So tune in soon for quick pros and cons reviews on some of these grown-up toys… uh, I mean productivity devices.

For web, newspapers & magazines at most times, and books in the dark, it’s still the iPad. iPad 2 now, actually. Aak my Dad about the iPad. Gave him my iPad 1 and he loves it. Shows it to everyone.

And now there’s a new e-ink Nook that shrinks it down a bit and adds a touchscreen for that touchy ease of use (hopefully not unlike the iPad). In fact, when it was announced, I emailed someone to say, “this thing looks a lot like what I might imagine a smaller 6″ iPad (or bigger 6″ iPod touch or… iBook) to look like from the front.”

We’ll have to check it out too.

First, as has been reported, Random House, the largest of the big book publishers, has announced that it will move to the agency model for selling ebooks starting tomorrow, March 1, 2011. http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/02/28/random-house Could this mean an announcement of Random House books coming to the agency model driven iBooks be happening soon (oh, say, on March 2nd)?

And then the iTunes App Store pops up an update to Barnes & Noble’s nook for iPhone app.  And what’s in the “What’s New” listings but “Sign up in application” among other minor tweaks.  http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/barnes-noble-nook-for-iphone/id384910586?mt=8 . Could this be how B&N is handling the new in-app publishing/subscription rules? Some sort of in-app sign-up to access nook content?

Things are definitely rumbling these days. Interesting times.

At the end of September, the weekend before starting a new job*, Jennifer and I decided to go on a quick trip to Florida to get some beach time. I wanted to read on the beach and I knew by then that iPad, as good as it was for so many things, wasn’t ready for that. So I bought a nook. But why a nook from Barnes & Noble rather than Amazon’s Kindle? Easy… ePub.

While it is the undisputed leader in ebook device and content sales, Amazon’s Kindle has one significant weakness. It is locked to a proprietary ebook format. Amazon merely bought a former leader in ebook creation, Mobipocket, and adapted it’s .MOBI format into a special DRM-locked Amazon Kindle .AZW format. No one other than Amazon delivered ebooks in this format. However, Sony, Barnes & Noble and even Apple have all adopted the open ePub format and put their respective DRM wrappers around it for their stores. And since both Sony and B&N both use a version of Adobe’s Digital Editions DRM, it is theoretically possible to buy books from Sony’s online ebook store and read them on B&N’s nook device.

In addition, almost all libraries that are venturing into ebooks are using the ePub format with Adobe DRM. So it is also possible to check out rental ebooks from some libraries (including my local county library) and read them on the nook. With the Kindle, you are stuck with buying from Amazon’s admittedly great store or scrounging up DRM-free .AZW or .MOBI ebook files somehow (one of my favorite publishers, Baen Books, provides DRM-free ebooks in both .MOBI and .ePub formats). So while Amazon’s latest Kindle is arguably a higher-contrast, lighter weight, overall better ereading device than B&N’s nook (excluding the new Nook Color), the nook offers more flexibility in how and where you can get your books.

As a bonus, both Amazon and B&N have ereading apps available for the iPad and iPhone. So anything you buy from them can be read on those devices, and more, as well. So I can start a book on my nook at the beach and then pick up where I left off later in bed on my iPad. It truly can be the best of all reading worlds.

Nevertheless, I have bought ebooks from Apple’s iBookstore, Amazon’s Kindle store, and Barnes & Noble’s nookBooks store, but mostly the latter. Being able to read a book on either iPad or nook is a benefit only B&N’s store offers amongst those three. Those I have gotten from Apple or Amazon have primarily either been free books or books that are best on the larger format screen of the iPad, like computer reference books or children’s books.

So, for now, I have an iPad and a nook for reading. And that’s where I find I do most of my reading these days, on my nook or on my iPad. I may still buy some paper books, but they’ll be special cases. And, yes, I’m looking forward to what an iPad 2 and, hopefully, an e-ink nook 2 will bring to the table.

The future is here.

* – In September I took a new job in a technology-related field. However, my work is completely unrelated to and not involved with the consumer electronics industry, nor any of the technology commented on here; nor do I have any special information into these areas resulting from my new position. The opinions and ideas expressed here are solely my own and do not reflect the opinions or positions of my employer.

Speculation on a Verizon iPhone has been running high for weeks. And now Verizon has announced a special event for the press in New York for tomorrow, Tues., 1/11/11, at 11am. With CES having just wrapped this past weekend, what could it be that they couldn’t have announced there? Well, everyone (and I mean places like the Wall Street Journal, you know, REAL news outlets) are saying a Verizon iPhone. After all the false alarms in the past, I am finally inclined to believe it. So, expect Verizon, perhaps with a cameo by Apple CEO Steve Jobs, to unveil a CDMA (i.e., not 4G LTE, that’d be too much to hope for) iPhone on Verizon’s network. And expect it to be available by the end of January, or first week of February at the latest.

Now, what else might be coming up from the fruited tech company? Well, a new iteration of 2010′s most buzzed about product, the iPad. There has been much speculation about when a new iPad might be announced and what it might contain.

