| Here’s our weekly look at the digital comics best-sellers on four different platforms. The lists are constantly changing; this is a snapshot of what they were on Sunday evening. 1. The Walking Dead #113 This week’s ComiXology chart demonstrates the power of the 99-cent sale, as that’s what Kick-Ass was going for this weekend. Slots 11-15 on the best-seller list are also taken up with issues of Kick-Ass, and I think that’s all there is. The fact that I do these charts on Sunday evening should maximize the impact of those 99-cent sales, but many weeks the featured comics don’t show up at all. Of course, this was also the weekend that the movie Kick-Ass 2 opened, and maybe people were buying the comics instead of going to the movie. 1. Batman: The Killing Joke We wrote earlier about Batman: The Dark Knight Returns surging on the news that it will be the basis for the next Superman/Batman movie; it has been on the charts pretty steadily since July. Batman has been hot lately, and maybe folks were picking up copies of Batman: The Killing Joke because of the commentary in Kevin Smith’s recent interview with Grant Morrison. Or maybe lots of folks just felt like a good summer read. 1. Injustice: Gods Among Us #23 The usual suspects are dominating this week, but it’s interesting that those Peanuts e-books, which first popped up on the Nook chart last week, have a bit of staying power. iBooks 1. Injustice: Gods Among Us #31 It’s interesting that the only platform on which people aren’t keeping current with Injustice: Gods Among Us is the Kindle; on all the others, the most recent issues are on the charts, but on Kindle it’s just issue #1. We’re also seeing Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, as noted above, and plenty of My Little Pony comics, which is typical for iBooks. For some reason, that’s where people buy them. It’s also interesting to see that comiXology and iBooks are the two places readers go to get their monthly The Walking Dead fix. Digital Comics Best-Sellers for August 19th 2013 is a post from: E-Reader News |
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Digital Comics Best-Sellers for August 19th 2013
eBook Review: The Wanted Bride by Sylvia McDaniel
| Verdict: 4 Stars One of the original adopters of early onset digital publishing was the romance imprints. While other critics were still arguing over whether or not people would actually read on a tiny little screen, publishers like Harlequin were forging industry-changing imprints like Carina Press, which offered unheard of royalties and a turnaround time of only a matter of weeks. Soon, it was the romance readers once again who changed things up in the industry, as they were some of the first fans to fully embrace digital self-publishing by creating one of the first million-title sales indie authors, Amanda Hocking. So it’s no surprise that it’s once again romance that is changing things up. Sylvia McDaniel, who penned the title The Wanted Bride, broke with convention by creating a romance heroine who could frustrate Satan himself with her witty comebacks and take-no-names attitude towards coming out on top. On the very first page, Valerie Brown bought a one-way bus ticket while still wearing the charred wedding dress she had on when she set fire to her lousy fiance’s Corvette. She ended up in a tiny Colorado town barely ahead of a blizzard with no money, no wallet, and only her Louis Vuitton luggage to keep her company. The kindness of strangers saves the day, as she quickly finds a waitressing job and a room to rent in order to avoid calling on her wealthy father to save her skin one more time. The only person not buying her poor-little-me situation is Matt Jordan, one of the most notoriously ruthless lawyers in the state and a handsome devil on top of it. But where McDaniel parts with convention is in the bold attitudes of her heroine, one of the most resourceful romance leading ladies on the market. It’s this type of new voice in romance that makes the genre so appealing to so many, but still keeps with some of the formulaic traditional story pacing that steadfast fans have come to expect from their favorite romance authors. The Wanted Bride is available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and more.
