Apple iPad Raises the Stakes for E-Readers

Apple’s much-awaited iPad tablet is a good looking, multipurpose e-reader but it is no Kindle slayer, say publishing executives and electronic-book enthusiasts. Instead, the iPad is likely to raise the stakes and help traditional e-readers evolve into more sophisticated devices.

“The iPad is for casual readers and people who favor an all-in-one type of device, while dedicated E Ink-based e-readers are for avid readers,” says Wiebe de Jager, executive director with Eburon Academic Publishers, a Netherlands-based publishing service.

“The iPad is a great device for casual reading, especially magazine-like articles and textbooks, and to a lesser extent for e-books, but there is no way you can compare the iPad’s backlit LCD screen to low-power e-readers’ screens today,” he says.

Apple on Wednesday launched the iPad, a lightweight tablet with a 9.7-inch touchscreen display that brings together web surfing, books, movies and music in an easy-to-carry device. The iPad, which will start shipping in about two months, ranges from $500 to $830 depending on storage and connectivity.

But that’s still almost twice the price of a 6-inch e-reader with half the convenience, says James McQuivey, an analyst with Forrester Research.

“Now that we have seen the iPad, we don’t feel that the e-reader market is going to be hampered by it,” he says. “Smaller sized e-readers are half the price of an iPad and great for reading.”

But McQuivey expects the iPad to hurt the large-screen readers category, which includes the Kindle DX and the Plastic Logic Que. The Kindle DX features a 9.7-inch black-and-white screen and is priced at $490, while the 10.5-inch Plastic Logic Que with E Ink costs $650 or $800 depending on the storage offered.

An iPad Screen for All Seasons?

The fundamental difference between digital-book readers and their electronic peers, such as laptops and phones, is display technology.

Smartphones and laptops use LCD screens that offer vivid color images but are difficult to read in sunlight. Electronic-ink displays, as seen in the Kindle and other e-book readers, are currently stuck in a black-and-white world but they claim a better reading experience. Take a Kindle or a Sony Reader to the park on a sunny weekend and you could have a daylong picnic with just the e-reader.

The iPad can’t offer the same advantages. Vinita Jakhanwal, an analyst with research firm iSuppli say an LCD screen is not as sunlight-friendly as an E Ink display.

The LCD screen also consumes more battery: An iPad promises 10 hours of battery life compared to a Kindle, which doesn’t have to be charged for at least a week. The Kindle’s E Ink screen consumes power only when the page is turned; turn off the wireless and you can go for a week without plugging it in. By comparison an LCD display is said to drink anywhere from 40 percent to 60 percent of the device’s overall power consumption. Backlighting in LCDs can drain power, though companies are trying to use LEDs for the backlight to save on power.

An LCD screen can also be harsher on the eyes. “Reading for a few hours on a handheld LCD screen can be quite a strain,? says Jakhanwal.

Where the iPad does score is in its ability to offer a color display and the ability to embed audio and video files in books. That may not be an advantage for too long. Both E Ink and Qualcomm are working on offering color screens that consume very little power and can be used both outdoors and indoors. At the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month, Pixel Qi showed a LCD display that can switch between a full-color video mode and a low-power black-and-white display.

A Better Look for E-Books

The Kindle and the Nook’s black-and-white screens may have reduced eye strain but they also stripped the aesthetics out of books. Shorn of the usual typographic tools, e-books on these devices have turned into monotonous blocks of characters.

The iPad will offer publishers a chance to come up with enhanced e-books that contain images, links, background material, embedded audio and even video. It’s a move that’s likely to prompt other traditional e-reader makers to offer tools that will improve the layout of books, says McQuivey. And upcoming color screens for e-readers could help level the playing field between the iPad and other e-readers.

“What the iPad does is say that you don’t have to give up the reading experience when you get the device,” he says.

But some die-hard e-reader fans like Len Edgerly, who hosts the weekly Kindle Chronicles podcast, say pretty e-books aren’t as big a draw as some would think.

“When I am reading, I don’t want to be too distracted,” he says. “It’s about the words, and when I read the Kindle, it seems to bring me closer to the author’s words. That’s essence of reading to me.”

Publishers Battle for the Best Deal

Ultimately, the fight for dominance in the e-reader market is likely to be fought among two giants: Apple and Amazon. And the key to this war will be pricing.

Amazon has been battling publishers to offer electronic best-sellers in its online store for $10. So far, though, Apple hasn’t announced pricing for books in its iBooks store. Reports indicate that it is likely to be in the $14 to $15 range.

“It’s going to be a titanic struggle with publishers trying hard to get Amazon to abandon the $10-bestsellers pricing,” says Edgerly. “But they are unlikely to succeed.”

For Amazon, the success of the Kindle as a hardware platform is secondary to the company’s desire to sell more books, and pricing is the key to the latter.

As a consumer, Edgerly says even if Apple books come with a few extra videos or audios, he won’t pay for it.

“Why would I pay an extra $3 to see a video or hear audio when I get the same book for much less on Amazon?” he says.

Reaching Out to the World

Though Apple’s Steve Jobs has said that books in the iBooks store will be based on the open standard EPUB, which is supported by all e-book readers but the Kindle, he hasn’t talked about digital rights management (DRM).

For now, iBooks are expected to be available only in the United States. That could be because Apple may be using its own DRM system, Fairplay, says de Jager. The iBooks DRM will not be compatible with that of Adobe’s.

“So all those people, mainly in Europe, buying Adobe DRM’ed books will not be able to read them in the iBooks app and vice versa,” he says. “It seems that Apple is trying to create their own e-book ecosystem, just like Amazon did with the Kindle store, Kindle e-book format and Kindle DRM.”

The future of e-reading lies in open e-book systems without DRM, and it is not clear how Apple or Amazon will take to that.