Are the Terms of Apple’s New iBook Author Program Anti-Competitive?

Apple’s terms and conditions for using its new iBooks author program have now been revealed and Dan Wineman of Venemous Porridge has picked it apart to find a few clauses that could give rise to concern for authors.  The new programme is intended to do for self-publishing what the iTunes store did for podcasts, and open up new opportunities for everybody.

As an author who self-published my first book through Lulu I find this very interesting as it’s fantastic when a new publishing medium comes along to encourage budding authors everywhere.

However Wineman’s close inspection of the terms shows that Apple might have their own ideas on what is considered literary genius and how you might want to use their service.  Of particular interest is this paragraph…

Apple will not be responsible for any costs, expenses, damages, losses (including without limitation lost business opportunities or lost profits) or other liabilities you may incur as a result of your use of this Apple Software, including without limitation the fact that your Work may not be selected for distribution by Apple.

Which means that despite how great people might think your works are, they could be simply rejected by Apple for their own commercial reasons.  Now obviously this clause is intended to weed out offensive or illegal material, however it doesn’t say that.  What it does say is that Apple will decide whether your work is suitable for them.  The fact that they say that they cannot be held responsible for any costs, ie your time and hard work, incurred in writing a book using their tools is another kick.

It’s in the distribution section though that my friend and colleague Ed Bott, a veteran author, has taken special note of one particular clause.

B. Distribution of your Work. As a condition of this License and provided you are in compliance with its terms, your Work may be distributed as follows:

• (i) if your Work is provided for free (at no charge), you may distribute the Work by any available means;
• (ii) if your Work is provided for a fee (including as part of any subscription-based product or service), you may only distribute the Work through Apple and such distribution is subject to the following limitations and conditions: (a) you will be required to enter into a separate written agreement with Apple (or an Apple affiliate or subsidiary) before any commercial distribution of your Work may take place; and (b) Apple may determine for any reason and in its sole discretion not to select your Work for distribution.

This is the lock-in, the clause that states if you choose to use the iBook store to distribute your work you cannot sell it anywhere else.  Personally, as an author, I wouldn’t want to sign a lock in with any one provider, especially an untested one no matter how successful the Apple stores are at the moment.  When people want to buy books I’d want to be on Amazon and this is clearly where Apple are aiming their guns.

Now if you’re about to submit an angry comment about how anti-Apple I am, hold fire!  I think that Apple’s decision to help and encourage authors is a very welcome one.  Don’t forget I’m an author myself and have self-published a book.  This isn’t an easy process and anything that Apple can do to make the process easier will be very welcome.

Nobody ever reads terms and conditions though and these clauses could be considered both unfair and anti-competitive.  I would imagine that Apple will probably have to back down and it won’t be the first time that a company’s legal department got over-enthusiastic and misunderstood the market a product was aimed at.  I’m not going to say this was deliberate because any executive with a modicum of common sense would know it would never be allowed.

The fact remains that it is currently there and it’s not gone yet.  We will have to wait and see what, if anything, Apple say about this.  But if you want to also sell your works on Amazon, and don’t want to seek Apple’s “separate written agreement”, then you might want to steer clear for now.

iMacs were one in three of all-in-one PC sales in Q3 2011

So what is the future form factor of the PC?  If Intel are to be believed then the ultrabook is the computer we will all want, and I’m waiting on one or two of the first ultrabooks to arrive shortly for review.  What is becoming clear though is that the ‘beige box’ that is the traditional PC is on its way out.  This isn’t surprising as when Apple first introduced the translucent iMac people realised they could have stylish computers in their homes.  What came afterwards was a sort of mini backlash from consumers who wanted to banish the desk that was monopolising a corner of their living room.

This is there the all-in-one PC fitted in nicely, not a laptop and not a tower but a single, stylish machine that could still look good and not out of place in your main living room.

Now new sales figures for the third-quarter of 2011 show that Apple’s iMac apparently secured one third of all sales for all-in-one PCs.  This is a very impressive sales figure for a computer that many believed was slowly dwindling as Apple were moving their focus onto mobile devices.

The figures, reported by Blomberg, put Lenovo, who are fairly new to the all-in-one computer form-factor, in second place with 22.7% of all-in-one sales (Apple had 32.9%) lead by strong sales in China and HP brought up third place with 21.4%.

This is very interesting news and will be welcomed by fans of both Apple hardware and operating systems.  There can be no doubt that consumer PCs might still be ugly boxes had it not been for Apple and the company’s lead designer Jonathan Ive, now Sir Jonathan, as he was recently knighted in the New Year’s Honours list in the UK.

