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Barnes & Noble's Nook HD+ Is Clever

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Barnes & Noble just sent an email out announcing their two new tablets: The Nook HD and Nook HD+.

Previously to this release I was discussing with my partner, who works for Barnes & Noble ways that B&N could compete with Amazon and Apple in the tablet space. There was a concern that B&N had lost traction and that the company was going to spiral out of control and crash, eventually. These tablets have just eliminated a good portion of that worry.

For full disclosure, I came across a rather pleasant and unexpected windfall in regards to money and I’ve been kvetching about the poor performance of my 1st edition iPad and in a way, Apple has sent a clear message that they regard the device as dead because they are no longer writing software updates for it. I went ahead and purchased an iPad 3 and I’ve been enjoying it quite a lot.

This news from B&N is very interesting to me as this new device has several key areas that put up more bang-for-less-money. The first surprise is the processing speed of the Nook HD+ in comparison with the iPad 3. 1.5GHz dual-core versus 1GHz dual-core. Ever since 2003 when the world pretty much stopped worrying and loved the bomb that is processor speed ratings this distinction isn’t as compelling as it appears on paper. The two units have different core technologies, the iPad has an A5X processor and the Nook HD+ has an OMAP 4470 processor. We have seen from manufacturers like HTC and Samsung that even when you pour huge muscular processors into devices to compete, that if the experience of the user isn’t done correctly then all the computing horsepower in the world means very little. It’s not about the muscles, it’s about the refinement of the motor cortex. It isn’t how strong you are, it’s your dexterity – at least in the phone and tablet space. I do hand it to B&N when it comes to pumping numbers and keeping costs suppressed – that’s a win in their column.

The second surprise, and I’ve been half expecting someone to notice this glaring deficit in tablet OS design comes down to what I believe to be Barnes & Noble’s knife-held-confidently-behind-its-back killer feature. Barnes & Noble is going to bring profile control to the tablet space. This casts a huge pall over both Amazon and Apple devices and redefines a tablet to be a multiuser device. It is exceptionally clever for Barnes & Noble to do this because it draws a clear bead of connection from everyone’s computer experience (where you have an account and profile) off to your device. When it comes to Apple, they rejected this model and regard a device to be a one-person-only deal, which has been a weakness in the iOS OS design. Apple may be too far along to make such a fundamental change to iOS so we may see the creation of a new track of tablet technology. Is a tablet multiuser or single-user? By being multi-user, and if B&N does it elegantly, it can cast B&N in a family friendly light, more than an Amazon or Apple product because one relatively inexpensive device can serve an entire family. Instead of the onerous cost of a Kindle or iPad for each person, because each device is single-user, one Nook HD+ can be used by different members of a family without having to worry about security, privacy, preference or profile leakages between people. It’s a failure of the Apple iOS OS and here is why: When I come across another persons iOS device, I am utterly lost – I don’t know their preferences, their security settings, where they have placed icons, and I find myself having to relegate to the search screen to even find where they put the ubiquitous “Settings” icon. If B&N does profiles elegantly, this will be a non-issue. Rendered moot because each person has their own settings that they are used to, making the confusion evaporate.

I think that B&N will pursue a marketing strategy that elevates the personal touch and the family friendliness of their Nook HD and Nook HD+ devices. That will be key, with profiles, the ability to use LendMe to share books, and their admittedly well-done “Parent recording storybooks for their children” technology they will position themselves to be “The Booksellers who care about you and your family” and they will occupy a third niche in this space. The first niche is the deep-discount one, that’s occupied by Amazon. The second niche is the elegance-at-all-costs one, which is occupied by Apple – and then last but certainly not least, the third niche which is the Friends-Family-Kids one, which is going to be Barnes & Noble Booksellers.

This niche may be the best hope for Barnes & Noble to retain their 21st century relevance.  They should maintain their “Brick and Mortar” presence and cater their stores to being a place where you feel welcome, with friendly staff and a coffeehouse/library atmosphere. The elevator sales-pitch is that B&N is more personable and immediate than Amazon could ever hope of being – you don’t know Jack at Amazon, but you know Jack at B&N. B&N’s approach to kids and family with their very deep roots set throughout America means they have already beat Apple to the market in terms of the personal touch. Yes, Apple has the Genius Bar and yes they are friendly geeks, but you don’t go to a Genius Bar to find out about Apps and Woodworking! You can only do that at a Barnes & Noble!

