When Buying eBooks on the iPad, It Pays to Shop Around
Thursday, May 6, 2010 at 2:26PM Yesterday, I was looking for the book This Is Your Brain on Joy by Dr. Earl Henslin. Now that I have my iPad, and it has proved to be an effective means for book reading, I really don't have much desire to buy a physical book if I can avoid it. As you probably know, there are two primary eBook apps on the iPad so far: Amazon's Kindle iPad app and Apple's iBooks app.
Currently, there are more books available for the Kindle app by a wide margin. There's not a lot of functional difference between these two apps when it comes to book reading in my own experience. The Kindle app has the ability to include one's own notes which I hope that Apple will add to the iBooks app. Apple's iBooks app has a built in dictionary which is very handy when coming across a word for which I'm uncertain of the meaning. If memory serves, a dictionary is included in the physical Kindle, so maybe this will be added later.
Both apps allow for highlighting and bookmarks. Also, both apps have access to their respective stores, but Apple's iBooks Store is internal to the app while the Kindle app shells out to the Amazon site via Safari.
The most glaring difference between the two readers relates to searching. I can search for any word or phrase in Apple's iBooks, but not in Amazon's Kindle app for the iPad. The ability to search for words in an electronic text is one feature that makes the digital superior to the physical. Even when books have indexes, the reader is left to the mercy of what the indexer thought was important. I'm hopeful that Amazon will plug this glaring hole in the Kindle app.
Anyway, when I looked up the book in each respective store, I was very pleased to see that it was available in both apps. What surprised me was the difference in price. Generally most eBooks are different in price from their physical counterparts, but I was surprised to see such a difference between the two eBook stores.
The Amazon Kindle price for Henslin's book was $13.79.
The Apple iBook's price for the same book was $9.99!
Of course, I suppose I shouldn't have been quite so surprised. I guess I just wouldn't have thought I'd see nearly a $4 difference between the two stores. Thus, if you don't have any hard and fast objections against one store or the other, it will really pay to shop around when purchasing eBooks on your iPad.
I've heard that Barnes & Noble is introducing a Nook app soon as well. I say bring 'em on! Competition can be a very good thing!
Kindle, Nook, iBooks, iPad in Books & Literature, Technology
Reader Comments (10)
I'm sending Apple book requests for major Christian publishers (Baker, Zondervan, &c.). So far, their selection has been a little disappointing. I prefer the iBooks app's look and feel, so it would be nice to have the books in there.
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I prefer iBooks as well. So far, I haven't had a problem finding something to buy (lol), but there are a lot of titles on my "to acquire" list that I'm not yet seeing. Hopefully they continue to add to their catalog.
What's the process like on each store to find the book you want? I assume if you have a title you're looking for you can easily search. But what if you want to drill down (say Fiction > Science Fiction > Clarke) or if you want to browse the aisle (like in a physical library)?
Thanks for any replies.
Right now, it's a much better experience with the Kindle app because you get the regular Amazon.com website. So you've got all categories and you can look just within Kindle books. Or you can look through all books and see if a Kindle title is available.
On the other hand, I haven't figured out on the Apple iBookstore how to do much more than searching for title or author. There are categories, but they're strictly top level. So for instance there's only one category for a broad subject area like "History." If there's a religion section, I can't find it. It's probably under lifestyle or something, but again no real subcategories. You can browse through featured books and categories, but I would like more specification within them.
Rick, one other suttle difference in highlighting is on iBooks. Once you highlight if you select it again you can change the color from yellow to blue, pink, green, purple, and maybe another color or two. That is very helpful since I do have a color scheme when I highlight in my books.
I do prefer the iBooks over kindle, only because the iBooks strives to mimic a real book. If you notice even the highlighting looks imperfect. But in the end it comes down to cost, so which ever is cheaper I'll choose.
I feel bad for publishers. Amazon already skims off of profits from publishers, and by extension authors, — it seems like iBooks is even worse :-(
No, remember the big stink Amazon had with Apple is that Apple was letting publishers set their own price while Amazon wanted no book to be over 9.99. Now publishers cab sry their own price with Amazon, too, so maybe they're getting back at Amazon by making the cost a lower price with Apple.
It might amuse you guys to know that I took my iPad into Barnes & Noble today and ran straight into a giant Nook display. I showed the guy my iPad, and he looked like I had just handed him a dead cockroach!
I asked him, "Isn't there a Nook app for my friend iPad?" and he said no and he didn't think there ever would be.
He looked in shock, poor fellow. In retrospect I feel quite sorry for him. After seeing iPad I think it would be very difficult for someone to choose the Nook.
I seem to remember a Nook app was already announced for iPad, but I looked it up and it doesn't look like it exists yet.
Incidentally, a few weeks ago I tried the Nook and it was difficult to figure out how to select a book from the menu. Turns out that when your focus is on the eInk display, you don't notice the LCD below that holds all the menus. Very poor and user unfriendly design.
David
(See my web site for Bible Trivia HD for iPad!)
I am a student of Christianity. My books are very heavy and I would love to invest in the i-pad to eliminate that problem. However, I need to know if such Christian books as Martin Luther's "Commentary on Romans" and Karl Barth's "The Epistle to the Romans" and "The Oxford Companion to the Bible" are available for the i-pad. If anyone wants to let me know, I am not sure how I got to this site, so please reply to momazing@gmail.com. Thanks, Kimberley