Perhaps odd in these figures is to see what many believed to be the world’s biggest computer company, HP, falling to third place.  HP’s all-in-one computers are of an extremely high quality and have lead the way in introducing multi-touch to PCs in the home.  Comparatively the iMac is some leagues behind, both in terms of power and features.

What the next few years hold for the PC remains to be seen.  As we approach the launch of Windows 8 we will no doubt see many more multi-touch PCs and laptops appear.  This will undoubtedly mean manufacturers focusing more on all-in-one PCs though laptops will begin to feature multi-touch too (my own Dell laptop has a multi-touch screen and I expect many more to appear this year).

Then there’s the ultrabook, which despite Intel’s claims of retailing below $999 doesn’t look set to hit that price point.  Will it be as huge a success as Intel claim?  Unless the price can be reduced significantly this is unlikely but there is talk of PC and laptop manufacturers focusing far more on these high-end products as the margins are much better.

This will probably mean that computer and laptop prices will rise on average in the coming two years and that tablets will fill in the lower end of the market.  These figures should come as congratulations to Apple though, and to Sir Jonathan, for their hard work in redefining the modern computer.

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© Mike Halsey MVP for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2012. | Permalink |
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Post tags: apple, hp, imac, lenovo

App downloads jumped by 60% over the Holidays

Christmas was a good week for all of us, but a great week for apps with analytics firm Flurry reporting a 60% leap in app downloads on the previous week.  The figures which cover smartphones and tablets for just iOS and Android operating systems estimated that 6.8 million iOS and Android devices were activated on Christmas day with 242 million app downloads.  Over the whole Christmas period they estimated that some 1.2 billion apps were downloaded to devices with 20 million new devices activated.

The report said that “the last week of 2011 was the largest week for device activations and app downloads in iOS and Android history.”

This shouldn’t come as any major surprise to people though as many people would have received new tablets and smartphones for Christmas, but also that app stores had a great many cheap deals on over the holiday period.  Even so, these numbers are huge and very clearly indicate that our hunger for smartphones and tablets isn’t going away any time soon.

When you factor in the number of people who would have picked up cheap Blackberry Playbook tablets over the holiday period we can expect activations to be much higher.

Flurry, which gets its data directly from Apple and Google said…

Looking forward to 2012, Flurry expects breaking the one-billion-download-barrier per week will become more common-place.   While iOS and Android growth continues to amaze, the market is still by all measures relatively nascent.

It’s very likely that they are correct and that 1 billion app downloads a week worldwide will not just quickly become the norm, but that the number by the end of 2012 will in fact be considerably higher.

Factor in the launch of ARM-powered Windows 8 tablets, now probably scheduled for early 2013, and that number will rise exponentially as people try out Metro apps for the new operating system.  It is a reasonable predication though that by the time this happens the weekly app download figures for iOS and Android will have exceeded 2 billion a week.

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© Mike Halsey MVP for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2012. | Permalink |
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Post tags: android, app, apps, download, ios

How to Get an iPad or iPhone out of Recovery Mode

iOS devices are a wonder. This article is being typed on one right now. Sometimes, however, these robust and snappy little things go “boink.” One of the more common issues a user will perhaps encounter is when the iOS device (iPad, iTouch, iPhone) gets stuck in recovery mode. If you are reading this article, you may be experiencing an iOS recovery mode lockout or you may be in a recovery mode loop. This is the perfect opportunity for you to check out these pointers on how to return to normal functioning from recovery mode. Here’s the fix:

Recovery mode is indicated by appearance of iTunes and USB icons on the screen of the iOS device. By whatever cause, and there can be a few, the device is unable to access its operating system. So, it displays these icons to prompt the user to recover the operating system. Usually this is no big deal.

Whichever machine you use for syncing the device to iTunes, make sure its version of iTunes is the most current. Ensure that all iTunes updates are installed. If you are in doubt, launch the Apple Software Update manager. Once it checks with Apple’s servers and is certain that iTunes does not need an update, you should be ready to get started.

This image indicates the user has an update pending and it should be installed before restoring the iOS device.)

Completely power-down the iOS device. This is done by holding the home button (front, center-bottom, in default portrait mode) AND the sleep button (corner, top edge opposite the home button) at the same time until the power-off slider appears. Use the slider to completely shutdown the device.