The real competition isn’t between B&N and Apple anyhow, since Apple touches B&N only in this one market-space. The real competition here is between Amazon and B&N. It’ll be an interesting evolution to say the least – which do people prefer more? The cold, impersonal, sterile deep-discount algorithms of Amazon or the instant-gratification, warm, personal, and direct approach of Barnes & Noble Booksellers? It may simply come down to how people refer to these two competitors. You USE Amazon and you VISIT Barnes & Noble Booksellers. That right there is something that Jeff Bezos can never buy himself into, but B&N already exists to cater to. Which do you value, the impersonal or the personal?

Barnes & Noble Booksellers may have just secured their direct relevancy in the market for the next decade with these two new devices. The proof is in the pudding of course, these devices, once in the stores, will be the final arbiter on the survivability of B&N in the tablet market space.

 

Nook vs. Kindle vs. iPad

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I’ve been watching a lot of the press surrounding the brewing three-party war between Apple, Barnes & Noble Booksellers, and Amazon over the tablet space for the past few months. I was one of the first people to be in line two Aprils ago when the first generation iPad was released by Apple. I bought it without hesitation, knowing that it was exactly what I had wanted and dreamed of all this time – a much larger version of my beloved iPod Touch. As I’ve had some opportunity to use different devices I’ve discovered that at least for me, each device that I own serves a particular purpose. Here’s a handy list of the device and what I use it for:

  • 24” iMac – General computing, work and writing.
  • 13” MacBook Laptop – General computing, work and writing.
  • First-Generation iPad – Convenience browsing, game playing, reading comic books, cookbooks
  • iPhone 4 carried by Verizon – Telephone and 3G data access with the HotSpot feature. I use it for mobile data access, taking pictures, scanning prices and comparing retailers and writing down notes and ideas for my writing. Sometimes inspiration strikes when you least expect it. Also enables me to play Foursquare, as well as many other location-aware games and activities that my family has come to enjoy.
  • iPod Nano 6th Generation – Contains my entire music library and is the device I use when I want to play music. Also has a very useful pedometer that I use to track my steps and calories burned while I work.
  • Nook SImple Touch – Contains a giant book library and is the device I use when I want to read.

I have to be very clear here, I am an Apple fanboy. If Apple makes it, I’ll use it. Over the years all the Apple devices have worked exceptionally well and over time they have gotten better. I still love using my iPad and my iPhone. There are four devices that I simply cannot go without whenever I travel, my iPad, my iPhone, my iPod, and my Nook. The iMac is a work-only machine and I leave it at work all the time. My MacBook I use from time to time, but I actually prefer to work on my iPad to my MacBook unless I’m writing something very long. The iPod Nano fits in my pocket so easily, or clips to my shirt so well that carrying it everywhere I go is a non-issue. My phone keeps me in touch, mostly over SMS and iMessage, and secondarily by the voice service itself. The majority of this post isn’t about these other items that I find indispensable, but rather about the tablets.

I can speak for the iPad and the Nook Simple Touch. I was absolutely sold over the iPad, especially when it comes to reading comic books. As for reading “regular” books, the glossy display and backlit nature of the iPad does start to wear down the eyes plus the native book app in the iPad, which is iBooks, doesn’t support the font I like the most, which is Helvetica Neue. I was a little dubious about the Nook Simple Touch at first, but the device won me over with it’s eInk display and it’s expandability via a microSD card port on the upper right corner of the device. The Nook Simple Touch has a lot of really compelling features going for it which made it’s purchase a sure thing. Here’s a list of what I like about my Nook Simple Touch:

