you’ll have to pay a $1.99 monthly or $19.99 yearly subscription to actually read the magazine.  Free. Previously only for reading books purchased through Barnes and Noble, the latest version of the NOOK reader has added magazines and newspapers, with everything from fashion to food and entertainment to technology covered.  Of course, thanks to Apple’s new subscription rules, you’ll have to visit nookbooks.com via Safari rather than buying them inside the app.  Free, US Only. More and more specialist publications are appearing on the iPad and this popular Jazz music mag is one of the latest.  The magazine comes out of the UK, and is Europe’s leading publication on the subject, covering reviews, features, news and gig guides.  The magazine costs $4.99/£2.99 per month or $39.99/£27.99 per year.  Free. Another niche publication, this time bringing all the political news straight from Washington, along with commentary, analysis and columns from leading journalists.  The app is free to download and the magazine costs a reasonable $0.99 per month as a subscription.  Free. A 26-issue per year news magazine written from a Christian perspective, covering international events, reviews, interviews and commentary.  The magazine has been available for a while, but has just introduced in-app purchasing for subscriptions and individual magazines.  There’s also an archive of previous issues available for free.  Free. Updated to include all the content featured in the print version, issues are available individually or by annual subscription, with the former costing $4.99 and the latter $21.99 for 10 issues.  News, features, photography and comments are all featured, plus multimedia content including video and music.  Free. The popular design magazine is perfectly suited to the modern, minimalist iPad, and each monthly issue can be purchased within the free app for $9.99.  Read More

Amazon and Barnes & Noble both introduced new features to their respective iOS applications on Monday, even as they were required to remove links in their apps to outside storefronts. Kindle now supports viewing of over 100 of its newspaper and magazine titles, and Barnes & Noble has announced that Nook for iPad will soon offer access to over 175 digital periodicals. Because of the timing of this feature introduction, I’d say it was possibly a negotiated concession by the e-booksellers, won in exchange for the removal of the outside store links. I’ve been able to try out Amazon’s implementation of magazine and newspaper viewing, which went live yesterday. It does add a nice splash of color to otherwise text-heavy content, but if you’re looking for interactivity, you should probably look elsewhere. The periodicals offer more in terms of user interface advantages on the iPad then they do on the Kindle, owing mostly to touchscreen navigation, but special features like rich media and the kind of visual flair that made magazines like Wired on the iPad such a joy to read are lacking. The Nook software appears to have more lofty aspirations. Its titles are billed by the company as “interactive, full-color” editions that also feature something called “exclusive ArticleView” with allows for user customization of how articles are displayed. The update isn’t yet live in the store, however, so we can’t say for sure how it will compare to either Amazon editions or native iPad apps. Whether you choose to subscribe through native apps, or through either the Kindle or Nook stores may depend on your device usage habits. Amazon and Nook subscriptions both work well across multiple platforms, meaning that you can subscribe once and access them on your iPad, dedicated e-reader, and possibly your Android device or iPhone, too. iPad periodical subscriptions for dedicated apps typically only work on the iPad itself (although some offer print subscriptions that carry over to the iPad, so you have two possible formats for reading). In some cases Amazon or Nook editions may also be cheaper, but that wasn’t so in many of the examples I checked. National Geographic, for example, which benefits greatly from the iPad’s beautiful display, is $19.99 for an annual subscription through the App Store, and $1.99 per month on the Kindle store. The Kindle version is a lot less visually impressive, and costs more money, since it Read More

Nook for iPad is bursting at the seams with over 175 full-color interactive magazines and newspapers, including Esquire, Maxim, Forbes, Newsweek, Popular science, The Washington Post and USA Today. They're offering a free fortnight's trial, or downloadable individually. [iTunes via OhGizmo] Read More