Before connecting the iOS device to the computer, hold the home button in place. This lets the firmware know you are about to do more than the usual sync. Once iTunes recognizes the device, which can take one-to-several seconds, depending on the speed of your computer, it will prompt you to restore the device. If you have a backup from your last sync of the device, you will be given an option to use this during the syncing process. This is most likely the option you will want. iTunes should prompt you to select which backup you want to use as your source. Make your choice and the restore may take between five and ten minutes to complete from that point.

If you happen to have the sudden urge for a clean configuration, set up as a new iOS device. iTunes will return your device to factory-default setup. Even iOS can get relatively cluttered – apps, notes, photos, music, etc. While generally organized very well according to the native management scheme of the system itself, sometimes a device can seem less pleasant to operate after heavy use. Starting fresh from factory defaults not only allows you to clear up some of the unnecessary stuff your system accumulates, but lets you to start out with the level of understanding you now possess, with your current usage patterns, and to re-encounter the system with a different set of eyes than you had when you first started using it. Experience is a great thing. Experience combined with a lean setup is even better than that.

Note: In iOS 5 or later, restoring the device wirelessly is an option with or without a cable connection to a computer, provided the device is functioning properly prior to starting the restore process. There are a lot of improvements in iOS 5 that allow for updates, restores and other functions to be managed without requiring use of another computer with iTunes. This guide is intended for circumstances when the iOS device has locked into recovery mode and cannot access a wireless connection or the device itself is running an earlier version of iOS.

iOS was designed to be one of the least fussy, most responsive operating systems around. It was also designed to be stable and secure. A lot of people dislike the absence of a visible file system on the largest of that family of devices, the iPad. This is a simplification over other navigation models and it is beneficial in that it prevents the user from accidentally doing something to the file system which might result in device instability. While it shouldn’t be necessary to be an expert to use most devices, it is a good idea to learn some of the little tricks available to you. Although many people still find technology to be intimidating, the more you learn, the more fun tech can be for you.

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© Melanie Gross for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2011. | Permalink |
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Post tags: apple ipad, apple iphone, recovery mode

Apple Dominates Kids Christmas Wish Lists

When I was young I remember looking at the pre-Christmas toy advertisements on the TV and wanting the latest Six-Million Dollar Man action figure in the Action Man range, the latest new engineering kit from Mecanno, a Lego castle (or two) and perhaps a chemistry set so I could practice blowing things up.

Over the years these tastes have changed with Furby’s, Cabbage Patch Dolls and programmable robotics taking the top spots for children’s wish lists from Santa Claus.

This year though it would seem that Santa’s elves might have to seek alternative employment in a Chinese Foxconn factory.  New research released by Nielsen into what electronic devices children want has shown that the top three slots on children’s 2011 Christmas wish lists are dominated by Apple.

In the research they say that 44% of children aged between 6 and 12 want an iPad, 30% want a iPod Touch and a huge 27% want an iPhone.  I say huge as most people would hardly think of a child between the ages of 6 and 12 as the target demographic for a mobile telephone.

After this a computer sits in fourth spot and a non-iPad tablet (presumably Android) sits in fifth place.  In fact the list is completely dominated by technology that includes games consoles, portable and static, televisions, non-iPhone smartphones, blue-ray players and eBook readers.

There can be little doubt that tablets have captivated the minds of the young, because of the new and exciting ways they allow people to interact with the technology, be that zooming in on photographs or flinging birds at pigs.  It can also be argued however that the devices offer solitary play opportunities for children and don’t encourage them to build interactions with other children in the way that most people consider healthy.

The research also shows what children aged 13 and over are interested in buying over the next six months.  Again the iPad sits as the most desirable item with 24% of the vote and a computer bringing up second place with 18%.  Again this list is entirely dominated by technology though it is interesting to note that smartphones of all description, including the iPhone which held the number 3 spot for younger kids, are much further down the list in the teenagers age group with the iPhone sitting in seventh place and other smartphones and non-smartphone mobiles sitting in 8th and 17th place respectively.

At the end of the day it is parents who will make the final decisions, so we will no doubt expect stockings to be full of dolls, coloured goo and lego with perhaps a solitary computing or gaming device taking the top gift spot.  Children want what children want but this doesn’t ever mean that they will get their own way.

What have your children asked you for this Christmas?  Are you own family experiences a mirror of the Nielsen research or are your children after a bow and arrow set and a colouring book?