eBook Review: The Wanted Bride by Sylvia McDaniel is a post from: E-Reader News |
How to Sideload Android Apps on the Blackberry Q5
| The Blackberry Q5 is the latest smartphone to be released that has the Blackberry 10 operating system. One of the great things about Bb10 is that it has an Android emulator, that allows you to load in your own Android apps. It is not as cut and dry as simply sideloading in an APK file, but there is a few steps involved. Today, we show you exactly what you need to do to load in your own apps. The first thing you need to do is turn on development mode on your Q5. This is accomplished by going to the settings menu, selecting security and then development mode. You want to turn development ON and then select a password, this password is important to remember. Turning development mode on, allows you to load in Android apps on the Blackberry Q5. The next step is to download DDPB, which is a program that allows you to load in BAR files onto your Q5. A BAR file, is simply an Android APK file, that has been converted to a Blackberry friendly format. We have over 5,000 BAR files on our official BB10 App Store, so you can simply download any of our apps. If you want to convert your own paid or free Android apps, you can use our free APK to BAR Convertor. When you download DDPB, you will have to plug your Q5 into your computer with the Mini USB to USB cable. Simply hit scan, and it will scan for your development mode IP. I recommend disconnecting any other Android tablets or phones from your computer, as it may screw up the scanning progress. If you see an error message when connecting or if you enter your password, and you know its correct, you may need to download JAVA 32. Once you have logged into DDPB you can simply download any BAR file and then click Install. If you have any questions or concerns about this entire process, drop us a line and we can assist you. It sometimes takes a bit of a learning curve to understand exactly what you are doing, but after awhile, it becomes second nature. Loading in your own Android apps allows you a tremendous amount of freedom to get access to content not otherwise available in Blackberry World. This is applicable to apps like Instagram, Netflix, Mint, Kindle, Vine and many more! How to Sideload Android Apps on the Blackberry Q5 is a post from: E-Reader News |
Brazilian “Cloud of Books” Online Library Solution For Students and Readers
| Brazil may not have enough school libraries at the moment, though they surely can look up to the cloud of books they have at their disposal. The pun is intended, as it’s Nuvem de Livros (which means cloud of books in local dialect) that it’s being called. The brainchild of Jonas Suassuna, who hails from a business community, Nuvem de Livros is being put forward to make up for there not being enough books at affordable price for the students. No wonder there already are over a million subscribers of the online library in the two years of its existence, and that it currently boasts over 10,000 titles. Students are charged just a dollar a month for unlimited access to the ebooks, while the same for general subscribers is also a quite affordable $3.50 per month. “The government signed a law that says that by 2020 all Brazilian schools, public and private, must have a library with at least one book per student. Anyone familiar with the reality of Brazilian public schools knows that will be very difficult,” said Suassuna to explain the justifiability of his project. As per a recent estimate, 34 percent of schools in Brazil lack a dedicated library for its students. Surely an online library is an easier solution in a country that ranks 5th in computer usage and 7th in internet usage. A positive aspect of the online library, which can be located at http://www.nuvemdelivros.com.br/, is that the books can be read on any platform, be it a PC, a tablet device, or even a smartphone. Readers will also have the option to search through the ebooks chapter-wise, along with the usual features of bookmarking or searching any specific term. Set up in partnership with the Spanish telecom firms Telefonica and Vivo, the online library is already accessible in Argentina and is slated to debut in several other countries in South America as well as in Spain in September. Others who have contributed to the project include Itautec, manufacturer of computer equipment, as well as the newspapers O Estado de S. Paulo and O Globo. Publishers who have been signed to contribute to the online library include Moderna, Ediouro, Conrad, A Girafa, Vermelho Marinho and several others.