It’s travel season. Maybe you’ve got a cross-atlantic flight planned, a long drive ahead and need to keep the kids occupied, your secluded getaway has a TV made during the Kennedy administration, or you just have a long train ride to work every day. I’m going to show you different ways you can get all sorts of entertainment on your iPad. iTunes. The easiest way to get video content onto your iPad is to simply buy or rent it from the iTunes Store. You can initiate the transaction on either your computer or your iPad. Keep in mind if you copy a rental to your iPad, it won’t be available for watch on your computer, and if you rent a video on your iPad, it can’t be copied to the Mac. This FAQ from Apple has more information on rentals. To copy videos to your iPad, select your iPad in the sidebar in iTunes, choose the Movies (or TV Shows) tab, and choose what videos you want copied. To watch them, simply launch the Videos app on your iPad. This method of transfer is also how you’ll copy movies you convert in this next step. Handbrake is a great video converter. It can convert most encrypted DVDs and any movie you may have that’s not in the .m4v file format. Choose the Universal preset on the right, press Start and let ‘er, um, rip.  This is one of my top five iOS apps. Instapaper is a way to save web pages to be read later, and presents them to you in a nice, easy to read layout. You can install a bookmarklet on your favorite browser to save pages for later reading, and many Mac and iOS apps will send your links to Instapaper — if the app supports it, it will have a Read Later option. Before you head out, just open the Instapaper app to download the content and you can read it even without an Internet connection. . Both of these proprietary e-book readers are good for one thing: reading books bought via their online stores (naturally, they can’t read content from each other’s stores). To download a book go to the retailer’s web site, purchase the book and when you open the app on your iPad, the book will automatically download. If you have one of their hardware e-readers, you can download previously purchased books with the app as Read More

It’s travel season. Maybe you’ve got a cross-atlantic flight planned, a long drive ahead and need to keep the kids occupied, your secluded getaway has a TV made during the Kennedy administration, or you just have a long train ride to work every day. I’m going to show you different ways you can get all sorts of entertainment on your iPad. iTunes. The easiest way to get video content onto your iPad is to simply buy or rent it from the iTunes Store. You can initiate the transaction on either your computer or your iPad. Keep in mind if you copy a rental to your iPad, it won’t be available for watch on your computer, and if you rent a video on your iPad, it can’t be copied to the Mac. This FAQ from Apple has more information on rentals. To copy videos to your iPad, select your iPad in the sidebar in iTunes, choose the Movies (or TV Shows) tab, and choose what videos you want copied. To watch them, simply launch the Videos app on your iPad. This method of transfer is also how you’ll copy movies you convert in this next step. Handbrake is a great video converter. It can convert most encrypted DVDs and any movie you may have that’s not in the .m4v file format. Choose the Universal preset on the right, press Start and let ‘er, um, rip.  This is one of my top five iOS apps. Instapaper is a way to save web pages to be read later, and presents them to you in a nice, easy to read layout. You can install a bookmarklet on your favorite browser to save pages for later reading, and many Mac and iOS apps will send your links to Instapaper — if the app supports it, it will have a Read Later option. Before you head out, just open the Instapaper app to download the content and you can read it even without an Internet connection. . Both of these proprietary e-book readers are good for one thing: reading books bought via their online stores (naturally, they can’t read content from each other’s stores). To download a book go to the retailer’s web site, purchase the book and when you open the app on your iPad, the book will automatically download. If you have one of their hardware e-readers, you can download previously purchased books with the app as Read More

  Did you know that it’s possible to read on your iPad, iPhone and iPod touch? Crazy, right? Like anyone reads anymore. Seriously, though, reading is one of our favorite pastimes. We usually enjoy using the Kindle, because it’s lightweight and very easy to use. The eInk screen is pleasant to look at. No complaints from us. Thing is, there are also plenty of iPads out there. Why not give people something to read? Know that we didn’t give iBooks its own spot on the list as that’s pretty much a giveaway. We’re looking at some of the places to get books for those who enjoy reading on the iPad. Hit the jump to take a look.   Amazon has the most popular eReader, and that means they offer the most books. Thing is, we are looking for the free stuff. Just hit up Amazon’s Kindle store and ask it to sort by price: low to high, like this. There are plenty of books available for free, including many of the classics. This is another eReader. Popular, but not quite as popular as the Kindle. The App, like all of the ones we are featuring today, is free. The nice thing is that B&N has a section dedicated to free Nook books. There is plenty to read. We found greats like Desire in the Dark Naughty Nooners and Erotic Tales. Okay, well maybe not, but Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is free, too, and looks like a fun read.   This is a site that offers free eBooks in ePub format. That means that the iPad’s native app, iBooks, will open those files. This is a great little place to look for books, and you may just find something you like. The best part is that while Amazon and B&N offer free books that for the most part seem like they are part of a discount rack at a store (i.e. the stuff that isn’t selling) this one has recommended books and it seems as if the person posting them took care to make sure that the books seemed interesting. That’s not saying that the free stuff on Amazon and B&N isn’t good–it is–but there is a lot of stuff to sort through. Google Books is another cool place to find stuff. The App is free, of course, and then you just shop Google’s online book shop and find the free Read More

