Aidan Malley
Google has made its online catalog of books available in an iPhone-optimized web viewer — but Amazon is dropping hints it will expand its previously exclusive Kindle e-books to support other mobile devices.
The move gives iPhone owners access to about 1.5 million books available in the US (and about 500,000 international books) in the public domain either through expired copyrights or open licenses, all without having to download proprietary apps.
Google's Book Search team says the feat of optimizing the collection was accomplished by using automatic text scanning to reformat the books for the small screens instead of using the raw page images. Some texts produced in difficult-to-scan formats aren't immediately available but should be added as technology improves.
The feature is a challenge to App Store software like Classics and Stanza that also take advantage of the public domain to fill their libraries but which have custom interfaces for bookmarking and navigating texts.
Not to be left out, Amazon also hinted just before the launch that it would expand the Kindle format for e-books beyond its proprietary Kindle reader to a range of different devices.
"We are excited to make Kindle books available on a range of mobile phones," Amazon spokesman Drew Herdener tells the New York Times. "We are working on that now."
Which phones will get the copy-protected books aren't known. However, the format has been built from the ground up for downloads and for viewing on relatively large screens like that of the dedicated Amazon reader, making iPhones and iPods possible (though far from certain) candidates. Paid electronic reading has become more commonplace on the Apple devices but has been curbed partly by a limited range of books to buy; Amazon, in turn, offers about 230,000 tiles, most of which are modern and are more likely to include bestsellers.
When any cellphone-ready version of the Kindle standard would appear is just as much of a mystery — though the company is slated to hold an event on Monday, February 9th that should introduce the iPod-like second-generation Kindle and may serve as a venue for other book-related announcements.
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55 Comments
It'd be great to have Amazon ebooks on the iPhone.
Let's hope.
Apple are missing a trick by not releasing an iPod Touch with a 7" screen.
If they sit around doing nothing and try and figure this thing out too long they'll end up with another Apple TV on their hands...
Apple - YOUR Netbook equivelent & e-Book 'Kindle Killer' a.k.a reader = iPod Touch with 7" screen.
Not hard really - won't eat Macbook sales, won't eat iPod or iPhone sales.
Make it so!(Can you see how I'm already using competive language 'kindle killer' - Amazon are on the verge of wining something big with Kindle - it may take them another iteration to get it right but they are learning..)
Anybody know if there's a way to mark your place in these google books? I moved it to my home page and I'm ready to rock (or read) and whenever I bounce to email or Safari and come back, I have to find where I left off
Apple are missing a trick by not releasing an iPod Touch with a 7" screen.
If they sit around doing nothing and try and figure this thing out too long they'll end up with another Apple TV on their hands...
Apple - YOUR Netbook equivelent & e-Book 'Kindle Killer' a.k.a reader = iPod Touch with 7" screen.
Not hard really - won't eat Macbook sales, won't eat iPod or iPhone sales.
Now that's an excellent idea- I would only add to it to include bluetooth.
I've seen many on the subway using the Kindle and the Sony and they appear very cool.
Imagine the mating of an touch screen iPod with a reader and a netbook- man is that ever appealing.
Anybody know if there's a way to mark your place in these google books? I moved it to my home page and I'm ready to rock (or read) and whenever I bounce to email or Safari and come back, I have to find where I left off
yeah i just checked that. annoying. Then again, I like to read and really find the entire concept of ebooks to be really just unappealing. I don't want to read a book on my iPhone? This google books reader gives me 9 pages at a time! That's a lot of scrolling. I think the Kindle has a better design as an ebook reader, but mostly because it slighly mimics the feel of a book... slightly.
I get a psychic pleasure from holding a book, physically seeing how many pages I have left, having shelves with books on them, being able to sort through my shelf and pick a book out for a friend, flip around to different parts of a book i have read/want to read, scope peoples covers when someone is reading a book, etc. etc. etc. I mean, what, am I supposed to say "oh, you'll really enjoy this thumb drive! I've got 10 books on it!