Is Scrollmotion involved with the tablet?
Scrollmotion is the largest publisher to Apple’s App Store by far.
We currently offer over 2,500 best-selling books in the App Store, and are thrilled to announce we will soon be bringing more than a million books, as well as more than 50 major magazines and over 170 daily newspapers to the iPhone. Our content partners include most of the leading book, newspaper and magazine publishers in the United States, as well as a growing portfolio of film, television, and educational clients.
With their Iceberg reader software they are able to take a book and turn it into a interactive app quickly and at the same time add lots of interactive media. They’ve also got deals with all of the major publishing houses so it would make sense that theyd be involved with the Tablet’s eReading functionality, right?
I’d heard earlier that they were being bypassed by Apple, even though Apple brought them to stage at last year’s WWDC where they showed off the unreleased features of iPhone OS 3.0 (in-app purchases, etc.) for Iceberg reader.
The strange thing is that, when asked to comment, I got this reply:
Interesting
Wanna hook up with friends, suss out travel, where to go and what to do when you get there? There
Imagine if your iPhone were natively capable of accessing information about points of interest in various locations, had the ability to poll data pertaining to train (or other) times, and had social networking features to boot?
All these features are available via individual apps, but a new Apple patent filing seems to put them all together, as spotted by the patent-curious Patently Apple.
"…and one more thing
The NYPost’s sources say that Verizon will be a carrier of the tablet and may in fact be announced as an iPhone partner on Wednesday, though might not be available as a carrier until the exclusivity agreement ends in June.
Apple is expected to name Verizon Wireless as one of its carriers with its anticipated unveiling of a new tablet device on Wednesday, sources told The Post. That means Apple head Steve Jobs will probably introduce a Verizon iPhone, ending AT&T’s exclusive hold on the hot smartphone. “It’s almost a certainty,” said telecom consultant Dunston Almeida. “AT&T losing iPhone is the worst-kept secret on Wall Street. The only question is whether Apple announces a Verizon iPhone this week.”
They went on to add what everyone has known since forever:
Apple has been “extremely frustrated” with AT&T’s iPhone service, which regularly drops customers’ calls, especially in high-traffic New York and San Francisco, said a source close to AT&T.
Don’t get your party hats and streamers out just yet. You’ll have to wait until June.
AT&T’s exclusive deal with Apple ends in June, sources said.
Then there is poor AT&T who’ve apparently been unable to gain customer growth outside of iPhone users. What will they do when iPhone users have other carrier options? Drop prices? Improve service?
Publishers talk about Apple's tablet
We had a chance to speak with a few friends in the publishing business last week. Both work in Manhattan for companies not previously quoted by the Wall St. Journal or Bloomberg but who were recently contacted by Apple with tablet information in the past two weeks. Here’s what they’ve both corroborated:
- Apple has been moving very aggressively over the past month and has stepped it up since the event announcement last week. Both said they’d be surprised if Apple doesn’t have a deal of some sort worked out by launch. This wouldn’t necessarily be a nuts-and-bolts type of deal, but one where they agree to work together. Apple can say at the event we’ve signed up “all of the major publishers”.
- Apple has been pitching itself against Amazon’s model specifically to the publishers. Apple’s “Agency model“ gives publishers more control and freedom for pricing vs. Amazon who’ve recently restructured a small part of their publisher offering to compete with this surge by Apple. We received the exact same wording from both people so we think this is the type of thing that Apple is touting to all publishers. We might hear about “the Agency Model” vs. Kindle’s at the event.
- Scrollmotion, the biggest current book contributor to the App Store, isn’t part of this deal and Apple is dealing directly with the publishers who are already signed up with Scrollmotion. The deals would cut Scrollmotion out of the loop or as one exec put it: “The smaller outfits are going to get screwed”. We’ve reached out to Scrollmotion for comment and will report back anything we hear.
- Apple was looking for content to bring to the event — perhaps one example — but doesn’t expect to have large libraries of material in their book store until “mid 2010 at the very earliest”
- Separately, one source said that no prototypes were brought to the meetings, but the tablet was described as “a very-readable 10-inch glass screen smaller in size than the Kindle DX with a similar weight.” The Apple people also mentioned that the “software was the key to the experience and it would be the game changer”. Apple also made the analogy of the shift from B&W televisions to Color with respect to the Kindle vs. the Tablet.
- One other big thing: They say it isn’t going to cost anywhere near $1000 as has been reported elsewhere.
Remember, the EBook reading functionality is just one part of this device. The tablet is also expected to be a game playing, media watching, netbook-competing powerhouse as well.
See you Wednesday!
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