  • Size – It’s perfectly sized. It feels a lot like a paperback book, this size really is a sweet-spot for me because this device can fit in my front and rear pants pockets when I want to carry it without having it in my hands and it can be easily stowed anyplace a book can go.
  • Weight – It’s surprisingly lightweight. Even with the microSD card, which only adds maybe a gram or two to it’s total weight, the whole package is very light.
  • Textured and Contoured Back – The rear of the Nook Simple Touch is contoured to fit my hands and rubberized so that I can keep a nice grip on it without having to strain.
  • Interface – Ever since the 1.1.0 Nook Firmware upgrade the device has been surprisingly quick on display updates and the touch sensitivity has also been tuned and I notice it. You can either use the side navigation buttons or a tap or swipe on the display to advance pages. It has a built in dictionary and wifi, with some social features but so far I haven’t explored those enough to report on them.
  • Compatibility – The Nook Simple Touch (as well as the iPad) both can open and display ePub format books. There is a special place in my heart for the ePub format. it’s open, it’s well understood, and there are tools like Calibre which I can use to convert PDF or DOC or MOBI format (actually there are a huge number of formats that Calibre understands) and convert them all to ePub. I bought a 4GB microSD card and was able to store thousands of free eBooks on my Nook without even a second glance. I know the books will work, I know they are configurable, it’s perfect for me.

So now I’m witnessing this war brewing between Apple, B&N and Amazon. I’ve never really used a Kindle, but I assume it’s most like the Nook devices. The latest device to be released, and is shipping now is the Amazon Fire. I’ve heard a lot of people going on about how the Fire may be Amazon’s answer to Barnes & Nobles Nook Tablet and may compete with the iPad. Out of curiosity I went to Amazon’s site where they describe the new Kindle Fire and as I was reading along several alarm bells went off in my head all at the same time. Here’s a list of issues I have with the Kindle Fire, even before laying my hands on it:

  • Eight hours of battery life – Even my iPad can beat this rating. I will hand it to the Kindle Fire that they were able to squeeze such a battery lifetime out of a device that was smaller than the iPad, but when you are watching video I will bet real money that end users never see these eight hours of battery life, let alone their hedged-bet of seven and a half for video playback.
  • Incompatible with ePub format! – This one took my breath away! Any device should at least be compatible with the ePub format, but Amazon has elected to support their own format called AZW instead. There are other formats supported, but ePub is not on that list and my library is configured to support ePub and I prefer it that way.
  • Prime Membership – If you want the most bang for your Kindle Fire buck, you’ll have to spring for an $80 a year Prime Membership. This could be useful if you do a lot of Amazon.com purchases but I don’t. It’s a little creepy that Amazon sells you a device and then charges you over and over again to use it fully. Feels more like a cash-grab and/or a gyp to me.

I don’t really believe the Kindle Fire will pose much of a risk to the iPad and iPad 2 class devices. I haven’t gotten a chance to hold either of the more relevant competitors devices in my hands to give it a right and thorough review. Based on just the description from the manufacturers alone, and even considering the Nook Tablet costs $50 more than the Amazon offering I can say just from the start that the B&N device is the one to get. Better battery life, better storage, better hardware, ePub format, that’s the one that I would get if I didn’t already have an iPad.

Keep your eyes peeled on this blog. I doubt I’ll ever get my hands on a Kindle Fire, but I’m pretty sure I’ll eventually be able to review the Nook Tablet.

Apple iPad

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Apple has unveiled their latest technological offering, the Apple iPad. It fills a niche between their iPhone and their Macintosh line of computers (MacBooks cause everyones hot for mobility). I was on pins and needles for the entire event, which I enjoyed in fits and starts from the Engadget Liveblog page. Watching Apple demonstrate the device, chat up some of it’s features, and then at the end pull the pin and lob a hand-grenade of aggressive pricing at everyone, I was stunned!

What gets me is a bit of geek lore, at least at first. iPad, I’m sure Apple’s inspiration was a ‘notepad’ since the device is arguably most like a conveniently-beefy sized notepad. The word iPad though does have deep connections for many Sci-Fi Geeks who also happen to be gadgetophiles. In Star Trek TNG a common device that was handed from crewmember to crewmember was a PADD. A roughly 10 inch rectangular piece of metal and plastic that was touch sensitive and displayed information. Oh eat your heart out! iPad – PADD. For geeks like me, this is a blossoming of authentic science-fiction that has been turned into a real thing and offered to us. The act of handing our iPad to someone else to look at something makes that whole experience valuable – we saw that in Star Trek, we’re doing it in real life. It’s one thing out of a multitude, but it’s very much like heroin for geeks. If not for every geek, at least this one.