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© Mike Halsey (MVP) for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2011. | Permalink |
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Post tags: children, christmas, ipad, iPhone, iPod, research

iTunes Match, US Only Cloud Synchronization Service

ITunes Match, Apples cloud based synchronization service has just launched. Before you read on, here are the facts. The iTunes Match service is only available in the United States, requires iTunes 10.5.1 or newer and costs $24.95 per year. What do you get for that?

The service has been designed to match a user’s music library with the cloud. You basically point iTunes Match to your local music collection to start the process. Unlike other music synchronization services, iTunes Match tries to identify songs in Apple’s vast library of songs. Songs that match are added from the store which reduces the number of songs that need to be transferred. Any song in the store becomes available automatically, only unknown songs, e.g. free music, mixes or indie artists are uploaded from the user’s computer to make them available on iCloud as well.

Music in the cloud can then be streamed to compatible devices and stored on devices as well in 256 Kbps quality (free of digital rights management drm).

There service offers two interesting features. First the ability to match music to reduce the upload bandwidth and second the ability to download and stream 256 Kbps songs even if the original song was of lower quality. The latter is only true if iTunes was able to match the song.

About the matching feature. Apple does not check if a song of a music collection has been bought, ripped from CD or Internet radio or acquired from P2P networks. That’s great but it does not mean that you can legalize your music collection with an iTunes Match account.

The iTunes Match service has a 25,000 song limitation currently. It is not clear if Apple will raise the limit in the future or offer upgrades to the service to increase the amount of songs that can be hosted in the cloud.

In comparison, Google Music offers space for 20,000 songs (but without payment currently).

Will you be using iTunes Match? Users from outside the US, are you interested in a guide on how to get the service without being in the US?

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© Martin Brinkmann for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2011. | Permalink |
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Post tags: apple, google music, icloud, itunes, itunes match

Hallelujah! Google Lawyer Admits the Patent System is Broken

Those of you who follow my articles with any regularity will know that one of the biggest arguments I make about the modern technology industry is their insistence on playing Patent tennis with each other.  This back and forth of legal battles, and the scrabbling by technology giants to buy up valuable patent libraries only serves to A) push up the price of technology B) impede innovation and C) prevent smaller firms from entering the market.  Needless to say I’m not a fan.

Now Google’s patent counsel, Tim Porter has admitted that the entire patent system is broken.  In an interview with the San-Francisco Chronicle he said that the lawsuits and counter-lawsuits by technology companies merely wastes time, money and resources.

For too long, the patent office granted protection to broad, vague or unoriginal  ideas masquerading as inventions. That inevitably led to the legal dramas now  unfolding.

One of the most interesting things he said in the interview concerns the subject of innovation I mentioned earlier.  When asked the question ”Google has said these lawsuits and tactics are a threat to innovation.  Do you think the uptake or development of Android has slowed because of these  issues?” Porter told the paper.

I don’t think we’ve seen that happen yet. But the concern is that the more  people get distracted with litigation, the less they’ll be inventing.

He says that all the players have been involved in this and he pointed out that Patents were a way for Microsoft to battle against Linux.  He said.

You can look at the development of the software industry and see a point when  (software wasn’t being patented) and it was a period of intense innovation. You  didn’t see Microsoft’s first software patent until 1988. By that time it had  come out with Word, not to mention DOS.

It is clear that freedoms do encourage innovation and that software innovation has been somewhat stagnant in recent years compared to the 1970′s and 1980′s when new and exciting concepts were emerging all the time.  Porter argues that the current system for patenting software doesn’t make sense.

During the period I talked about, software was protected by copyright and other  legal protections. There are certainly arguments those are more appropriate.

It’s fantastic to finally hear someone at the heart of the ongoing patent wars talking sense about the whole issue.  The only people who can lose in all of this are consumers who will face limited choice and higher prices.  Apple’s attempts to ban the Samsung Galaxy Tab for instance aren’t based on any real fact other than the fact that the Galaxy Tab is a truly superb piece of technology that Apple are afraid of.  They’re attacking it purely because a patent or two that they own means that they have a technicality at their disposal to eliminate their strongest competitor.

The problem is that, while Mr Porter might say these things, actually convincing the major corporations to back off from their lawsuits is another matter entirely.  Apple are still going after Samsung aggressively and Microsoft have recently bought up a load more patents to help them attack their main competitor, Google’s Android operating system.

For now, we can only hope that governments or the judiciary step in to bring some calm and common sense to proceedings.

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© Mike Halsey (MVP) for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2011. | Permalink |
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Post tags: apple, Google, microsoft, patent