Brazilian “Cloud of Books” Online Library Solution For Students and Readers is a post from: E-Reader News |
Nokia Tablet Running Windows RT Leaked
| Microsoft is not the only one to be fiercely backing its Windows RT platform, for it has an ally in Nokia, who also said to be readying a tablet based on the beleaguered Windows version. Interestingly, it's not the first time that the Finnish phone maker has been associated with a tablet running Windows RT, though Nokia loyalists surely hope this is the last time they see Nokia being linked with a Windows RT tablet. While a tablet from Nokia is welcome, there is less excitement for a platform that has been debunked by almost every other hardware manufacturer on planet earth. Nevertheless, a tablet carrying a Nokia badge has emerged online. The tablet further carries the logo of Verizon 4G LTE, along with Windows RT. The tablet has been done up in bright red, which shows Nokia is not shying away from implementing its “colorful” approach to the smartphone segment for its tablet business as well. It’s uncertain, though, if bright and attractive shades alone can save a product when the OS has the least takers in the industry right now. As for specs, the purported tablet seems to offer a full HD 10.1 inch display, a 2.1 GHz quad core Snapdragon 800 chip, 32 GB of internal storage, along with several USB as well a microHDMI port. Sources also mentioned a detachable keyboard being offered. Meanwhile, there is some good news for Nokia or for the Windows platform as a whole. While Windows Phone 8 has emerged as the third preferred OS in the smartphone segment (Nokia being the single largest manufacturer of Windows handsets has lots to cheer about here), Windows has also increased its margin in the tablet space as well, albeit just marginally. Windows’ share of the global tablet market has grown to 4.5 percent, up from 3.7 percent. Windows has also defied the global downturn in the tablet space during second quarter where it recorded a growth of 11 percent when the segment itself shrunk by 8 percent. What remains to be seen now is whether Nokia can change things around for the Windows RT operating system. Nokia Tablet Running Windows RT Leaked is a post from: E-Reader News |
Tablet Segment in China Grows Defying Global Downturn
| Lenovo reported selling a higher number of tablet devices and smartphones than other forms of computing, despite the fact that the tablet segment in its home country of China itself has shrunk a bit. Total tablet sales during the second quarter have turned out to be 3.57 million, which represents a growth of 5.2 percent over the previous quarter. This represents a slight drop from the 6.3 percent growth recorded in the first quarter. However, those statistics are far better than the 10 percent decline that the tablet segment recorded in the second quarter the world over. The trend is likely to reverse and sales are expected to pick up steam once again once Apple launches its new line of tablet devices. The California-based company is slated to launch the successor to its current tablet offerings, iPad 5 and iPad Mini 2, during fall season or even later. Amazon, too, is slated to refresh its tablet lineup with new devices around the same time, while Google’s New Nexus 7 has already reached markets. This should explain the steep drop in demand for the current generation iPad, which recorded the biggest decline in sales at about 25 percent. Shipments dropped from 19.6 million in the first quarter to just 14.6 million in the second quarter. For Samsung, the second largest player in the tablet space, the drop in shipment has been less sharp, having shipped 8.1 million tablet devices during second quarter, a slight dip from the 8.6 million tablet devices it shipped during the first quarter. That still represents a 277 percent year-over-year growth, having shipped just 2.1 million tablets in Q2, 2012.
Tablet Segment in China Grows Defying Global Downturn is a post from: E-Reader News |
B&N Announces $20 Discount for Nook Simple Touch with Glowlight
| Barnes & Noble has announced a price cut for its Nook Simple Touch ereader. What this means is that the front lit e-Reader for only $99.99. This undercuts the ad supported Kindle Paperwhite by $20 which sells for $119 while a similar offering from Kobo, the Kobo Glo sells for $129.99. B&N may not be in the best financial shape right now with their entire line of hardware, but this is a fairly solid deal. The price cut though can be considered to be perfectly timed as the company is known to drop prices during the back to school period. A new model is also under development and the move to slash prices could be seen as a way to clear existing stock. The company has earlier stated it is quitting tablet business, but will remain committed to its ebook readers. The last time we have seen B&N slash prices of its ebook reading devices was during the Get London Reading initiative it was promoting. However, that was a limited period offer. "At just $99, our high-quality, top-rated NOOK Simple Touch GlowLight is an unbeatable value for customers who are seeking an unparalleled, pure reading experience that goes from beach to bed, day or night," said Michael P. Huseby, President, Barnes & Noble, Inc. & CEO, NOOK Media LLC. "NOOK Simple Touch GlowLight is the first Reader to hit the market with built-in illumination for reading in the dark and is the perfect way to experience NOOK's best-in-class digital reading experience at an unbelievable price."
