Hmmmm….

Either something went wrong with WordPress or I wasn’t paying proper attention.

I might have accidentally deleted the latest post that was here.

And I no longer recall what it was.

Anyway, no conspiracy. You’re not seeing things.

Purely stupid accident — if one did get deleted.

iWork Adds ePub Export

I was busy watching a live video session of an Android tablet and so ignoring Twitter.

When the video was over, I got hit with several tweets about Apple updating iWork’s Pages desktop app with ePub export capability.

Right now, these are two links to look at:

Test-driving Apple Pages with ePub export

ePub export comes to Pages in iWork 9.0.4 update

More about this at another time as I learn more.

Samsung Galaxy Tablet Looks Fast

Engadget embedded a problematic video. Someone ripped it and posted it on YouTube. Now I’ve embedded that one here.

Of course, every demo video looks wonderful. But unless they played with the video speed, this thing looks like it’s wicked fast.

No telling what additional APIs Samsung might have thrown in there to make devs have to crank out a GTab-specific version of their apps, though.

If they price this over $350-$400, it’s dead in the water for most of the public, though.

Apple To Kill Samsung’s Galaxy Tablet Day Before Debut?

Apple Issues Invitation For September 1 “Special Event”

Gee, is there anything happening on the 2nd?

I think Apple did this deliberately. It’s been prepping this announcement all along, had it all ready to go, but have been waiting to see who they could stab with a pre-emption.

I thought they’d announce on September 8th. And some people today said September 7th.

I wouldn’t expect any 7″ iPad Mini to be available immediately. But all they have to do is “preview” it as One More Thing and that will kill all competitors and pretenders to the iPad throne.

Oh Snap!

@mikecane Think of it this way: The samsung tablet is a less portable Dell Streak, not a more portable iPad.Tue Aug 24 19:43:59 via TwitterrificBaldur Bjarnason
fakebaldur

Apple Will Do A Seven-Inch iPad This Year

I don’t see how Apple can not do this.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab is an Android 2.2-based tablet with a seven-inch screen.

It looks damn slick in this promo video.

Click = big

I don’t see how Apple can let smaller and less-expensive tablets such as this tempt people away from the iPad.

The iPad is vulnerable both on the issues of price and size.

While $499 is really an impressive price for what an iPad delivers, people might look at a lower-priced Android tablet such as this and go with Good Enough — just as those who are stuck on, or prefer, current cellphone carriers make do with an Android-based cellphone instead of the iPhone they’d rather have.

And that size issue matters too. Just ask any woman who would prefer technology that’s easily toted in a shoulder bag versus one that must be carried separately in a hand.

The price/size nexus is what drove sales of netbooks too.

In these financially-stressed times, people don’t have money to spend twice. If they wind up with a lower-priced Android tablet, that pushes an iPad purchase further away. That’s money lost by Apple.

Steve Jobs must understand this. And delivering the iPad first in a large edition blunted all the critics who would have called a seven-inch iPad too small to be practical or useful.

Now that people understand just how good an iPad is, making it less expensive, smaller, and lighter would be icing on the Win cake.

With Samsung due to announce its Galaxy Tab on September 2nd, will we begin to see credible leaks for a seven-inch iPad? I think so.

Let’s wait and see.

New Blog

Mike Cane’s xBlog

Generally non-iPad stuff.

Until the kittens finally let me get an iPad and I can do this and finally finish it.

Blog Notes: WordPress Disaster!

I came to this blog yesterday to look up something and noticed the look was all changed.

OK. This happened once before when WordPress had a problem with CSS.

I figured this was the case again and I’d give them time to sort it out.

Today I looked at this blog and it’s still not right.

I go to Support and I find out the bottom line is this: Unilaterally and without notifying anyone, WordPress swapped out the Cutline theme I was using with something called Coraline.

They did this to everyone using the Cutline theme.

How disgusting, unprofessional, and smug is that?

There was absolutely no reason for this change that I can see.

Cutline was free, Coraline is free.

They should have told those of us using Cutline that Coraline existed and that we had the option to switch to it for the extra features it allegedly offers.

But no. Instead we’ve had our blogs ripped apart and gutted without any advanced warning!

I will have to do a lot of work to bring things back to right here.

And at this point, I’m not sure it’s worth the effort.

I’m having more fun over at Tumblr and have to consider switching all of this over to there. The result of that would be no Comments. Tumblr uses DISQUS as an option and I’m throroughly DISQUSted by that crappy system that has lost my Comments, lost my passwords, and done other abominable things.

So all past Comments here as well as the 466 (and counting!) that are backed-up for moderation would just be dumped if I move it all to Tumblr.

So, standby.

Would A Seven-Inch iPad Kill The Kindle?

Short answer: No.

1) The Kindle has two components: the Kindle as device and Kindle as eBook file format.

2) People have made an investment in Kindle books. Those who decide to switch from a Kindle device will use the Kindle app on the iPad. This really doesn’t wipe out the Kindle as such. It makes it a parasite inside the iPad. And those Kindle users will continue to buy Kindle books because what reason is there to split their library into Kindle and ePub (ePub equalling iBooks, Nook, or Kobo)? As I discovered for myself, Amazon offers more books that anyone else and it’s likely to stay that way. Amazon will also push books more than Apple will.

3) There is still a place for eInk until something comes along to make LCD/LEDs in bright sunlight possible. Pixel Qi’s status is still questionable. No one other than Notion Ink (which is still vaporware) has publicly stated it will use that screen — and even then, they curiously offer a model with a conventional LCD screen. Plus, Apple loves its IPS LED screen because it makes colors pop.

4) A smaller iPad would still weigh more than a Kindle. An iPad would most likely be the same size and weight as the Pandigital Novel, which also has a seven-inch screen:

Pandigital Novel: 7.5” x 5.5” x 0.5” – 16 oz

Barnes & Noble Nook: 7.7” x 4.9” x 0.5” – 12.1 oz

Amazon Kindle 3: 7.5” x 4.8” x 0.335” – 8.5-8.7oz

Sony Reader Touch: 6.9” x 4.8” x 0.4” – 10.1 oz

Kobo Reader: 7.24” x 4.72” x 0.393” – 7.795 oz

5) A smaller iPad will still cost more than a Kindle. This makes toting it around more of a financial risk.

6) A smaller iPad will be the New New Thing to steal. Theft anxiety is not conducive to relaxed reading in some public places.

7) A smaller iPad is likely to impact iPod Touch sales more than Kindle sales.

8) Amazon can always put the squeeze on its suppliers and further crush the price down from $139 for the WiFi version.

All that being said, everyday people are very fickle. They once paid $399 for a Kindle. If a seven-inch iPad came in at $299, people could make do with the limitations of an LED screen in bright sunlight (by sitting in the shade) and all the rest of the reasons I set out above. Especially that bit about theft risk — a $399 Kindle was a lot of money to wave around!

Plus, even if it didn’t wind up killing the Kindle device, it’d still outsell it at least twenty-to-one.

Meanwhile, Over At Tumblr …

… where I post because this blog is still waiting for Kittenageddon to end:

eBook Notes For August 7, 2010

Price Misperceptions: eBook Readers Versus iPod

And my utter humiliation and ruination and thorough defeat:

I Fought The Kindle — And Lost