Coming TelePosts: New Sony (wait—skip that), Munsey’s e-store, and Amazon’s e-book quest
These posts are ahead later today or tonight in the TeleBlog, or maybe early tomorrow morning.
I will say there’s a reason why I haven’t jumped on the news about the new PRS-505 models replacing the current PRS-500. Boredom.
Yawn, yawn
Unless Sony has some new details to add—I’d hope that the new models would come with with the improved Vizplex displays, but things are still a bit vague–I can’t get that excited. On-board memory can hold 160 rather than 80 books. BFD in the era of cheap add-on cards. Plus, you’ve got silver and blue models and perhaps one other color, and menu keys in a different position. Oh, wow. And get this: still no Sony Reader software for the Mac, except from third parties. The price? Apparently a boring $299: yep, the current one.
Like Iraq: Incremental
It’s a little like Iraq. All this incremental stuff—leaked out after a store ad hit the Net ahead of time—is a letdown. Wait! I’m just gonna skip a full-fledged Sony item all together. Here are links to coverage from MobileRead and the Wowio blog. Actually I think that Dr. H’s post on Readng e-books on your Nintendo DS is more interest.
What would have made my heart pound over the Sony: A steep price drop or really improved ergonomics, beyond the possible Vizplex. The Sony Readers have nice touches, But we’re a long way, in thoughtfulness of design, from the original Rocket eBook. How long until there’s a nice, long lever we can press to turn the page? Not that Sony’s the only offender by omission.
September 11th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
“Sony Reader software for the Mac, except from third parties”
Does this mean you know of some? I’m on a Mac platform and haven’t found anything.
September 11th, 2007 at 4:23 pm
Hi, Paul. Some TeleRead tips and goodies from MobileRead might be helpful. Check out this program in particular (I haven’t used it, but a lot of others have tried it). - David
September 11th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
The price is a little on the expensive side for me but this is a cool product.
September 12th, 2007 at 9:29 am
the lack of mac support is stopping me, too. i’m glad that Paul (above) asked about that “third party software” comment — i have been looking, and this was news to me, too!
September 13th, 2007 at 2:50 am
Biblioskop for OSX (http://bookpac.com/download_en.php) still works with the reader though its a little stale and libprs500 works (link mentioned above).
The connect software works fine in Parallels and in VMWare…..or you can load non-DRM’ed books via memorycard.
September 13th, 2007 at 6:19 am
[...] does it again No, I’m not talking about the newly revised ebook Reader, but the company’s recent history of stumbles. They ceded the mp3 player market to Apple, [...]