B&N Announces $20 Discount for Nook Simple Touch with Glowlight is a post from: E-Reader News |
Indie Authors Still Ignored by the Industry
| With every self-publishing success story, the door opens a tiny bit wider for the acceptance of indie authors. For every Amanda Hocking, Abbie Glines, David Gaughran, Bella Andre, or Hugh Howey (the list goes on and on), industry watchers and consumers alike begin to show a small measure of greater respect for the choices authors are making. But there are still a few facets of the book industry who remain holdouts, who refuse to acknowledge the contributions of these authors by right of not having been traditionally published. Everything from major book awards to health insurance can be determined simply by whose name is on the back cover of the book, and if there is even a back cover at all. Bookstores top the list as being one of the last major hurdles for indie authors. Even through inclusion in book distribution catalogs, which often incurs an additional fee, authors still have to take it upon themselves to contact bookstores individually and ask them to stock their titles. Interestingly, it is often independently-owned bookstores that are more likely to form that connection with authors, as major chain retailers often use exclusive distribution agreements. Major book awards are also typically off limits to self-published authors, regardless of how high the title may have climbed on the best seller list, and for how many weeks it stayed there. The Guardian reported today on the fact that the criteria for consideration includes being published by a known publisher, and that certain award-winning titles only received that accolade after the book was re-released by a traditional publisher. If the book was good enough to win the price, why couldn’t it have been considered before a well-known publisher decided to take a percentage of the royalties? Finally, book reviews in major publications continue to frustrate authors, as many of the well-known news outlets refuse to review self-published books. Sadly, this phenomenon can even be found at the local, hometown newspaper level. Some headway is being made, though. The Authors Guild, for one, allows self-published authors and freelance writers to join their club, as long as they’ve earned $5,000 in an 18-month period from the sales of their books. Authors who haven’t quite earned that much but have earned at least $500 in that same period are eligible for Associate membership, meaning they can pay the $90 annual dues but cannot vote.
Indie Authors Still Ignored by the Industry is a post from: E-Reader News |
Digital Sales of The Dark Knight Returns Surge After Movie News
| Variety ran an interesting short article this week saying that digital sales of Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns shot up after Zack Snyder said the Batman character in his followup to Man of Steel will be inspired by Miller’s take on the Caped Crusader. In fact, DC Comics says that digital sales of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns were up 161% in July over June’s numbers, setting a record for sales of a full-priced digital graphic novel. Print sales were also up by a similar margin, according to BookScan. The problem is that because neither publishers nor distributors release sales numbers for digital comics, we have no idea what that means. If ten copies sold in June and 16 copies sold in July, that would account for the increase—but that’s not a lot of books. On the other hand, if 10,000 sold in June and 16,100 sold in July, that would be something to crow about. It is true that Batman: The Dark Knight Returns made some of our digital best-seller lists in the second half of July. On July 21, the last day of Comic-Con, it was in the #2 spot on both the Kindle and iBooks lists. On July 28, it was at #6 on the Kindle list. It wasn’t on any of the best-seller lists in the first two weeks of July, not surprisingly as the announcement hadn’t been made yet, so that 161% increase all came in the last two weeks of the month. The best-seller lists are revised hourly so the ones I publish weekly are just a snapshot, but it gives an idea of how the book was doing relative to other digital comics. Digital Sales of The Dark Knight Returns Surge After Movie News is a post from: E-Reader News |
Saturday, August 17, 2013
Video: Blackberry Q5 and Blackberry Z10 Comparison
| The Blackberry Q5 is the latest smartphone to hit the market and bears a striking resemblance to Blackberry Curve. The Z10 and Q5 are both very different phones, though they have the same BB10 operating system. How do these phones rank up against each other? We put them head to head in e-Reading, audio, video and some key app store differences. The Q5 has a 2.1 inch screen that is basically a square, while the Z10 has a 3.1 touchscreen. The key difference is that the Q5 has a full QWERTY Keyboard, which may appeal to people on a budget and love to type. These two phones will appeal to business customers in a different ways. The Q5 costs less than half of the Z10 and Q5, which may do well in emerging markets. The Z10 is more of a multimedia device, videos, apps and everything else performs very well. Video: Blackberry Q5 and Blackberry Z10 Comparison is a post from: E-Reader News |
The eBook Lawsuits Are Over…Where’s My Money?
