…. from the threat posed by the iPad. At Business Insider
Essentially what I posted back in September. A further point is that Apple historically does not compete on price. It sell premium products (good premium products) at premium prices. But for Amazon (and Barnes & Noble) discounting is a way of life. Apple cannot compete with them on price, and has no reason to: There are lots of people quite happy to pay Apple’s current prices. These are just different business models
Kindle 3G vs Nook Color Brief Feature Review
Which is better? It is not obvious. You have to do it the hard way. Go down the list of features and decide which matter most to you.
Also see Why the Nook Color has a shot at being a better ‘eReader’ than the Kindle
You’d never pick Nook Color over Kindle for reading, but you might pick it when buying Continue reading
AppleInsider: Apple slows iPad production, Kindle matches shipments.
Both devices are doing very, very well.
From iReaderReview.
Follow-up on e-books, iPad, and Kindle (with a few choice words about the iPhone4)
This seems to support my general impression: The iPad is a vastly more powerful device, and priced accordingly. The Kindle, though the latest version has some extra capabilities, is specifically an e-Book reader. As my bureaucratic masters like to say, it is a “point solution.” The iPad can do many other things, is much more powerful, and priced accordingly.
From Cory Doctorow, at Which ebook sellers will allow publishers and writers to opt out of DRM?
Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Kobo were all happy to carry my books without DRM, and on terms that gave you the same rights you got when buying paper editions. Sony and Apple refused to carry my books without DRM — even though my publisher and I both asked them to.
Gulf states order Blackberry users to cover their phones in a tiny burqa
Some businessmen believe that making their phone wear a burqa can be very liberating. “It’s great,” said one, “with the veil in place I am free to walk about with my Blackberry in public without the feeling that people are staring lustily at my multi-media application. It also covers my shame for not owning an iPhone.”
The Saudi government have promised that anyone who refuses to dress their Blackberry in a burqa will face harsh punishment. “I am not saying exactly what we will do,” said their Minister for Justice, “but suffice to say that it isn’t so easy to text with your toes.”
Via BoingBoing
The iPad is Steve Jobs’ final victory over the company’s co-founder Steve Wozniak
Jobs believes in perfection, not muddling through. He would seem as much at home in Victorian England as behind the counter of a sushi bar: a man who believes in a single best way of performing any task and presenting the results. As one might expect, his ideas embody an aesthetic philosophy as much as a sense of functionality, which is why Apple’s products look so good while working so well. But those ideas have also long been at odds with the principles of the early computing industry, of the Apple II, and of the Internet. The ideology of the perfect machine and open computing are contradictory. They cannot coexist.
This a follow-up to The other side of the iPad, where a friend commented: “Microsoft is big and doesn’t play well with others but at least it plays. Apple has somehow gotten everyone else blocked out. “
Tandy Trower …. was the product manager who ultimately shipped Windows 1.0, an endeavor that some advised him was a path toward a ruined career. Four product managers had already tried and failed to ship Windows before him, and he initially thought that he was being assigned an impossible task. In this follow-up to yesterday’s story on the future of Windows, Trower recounts the inside story of his experience in transforming Windows from vaporware into a product that has left an unmistakable imprint on the world, 25 years after it was first released.
Via Slashdot
From Hilbert Space to Dilbert Space, and beyond 