Das US-Buchhandelsunternehmen ‘Borders‘ vermeldet Zahlungsunfähigkeit – nicht nur umgangssprachlich auch als ‘Bankrott’ bezeichnet. Das Fortune-500-Unternehmen ist nach Barnes & Noble die zweitgrößte Handelskette für Bücher in Nordamerika. Bloomberg News berichtet, das 200 der insgesamt 642 Filialen im Zuge der ‘Reorganisation’ “augenblicklich geschlossen werden” – 75 weitere Geschäfte könnten folgen. “Frische Kredite über 505 Millionen Dollar” sollen jetzt helfen. Neben dem Preiskampf mit Online-Versandhändlern wie Amazon (in den USA gibt es keine Buchpreisbindung) verzeichnete man durch geschwächte CD- und DVD-Verkäufe erhebliche Verluste (und kompensierende Digital-Verkäufe). Ende der 90er-Jahre, Anfang 2000, räumte man den silbernen Scheiben viel Verkaufsfläche ein. Des Weiteren hat man es bislang nicht geschafft, den Fuß in die digitale Vertriebstür zu bekommen. Darunter leidet auch Mitbewerber Barnes & Noble. Mit dem elektronischen Lesegerät Nook und Nook Color wollte man zweimal angreifen. Obwohl die letzte (Hardware-)Produktvorstellung erst im Herbst 2010 erfolgte, kann man mit relativ großer Sicherheit inzwischen dessen Scheitern attestieren. Eine iPhone-App (kostenlos; App Store-Link) kränkelt unter ferner liefen im App Store. Auch die iPad-App im US-Store (Link) dürfte es spätestens mit Apples möglicher Verkaufsbeteiligung noch schwieriger im “Kampf um Aufmerksamkeit” haben. Den Blick gilt es für spannende Veränderungen vorerst auf Amazon zu richten. Seit Ende Januar steht offiziell fest: Amazon.com verkauft mehr elektronische Kindle-Dateien als Taschenbücher. Die Verkäufe von Hardcover-Druckerzeugnissen ließ man bereits letztes Jahr links liegen. Amazon.com is now selling more Kindle books than paperback books. Since the beginning of the year, for every 100 paperback books Amazon has sold, the Company has sold 115 Kindle books. Additionally, during this same time period the Company has sold three times as many Kindle books as hardcover books. This is across Amazon.com’s entire U.S. book business and includes sales of books where there is no Kindle edition. Free Kindle books are excluded and if included would make the numbers even higher. Trotzdem ist auch in der Kindle-Welt nicht alles kunterbunt, wie ein AppleInsider-Artikel zeigt, der die Bücher-Verkaufsmodelle von Google, Apple und Amazon einmal in den Vergleich nimmt. Amazon takes a 70 percent cut), it also charges publishers a delivery fee before taking its cut. Amazon charges 15 cents per megabyte in the US and UK, and 99 cents per megabyte in other countries. [...] This means that a newspaper that delivered 9MB of data to subscribers per month would be changed $1.35 fee in the US or UK and $8.91 elsewhere. For a newspaper priced at $9.99 per month, the Read More

Posted 02/01/2011 at 6:14am | by J.R. Bookwalter It seems like every move that Apple makes results in a firestorm of speculation -- an unfortunate side effect of being a company veiled in secrecy. Cupertino’s latest move is the rejection of a Sony Reader app, which has everyone sounding the death knell for other e-reader apps on iOS. The New York Times is reporting that Apple has rejected an official Sony Reader app, apparently because the app allows users to circumvent the App Store and purchase e-books directly from Sony’s own ecosystem. Unfortunately for those reporting this as news, Apple has had this policy in place pretty much from the beginning, which is why Amazon’s Kindle app, for instance, takes you to Mobile Safari to shop for e-books in the first place. What the reports are mostly focusing on is the last bit of this second paragraph from The Times report: “The company has told some applications developers, including Sony, that they can no longer sell content, like e-books, within their apps, or let customers have access to purchases they have made outside the App Store.” The president of Sony’s e-book division, Steve Haber, was specifically told by Apple that the Sony Reader app was rejected because it “would have let people buy and read e-books bought from the Sony Reader Store.” Now The New York Times is assuming that Apple will target Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook and other such apps. “This sudden shift perhaps tells you something about Apple’s understanding of the value of its platform,” a consumer electronics analyst at Forrester Research told The Times. “Apple started making money with devices. Maybe the new thing that everyone recognizes is the unit of economic value is the platform, not the device.” It seems highly unlikely at this stage that Apple will simply prohibit companies like Amazon and Sony from allowing their customers to load already-purchased content into their apps -- can you imagine that Apple would ever stop you from loading your own music or videos onto your device? “It’s the opposite of what we wanted to bring to the market,” Sony’s Haber said. “We always wanted to bring the content to as many devices as possible, not one device to one store.” Not surprisingly, both Apple as well as Amazon declined comment -- for now. Update: And just like that, Apple has issued a statement to All Read More