| As is the case in lawsuits involving major corporations having to pay monetary damages to their customers, the payouts from the Apple and Big Five ebook price fixing scandal will be slow in coming. With Apple’s damages not to even be determined until late spring of next year, the only payments that have taken place are in the form of the settlements that the publishers reached early into the investigation. Once the attorneys involved had received their portion, the remainder had to be divided according to purposeful distribution. But how do consumers know if they qualify for a refund, and how will they find out? According to a website set up on this issue, eBooksAGSettlements.com, there are eligibility requirements: “You are an Eligible Consumer and could qualify for money from the Settlements if: “Certain people or entities are not included in the Settlements, as follows: Minnesota residents are able to file their own lawsuits against the publishers and Apple, but were not included in the much-discussed lawsuit.
The eBook Lawsuits Are Over…Where’s My Money? is a post from: E-Reader News |
Amazon Publishing Newest Imprint Focuses on Biographies
| Amazon’s traditional publishing arm has grown at an incredible rate to include a wide variety of genre-based imprints. Its Kindle Singles platform, which focuses on long-form journalism, has seen probably the most surprising growth, indicating that an increasing number of readers are going back to the once-revered essay-length publications that were often serialized in journals, magazines, and newspapers. Now, capitalizing on the growing popularity of these digital only publications, Amazon Publishing has announced its newest imprint for biographies, Icons. Its first title is due out in December of this year and kicks off with one of the most iconic figures in history, Jesus Christ. While Jesus is undoubtedly a tough act to follow, the first series of ten titles will include other noted biographies: Alfred Hitchcock, Josef Stalin, David Lynch, Ernest Hemmingway, Edgar Allen Poe, Lucien Freud, JD Salinger, Vincent Van Gogh, and Hannah Arendt. One of the goals of the Icons imprint is to highlight important life stories as written by well-known authors. This latest Amazon launch may prove that Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, has an eye on more than just commerce and instead is working to celebrate educational, insightful reading for devoted non-fiction readers. Critics have already argued over Amazon’s choice of names for this inaugural line-up, noting that only one woman was represented. Amazon’s point in the selection was that they chose the authors of these biographies, and not the subjects. By focusing on celebrated authors to pen these titles, Amazon allowed the authors to select biography subjects whom they were passionate about, rather than assigning them book report-style. More titles will be forthcoming after this series launches, so there will certainly be a larger scale of subjects to choose from.
Amazon Publishing Newest Imprint Focuses on Biographies is a post from: E-Reader News |
How the Strand sells print books to ebook readers
Avi Solomon snapped this pic of the window display at NYC bookstore The Strand lauding the virtues of their "Real books priced lower than ebooks," including the fact that you can read them during take-off and landing.
http://boingboing.net/2013/08/16/how-the-strand-sells-print-boo.html
Kobo Cuts Price of Arc by $100, Schedules Event to Announce New eReaders (Probably)
| This past week Kobo did a couple of things to strengthen the notion that they plan to announce new devices soon. Most notably, Kobo sent out invitations to a press event to “See What's Next from Kobo” scheduled for Tuesday, August 27th in New York. Most likely Kobo will unveil what appears to be a […] |
Seniors in Japan More Likely to Adopt eBooks
| A survey to ascertain the pattern of ebook usage in Japan has thrown up some startling results. For what has come to the fore is that it is the older generation and not the gen next that has been found to be more comfortable adopting to the digital version the books. The survey was conducted by the e-book section of Toppan Printing Co and covered 826 individuals from all age groups who had been to the Tokyo International Book Fair. What the survey has revealed is that a whooping 70 percent of the respondents in their 20s have said they prefer reading off the traditional printed books than the corresponding digital version. However, what is surprising is that it is more than 50 percent of those on the other side of 70s said they'd rather prefer ebooks. As for reasons, 52.5 percent cited lower costs for ebooks to explain their preference for the digital format while those who have already been hooked on to the ebooks, a sizeable 70.4 percent said they look forward to more titles to be made into digital versions. The above defies the global trend where it is the younger generation that has been quick to adopt new emerging technology though it could just be a matter of time before the gen next too begin to begin to appreciate the many virtues that ebooks have to offer.
