Apple currently dominates the micro-transaction space for digital media with the App Store and iTunes. Users are currently able to download music, TV and movies with a simple click of a mouse. Apple has also enabled users to take this media with them everywhere they go with the iPod, iPhone and MobileMe. So what’s left for Apple to dominate? Books of course – and why not?
Next year Apple will launch the Apple iPad Tablet and with it, an enhanced version of iTunes that will start to include books and comics. The Apple Tablet will allow readers to simply download, read and store. So what makes the Apple Tablet any different than downloading a e-book today? The Tablet lays flat and can be held like a book. With the touch enabled interface, users will have the ability to flip pages, zoom in and out and experience a sort of hybrid between reading a book and watching a video.
Earlier this year Apple released a motion comic book from Marvel. Although the sales weren’t through the roof, they are setting the stage for a much larger scale release of content when the Tablet is released. Users can then purchase books and comics in the exact same way they currently purchase songs and shows; straight from iTunes.
Publishers can look at this in a couple of different ways. With the cutbacks in print media happening all over the world, this could be seen as a way for publishers to stay afloat. But at the same time, it would mean conforming to the digital era in a sense. These are all simply predictions as to what could happen to print media when the Apple Tablet is released, but one this is for sure, Apple is expanding again.
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December 30th, 2009 at 6:27 am
[...] We posted some information about Apple’s rumored project the iTablet a little while ago, but recent news may have given the new tech a branded name. According to Mac Rumors, Apple recently purchased the domain http://www.iSlate.com. The web address is rumored to be the new online home for Apple’s reading tablet that could be released as early as next year. With all of the information leaked about the iSlate, people might not be as responsive as Apple hopes. It is already public knowledge that iTunes carries books, so releasing the iSlate in conjunction with a long list of new book titles only seems appropriate. [...]