According to the New York Times, Apple has rejected Sony's Reader app from the App Store, and the Times speculates Amazon's popular Kindle app may also get the axe in the near future. The supposed reasoning behind this move is that Apple has decided apps can no longer sell content or allow access to content sold outside the App Store or via Apple's in-app purchasing mechanism. If true, this is a highly questionable move on Apple's part, and one that seems pretty difficult to justify. Apple could potentially paint this as protecting consumers from malicious content (i.e., viruses) or unscrupulous app developers looking to bilk users out of money, then say that it's just applying the same rules to everyone by disallowing "outside content" apps like Sony Reader. But that's not the explanation the Times goes for, and it's not one I would swallow, either. Instead, if Apple really is seeking to exert this level of control over App Store content, it seems geared more toward protecting Apple's bottom line (30 percent of in-app purchase prices), and in a manner that frankly seems very shady. Alternatively, Sony's Reader app may have been rejected because Apple is reportedly close to unveiling its own subscription-based content service. We'll be monitoring the situation very closely over the coming weeks; if Amazon's Kindle app or Barnes & Noble's NOOK app disappear from the App Store, it may be indicative of a very unpleasant sea change in Apple's policies that will (perhaps deservedly) give Apple a very black eye in the eyes of both users and content providers. There's another possibility: the whole scenario could be a misinterpretation on Sony's part. From the sounds of things, Sony's app supported content purchasing from right within Reader, which everyone (Amazon included) knows is an App Store No-No. If rejected on that basis, Sony may have interpreted Apple's rejection to mean "Apple doesn't want our content on its devices." That interpretation then has everyone (including us) asking what this means for other content providers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble, simultaneously poo-pooing Apple's ham-fisted policies and sympathizing with Sony. However, until Apple chooses to comment on the matter we won't really know for sure what's behind the rejection of Reader, or the implication for other e-book readers on the App Store. Read More

Which eBook reader app is best? 148apps deliberates. Dedicated devices like the Kindle remain popular among book lovers—but did you know that you can get your eBook fix on your iPhone or iPod, too? There are a ton of great apps out there, most of them free, which put all that eReading power right at your fingertips. Which one to use, however? In this roundup, we take a look at some of the top eReader contenders on the App Store. Scroll to the bottom to see which app we like best! Please note that this roundup focuses on the iPhone and iPod, not the iPad, though many of these apps are universal. Kindle Amazon’s Kindle app has a lot going for it. First and foremost is the Kindle Store, which is probably the most robust of all eBook stores and has relatively good prices. Kindle owners should be happy to know that you can transfer any Kindle eBooks attached to your account straight to your iPhone with this app! Reading ebooks in the Kindle app is also a breeze—the app’s interface is clean and simple, with some customizability and quick response times. I particularly like the free sample chapters. Keep in mind that Kindle books have their own DRM, so you can’t transfer them to other eReaders. FREE! Released: 2009-03-04 :: Category: Books Stanza Stanza was arguably the first successful eReader in the App Store, and it remains a contender. Stanza allows you to import your own eBooks from a variety of formats and offers the most customization options out of all the eReaders. (It was the App Store pioneer of the reversed black-screen-white-text option, which is beloved by those reading at night.) Additionally, Stanza makes it easy to access Project Gutenberg’s archives of free classics as well as integrating with a number of partner stores. Alas, Stanza lacks the coherency of the Kindle or Nook book stores (and their lower prices!). But if you want total control over your eBook library, Stanza remains the way to go. Note that Amazon now owns Stanza, giving them two strong contenders in the eReader ring! FREE! Released: 2008-07-13 :: Category: Books NOOK Formerly the B&N eReader, Barnes and Nobles’ NOOK eBook app is similar to the Kindle app in that it comes tied to B&N’s preexisting eBook store. So, if you own a NOOK, you can access your full B&N library from your Read More