Seniors in Japan More Likely to Adopt eBooks is a post from: E-Reader News |
Friday, August 16, 2013
Digital Comics Bargains for the Weekend
| ComiXology has two 99-cent sales going this weekend, on Mark Millar’s Kick-Ass and Marvel’s Ultimates line. If you’re curious about Brian Michael Bendis’s re-invention of Spider-Man as half-black, half-Latino teenager Miles Morales, now is the time to dive in. If you’re up for a more classic type of adventure tale, Dark Horse has a 99-cent sale on Conan and Red Sonja comics. The Conan comics are the ones written by Brian Wood and illustrated by Becky Cloonan and James Harren, which got a lot of buzz last year, and they are well worth a look. Digital Manga is celebrating Tezuka Week with 15% off the cost of the first ten issues of Astro Boy Magazine, as well as giveaways and other promotions. That makes each issue of Astro Boy Magazine $4.24, but be warned, it’s not downloadable—you can only read it online. And finally, don’t forget that Viz is still having their big sale on all their digital manga. Check out their website or apps and take a look—everything is 20% off. Digital Comics Bargains for the Weekend is a post from: E-Reader News |
e Ink suffers $33 Million Dollar Loss Q2 2013
| e Ink Holdings has had a massive setback with their reported $33.63 million dollar loss last quarter. The company is seeing decreased demand for their e-Reading panels that are the cornerstone of Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Kobo’s e-reading technology. E Ink has seen a constant decline in their last two quarters, due to most of their customer base gravitating towards Android tablets. This quarter, revenue is expected to at least double last quarter's NT$2.93 billion, as many customers are going to release next generation e-Readers. e Ink always sees massive business in Q3 and Q4, as manufacturing kicks into overdrive. Although e-Paper technology accounts for 70% of the companies revalue, they are trying to make a go out of their screens in other commercial spaces. They are seeing modest gains in their signage for airports and transportation industries. They have also debuted new grocery store digital signage that will replace the static price tags. By the end of the year, this new revenue stream is expected to account for 5% of their total earnings. According to the Taipei Times “Last quarter, E Ink booked a one-time severance payment of NT$500 million for a 50 percent workforce layoff at its South Korean LCD manufacturing subsidiary Hydis Technologies Co. The number of Hydis employees has been halved to about 400 from between 800 or 900 before the personal adjustment. Meanwhile e Ink received a record high royalties fee at NT$400 million by licensing Hydis' patents to Sharp, LG Display and other panel makers to make high-resolution LCD panels that are partly used in Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics patents.” e Ink suffers $33 Million Dollar Loss Q2 2013 is a post from: E-Reader News |
Blackberry Q5 Review – The Curve of Blackberries
| Blackberry has officially released their Q5 smartphone that could be considered the spiritual successor of the Curve. It may not pack the punch in terms of overall hardware specs, like the Q10 does, but the price is right at around $300. Is there room in the world for a low-cost phone with a full QWERTY keyboard? Today, we give you a full hands on review of the new Q5, and let you know if we recommend it. The Blackberry Q5 features a 3.1 inch LCD touchscreen with a resolution of 720×720 pixels. The overall display screen gets the job done, but I feel that the Q10 Super AMOLED screen provides richer colors. This is more noticeable in graphic heavy content, such as comic books, magazines and videos. One thing that is important to note about the screen is that you are locked into a portrait exclusive view. You cannot turn the phone into landscape mode and watch videos or use it the same way as you would the Z10. Blackberry has locked the phone in such a way, that you will never be able to use in it landscape mode. Underneath the hood is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 4 1.2 GHZ dual core processor and 2 GB of Ram. It has only 8 GB of internal memory, but you can enhance it via the SD Card up to 32 GB. Most Blackberry phones have the SD card underneath the removable battery, but the Q5 buckles that trend by having the SD and Micro Sim card slot on the side of the unit, underneath a plastic flap. Speaking of plastic, this phones build quality is all plastic and does have the elegant aluminum and glazed glass as the Q10. It does not necessarily feel like a cheap phone, but draws the distinction between a high end and lower end phone. Sort of like drawling the old parallels between the Blackberry Bold and Blackberry Curve. The Q10, has a faster processor, more