The iPad is not only chock full of sci-fi technoromanticism (portmanteau bitches!) but it has the capacity to change the world. The iPad, like the iPhone and the iPod is a device that does something and from the track record of Apple, it will do the tasks very well. Whether you get it chock full of storage or not, wireless up the wazoo or not, the device itself means something. A full color illuminated display for books with authentic graphical representations of the behavior of real books will enhance literacy and impact the printed page. It won’t demolish the print industry, but it will liberate books from the tyranny of limited printings. If you want a book and it’s in a digital format, the idea that “We’re all out, we are waiting for a second printing” simply goes away. This will ensure that books can be spread, retained, and even published without the usual prohibitive costs related to acquiring an editor, a publishing house, signing book deals. The iPad (et al) will do for books what the iPod did for music – ie release creativity. People who couldn’t necessarily get their music out into the world via a record contract could suddenly record and put their music on MySpace or thru a Podcast and then the record companies didn’t matter so much, the consumers could approach the artists directly. Same goes for books. Before if you wanted to write the great American novel you’d have to pound it out, submit it to publishers and they controlled whether it spread or not. The iPad (et al) can release literature from control, bypass the gatekeepers. Everyone can publish.

When I say (et al) what do I mean? iPad isn’t the only device out there that can render literature, so can the Nook and the Kindle. The iPad presents an overwhelming challenge to it’s competitor devices, not so much for the principal context of literature, but because the iPad can do much much more than the Kindle or Nook could possibly muster. Playing Music, Movies, Extensibility through the App Store, these are things that the Nook and Kindle just can’t accomplish (save music, which I know the Nook can…) and it’s this extensibility, full color, and full touch sensitivity across the entire device. The iPad is a killer device for many forms of literature, but the form I’m personally most driven by is that of comic books. These books  are bright, graphical, textual, and often times have callouts where hypertextual links would offer incredible convenience. One thing people have to understand, and this is true of the iPad as well as the Nook, is that you do not have to wait for some DRM’ed eBook to be published to read literature, whether it be a classic like The Iliad or Green Lantern Volume 2. You can do the legwork yourself, these two devices have open extensibility, in the Nook it’s the ability to dispaly PDF files and open eBook formats – while for the iPad it’s the foundation of the iPhone OS and the sure extensibility of the App Store.

Waiting for eBook publishing to catch up is not as compelling a reason to hesitate as may be feared. Routes to getting what you want will always exist as long as there is an analog hole. For print matter, the analog hole is the print itself. You buy a book, disassemble it, feed it to a sheetfed color scanner and in an afternoon you’ve converted a physical book to it’s digital counterpart. You can then spread that digital representation to whomever you wish, it is definitely not legal, but it is something you can do, thanks to the analog hole. This is most paramount to content providers, publishers and the like. Your lesson is this: Change your business model when the technology changes and you will succeed – Fail and you will be buried. If XYZ Publisher refuses to heed this warning and refuses to publish their product in a digital format then the customers will be forced to cope and create the knockoff digital content on their own, they know what they want and if it’s possible for them to obtain it, they will. XYZ Publisher will find their sales drying up because nobody wants dead trees anymore, they want digitial content, and if that has leaked into the network, all those potential sales are gone and XYZ might as well board up and close shop. It is better for XYZ, and their customers if they immediately produce digital content, leave DRM by the wayside, treat their customers with respect and they’ll make profits like gangbusters. A perfect example of this is Marvel and DC Comics. For years people have been disassembling these comic books and scanning them and making the entire archive available on the network free of charge. By not leaping on the bandwagon immediately, they’ve missed a golden opportunity to extend their product into a entirely new economic ecosystem. The drop-dead-date has not passed yet, but it is coming, around March when the iPad starts to sell. For example, if DC wanted to jump on top of this immediately they’d need to get a DC Comic Book App set up in the App Store, set up a channel for paying for content (which you can now do through an App) and then deliver digital editions of their entire line available through their iPad App. Charge the cover price, skip out on the cost of printing, happy customers. Win win and win.

What then for the Kindle and Nook? They will always have a place at the table. I don’t see iPad annihilating them, however I do see Nook leading Kindle to the MC Escher Staircase and pushing it. Kindle’s living nightmare, an Apple competitor, is now here. Nook will push Kindle and iPad will shoot it once it lands at the bottom of the MC Escher Staircase. It won’t be pretty.

And just so everyone is aware, I am saving money so I can buy myself an iPad. I couldn’t imagine not having a PADD. 🙂