The device is large enough that it’s hard to stretch your fingers to reach various keys. I was really impressed with the quality of YouTube videos, and Netflix movies ( free app here) stream over the iPad rather brilliantly.Ģ) On the downside, I found typing on the iPad to be rather difficult - even more so than typing on an iPhone. So the upshot is that you had better like the iPad (or Kindle) reading experience before deciding to amass a large and costly library.ġ) The video generally looks great (unless, of course, it’s produced in Flash). ( PC World has more on that here.) You don’t have much ultimate control over the underlying file. In five years, Amazon might not be quite the behemoth it is today - something that’s probably letting Steve Jobs sleep easier than Jeff Bezos at night.Ī final point worth mentioning here: Neither company will let you have true ownership over the books you buy. Both vendors lock down their books, dictate the operating environments in which you can read them, and control the user interfaces that shape the reading experience. And, because Apple now has a far superior device, you have to wonder whether this is the beginning of a big shift in the book market. But otherwise these are pretty similar services. (You can get more freebies here, too.) Overall, Amazon has a much larger inventory, and their books tend to be cheaper. Rather notably, they also offer access to a sizable collection of free books in the public domain. Both Apple and Amazon sell books for the device, with prices generally ranging between $9.99 and $12.99. How about buying books for the iPad? Well, it’s pretty easy. (Readers make other good observations in the comments below.) And, yes, I can read with this device at night. (Most of this you can’t do with the Kindle.) All of this contributes to a reader-friendly screen that’s easy on the eyes. And, in some cases, you can even alter the background color of the screen. You can adjust the brightness of the screen. Plus, you can change the size and kind of the font. The fonts are crisp, and the images are in color, which means that you can read children’s books, comics and other graphic intensive texts. Then, when you fire up the eBook reader, you instantly like what you see. But, it’s actually no heavier than your average hardback book. I just couldn’t read with it at night (a non-starter for me), and figured that Apple would eventually get it right. Here are my very early impressions:ġ5 months ago, I bought a Kindle and returned it. I left with a 32 gig iPad, took it home, and started playing particularly with the eBook reader. And who entered alongside me? Steve Jobs! An auspicious beginning. Yesterday morning, I headed to the Palo Alto Apple Store, spent an hour waiting in line, then finally gained entrance to the store.
0 kommentar(er)