memory and a bigger camera, but carries a hefty price of around $900. This unit is only $300 off contract, so it may have a more global appeal. The big draw about the Blackberry Q5 is the full QWERTY keyboard. This phone will make sense to current or former Blackberry users, that find typing a lot of texts and emails too cumbersome on a traditional touchscreen device. Personally, i get like 200 emails a day, and it is nice to power respond with a real keyboard, instead of relying on the predictive text correction features found on an iPhone. The keyboard, is the real reason you are buying this phone. In the end, this may not be the most glamorous smartphone out there, the plastic design does feel a bit tacky. Still, you can get the full Blackberry 10 experience with a keyboard at more then half the price as the Q10. Software Blackberry has invested heavily into their Blackberry 10 operating system, and this phone ships with version 10.1. One of the most seldom features of this new generation OS is the built in Android emulator. All BB10 phones have the ability to run Android files, this makes it easier for developers who submit apps into Blackberry World. They don’t have to redo their apps in the native language and can easily use tools to convert their existing library of Android content over to Blackberry. Currently, Blackberry 10.1 has a fairly outdated version of the Android Runtime, with 2.3. Blackberry is currently beta testing a new version of the emulator that will bring it all the way up to Jellybean. This will ensure that a greater number of apps will be compatible and will likely kindle renewed interest into Blackberry devices. There are a few things that remain attractive about the Blackberry ecosystem in general. First of all, email. Email is handled very differently on Blackberry then it is on Android or iOS devices. The most compelling feature is the ‘delete prior’ which will bulk delete all emails in a specific inbox. If you have an iPhone and get a bunch of emails, you have to manually delete each one. Again, I often get a few hundred a day, and the iPhone is unrealistic to manage large quantities. Blackberry makes email management a top priority and currently still offers the best service in the business. The second element is the revised Blackberry Messenger experience. This is one of the few services that have all data handled by the companies own data servers, so customers benefit from lower data usage. You can chat via text, voice or video chat with your BBM brethren. If you want to add a friend, you can use NFC to bump the phones to share contact details, or even generate a QR code to add a friend. No wonder the entire internet is enamored with the idea of BBM coming to iOS and Android. Blackberry World is the place to go if you want to download apps, movies, music and games. They have over 200,000 apps currently in their system, but most are painfully woeful. Most of the apps people use on a daily basis, such as Instagram, Vine, and Netflix are nowhere to be seen. Instead, customers have turn to 3rd party app stores to get these apps, such as our own Good e-Reader BB10 App Store. One of the big drawbacks about Blackberry World, is a large number of the content is converted Android apps. This type of content normally suffers from performance issues and can often provide a lackluster experience. There is no way to organize the store by apps that were developed natively for BB10 and what ones were converted. There are also a number of pirate apps and games issued by people who weren’t the original developer. Blackberry 10 on a whole, is a fairly polished operating system. You will likely never encounter crash issues and everything just works. Multi-tasking and Blackberry Balance remain two things that most competitors cannot touch. The severe downside is the quality of the apps out there, and people are obsessed with them. Readers in North America and Europe, often have dedicated e-Readers and tablets to consume media. A large demographic in China, Japan, Korea and South America mostly use their phones. Reading is big business and often the phone is always with you, which makes it easy to catch up on websites and news items. There really aren’t an extensive library of reading apps in the official Blackberry World app store. Amazon released a Kindle app for the Z10, but is only compatible with that specific model. You won’t find many apps at all and instead you will be forced to learn how to side-load in your own apps. Luckily we have put together some extensive tutorials on how do this, step by step. This will insure you can get Pulse, Flipboard, Feedly, Kindle, Kobo, Comixology, Manga, or anything else you want. I still find it odd that Blackberry has not really tried to focus more on e-Reading. The Blackberry Q5 only has a 3.1 inch screen, so it is not