Ebooks

06 May 2010 | Apps | by Andrew Pierce

iPad Book Reader Is More Than Just An E-Reader

Apple iPad book reader is a sleek cool aluminum backed half-inch thin LCD tablet (1024 x 728 pixels) that makes reading much easier with the accessories available. Will it change the life of people who enjoy reading? Is it better than most e-book readers? Are there many free iPad books to download? Let’s see…

Apple Book Saver

On April 3, 2010, publishers were thrilled with the release of the iPad into the U.S. market. Why? It was right up their alley. Sales of books were going down and a new-out-of-the-box thinking was required to get people back to reading. Other e-book readers were not up to par.

And then Steve Jobs came, the savior, with the Jesus tablet. As of May 3, 2010, over 1 million iPads have been sold. And this is only in the USA! Apple has announced iPad international sales on May 28. So now people are lining up at Apple stores in Japan, the United Kingdom, Spain even as far as Singapore and Luxembourg pre-ordering the Wi-Fi and 3G versions of iPad book readers.

Easy-to-use Book Reader

And it’s not just that the iPad is sharper and more vibrant than any other e-book reader on the market. It’s easy to use with its four way accelerometer orientation providing both landscape and portrait views.

Unlike the boring black and white text that comes with most e-book devices, the iPad has 10-inch screen that makes reading more fun with an ambient light sensor that adjusts screen brightness. With its powerful long-lasting lithium battery you can sit under a tree and read War and Peace and hundreds of other books on standby mode for hours.

The iPad is more than just an e-reader. On the technology evolutionary scale it has curved out in stone a niche just above a smart phone and a below a laptop but doing both jobs better. Its gentle touch screen makes browsing enjoyable. In-built speakers make it more interactive enticing the user to crave more multimedia online content then just reading on a browser.

iPad Books

Apple has collaborated with the biggest five of the publishing world, including Penguin, Harper-Collins, and Simon Schuster to make your favorite titles easily available. Currently they partnering up with magazine houses to get the eZines of their users’ choice. You can download the e-book app from the official App Store and go to the iBookstore to download books you like.

So far Apple has stocked its store with 30,000 free iPad e-books (it’s all classic titles). You can find here many of New York Times Bestsellers for low prices. For example, most bestsellers on Amazon’s Kindle can be downloaded for less than $10. The highest prices here are just $13 a book.

Other iPad Pluses

As in icing to the cake, iPad and the iPhone are lovable kissing cousins running on the same OS. You can take your pictures and videos from the iPhone and upload them on the iPad.  However the iPad uses more applications than the iPhone that can be easily converted to an iPhone if you are on the go – a SIM tray available on the 3G iPad tablet. Just don’t forget to accessorize with headphones as it may look rather strange holding your iPad to your face and speaking into it.

This new Apple’s device has few limitations: no camera, no SD card slot, and no support of Adobe flash technology. Still it has surpassed even the harshest tetchy critic.

The success of this tablet has prompted other tech companies like HP to plunge into the next level of tablet computers, challenged web content to be more multimedia and online bookstores to develop greater content and make more e-books available for download.