the most compelling e-Reader out there. I have found the type of apps best suited to the screen are ones that display pure text. eBook reading apps really shine, because you can chance the size of the font to suit your optimal needs. RSS apps are also fairly useful, because they normally strip away everything but the core story. We tried various newspaper, magazine and comic book apps, but the screen was really too small to read effectively. You will find yourself constantly pinching and zooming every single page to get the pictures large enough to read the built in text. Wrap Up When we first got this phone last week, I thought I would hate it. The Blackberry Q10 was a fine phone, but not worth the $900 it was available in Canada to buy off-contract. The Q5 is only a few hundred, and will reel in prior Blackberry users that may have shifted to another phone, because of the high costs. If you love physical keyboards, text like crazy or answer a ton of emails, this may be the phone for you. You will not break the bank and it has enough features to suit most peoples needs. For the advanced user, there is an entire new world of app-possibilities out there with sideloading. PROS Priced Right CONS Rating: 7/10
Blackberry Q5 Review – The Curve of Blackberries is a post from: E-Reader News |
Apple’s Court Date for Damages Is May 2104
| Consumers who are expecting some payouts as a result of the Department of Justice lawsuit against Apple and five of the Big Six publishers will be waiting a little longer for their refunds. While the court ruled that Apple was guilty of collaborating to raise ebook prices, and even though the publishers have already settled out of court for their involvement in the allegations, a court date to determine exactly how much Apple will pay is now schedule for May 2014. In addition to considering how much Apple will pay, an amount that could be in the neighborhood of half a billion dollars under existing anti-trust precedent which allows for triple that amount in cases involving price fixing, Judge Denise Cote will also consider the concerns that the DOJ has raised that Apple’s punishment wasn’t strict enough to prevent the tech giant from engaging in similar deals down the road. The newly proposed brief from the government calls for Apple to be barred from setting discount pricing with those publishers for five years, rather than the two years that the ruling currently considers. While May 2014 might seem like a long way off, it is the date that the DOJ attorneys requested; Apple has stayed quiet on the matter. Both sides will spend their time between now and that date interviewing potential contributors to the case and deciding how the plaintiffs will file. While the publishers have all stated rather vehemently that they are not guilty of any wrongdoing in the matter, they opted to settle the case out of court and pay damages in the millions of dollars because it would have been less expensive than going to trial over the allegations.
Apple’s Court Date for Damages Is May 2104 is a post from: E-Reader News |
Some Publishers Record High Print Circulation in the Face of Digital Onslaught
| We might be in the midst of a digital revolution right now, but the digital wave isn't as all-encompassing as it seems. Take, for instance, the recent trend as seen among publishers in the UK who reported a rise in sales of its print publications in spite of the digital versions selling well. Publications like Toxic or Girl Talk Art, for boys and girls, respectively, have reported a positive increase of their print versions. That tallies well with the findings of a survey conducted a few weeks ago in which it was reported that a majority (88 percent) of British readers still prefer reading a print magazine to digital edition on an electronic device such as the tablet, smartphone, or even the PC. Parents, too, seem more comfortable with the idea of their children reading a print version rather than the virtual edition. However, the two magazines mentioned above which cater to the kid community present a completely different picture than that of other publications. Some, such as Nuts and Zoo, have seen their circulation go down steadily in recent times in the face of digital versions making inroads among the reading community. In fact, with the rapid proliferation of smart- and mobile devices, readers have been showing an increasing preference for digital content the world over. While industry pundits have been quick to predict that the future belongs to digital, there are also those who seem to remain loyal to the print versions. The latter may make for a minority community compared to those who have switched to digital though the figure still is quite significant.
Some Publishers Record High Print Circulation in the Face of Digital Onslaught is a post from: E-Reader News |