As for what new goodies it’ll include, the one thing widely agreed upon is the addition of cameras on it’s front and even back faces. The reason: FaceTime. With the iPhone 4, iPod touch, and even the Mac (in beta form) getting FaceTime capability, the iPad is a no-brainer for the addition of a front facing camera (and maybe a back one as well, the iPod touch has one after all). So consider that a given.

The next things likely to see enhancements are the screen and the engine – CPU and RAM. I expect a faster processor, maybe even a dual-core one. CES was overrun by new tablets, many having dual-core Tegra 2 processors. While Apple is not one to play a tit-for-tat game in specs, I don’t think they’ll let this one pass without somehow taking a “leading” position. The Tegra 2 and other dual-core mobile CPUs have been coming for some time now. So expect some successor to Apple’s own A4 (A6 or A8 maybe?) that’ll be touted as the fastest or most efficient mobile CPU. Pair that with at least 512MB of RAM (the iPhone 4 has that much, twice that of the current iPad), and you’ll have a significant boost in speed. But knowing Apple, not at the expense of much in battery life. Expect the new iPad to match the old in long life battery performance.

That last part is why we probably won’t see a true “Retina”-class display upgrade. To match the 300+ ppi of the iPhone 4′s Retina display on the iPad’s bigger 9.7″ screen, you’d have to have a display with a resolution on the order of something like 2560 x 1920. That’d be a bit much to expect a current-tech mobile CPU/GPU to drive with any sort of respectable low power usage. Not to mention the likely cost premium of such a screen. That being said, a screen of something like 1280 x 960 or 1600 x 1200 wouldn’t be too much to ask.

Anything else? Well, the iPhone 4′s gyroscopes for gaming are a given. A bigger speaker (as some recent case leaks, including at CES, have hinted); maybe. A micro-USB port for charging in order to meet the new EU mobile standard; maybe. And count on something that none of us, including Apple’s competitors, have thought of… maybe not Earth-shattering, but I’m sure there’ll be something interesting.

Now when might we see such a beast? Well, I wouldn’t be surprised to see an announcement anytime between January 19th to February 9th. And then I’d expect to see a release within no more than 4 weeks of the announcement. Some sites online have speculated about a late-January or February announcement followed by a late March or early April release, just like the original iPad. Well, that doesn’t make commercial sense. Last year Apple didn’t have a backlog of existing iPads to sell when it announced over 2 months before release. And except for the first-gen iPhone, they’ve almost always made a new iPhone available within 3 – 4 weeks of announcement. So, I expect a new iPad by late February or early March instead. If I had to guess, I’d predict an unveiling on January 27th, 2 days after Apple releases it’s quarterly earnings, and an on-sale date of February 18th or 25th.

Oh, and one more thing… I also expect some refreshed MacBooks and MacBook Pros using Intel’s new Sandy Bridge CPUs to arrive soon as well. With the new CPUs finally offering decent graphics performance onboard, Apple can finally fit i3 or i5 processors into their tightly packed and power sipping 13-inch models. These models are overdue for updates. So I hope for something in the MacBooks and MacBook Pros in February or March as well – earlier if the iPad is later, or later if the iPad is earlier – perhaps available around the time the new iPad is announced.

Well, that’s what I’ve got for now. Over the next couple months we’ll just have to see what actually happens. My wallet lives in fear!

- Intro.: Announce XX million iPhone 4 units sold. Announce iOS 4.1 available later today with Gamecenter and more.
- Announce X million iPads sold. Demo iOS 4.2 for iPad, bringing multitasking and more to the iPad “in the Fall.”
- Announce and demo iLife ’11 for Mac. Adds new application, perhaps iBooks for Mac. Or maybe that rumored iApp builder application. Available today. Also demo iLife for iOS. iMovie for iPad and iPhone 4. Garageband for iPad and iPhone 4. iPhoto for basic image editing.
- Announce new iPod touch with gyroscopes, front facing camera, Retina Display, and maybe a rear camera and flash. Runs iOS 4.1. Available next week. If storage goes up to 128GB, then may be renamed to just iPod as it will phase out the Classic as the high storage capacity iPod.
- Announce new touchscreen iPod nano. Available next week. No change to shuffle or Classic, except Classic may be quietly phased out.
- One more thing: new Apple TV running iOS 4.2. $0.99 TV show rentals from ABC and Fox. Runs most iPad apps and most iPhone apps. Netflix and Hulu plus apps available. YouTube. Games! Games! Uses iPod, iPhone, iPad as remotes and controllers. Available “in the Fall.”

So, that’s what I’m guessing. Let’s seem what happens at 1:00PM Eastern today.

http://www.teleread.com/2010/09/01/new-sony-readers-announced/

Also, buried in their press release was the announcement that new Reader software for iPhone and Android, as well as PC and Mac, will be coming this Fall. That is a big step toward equalizing the playing field for Sony versus Amazon’s Kindle platform and Barnes and Noble’s nook platform.

However, at $179, $229, and $299, the new Sony Readers will be priced at a premium over the nook and Kindle. And with no connectivity on the lower two Reader models, Sony is going to have to push the advantages of touch screens heavily to compete.

The 6” screen Kindle 2 remains unchanged and priced at $189, where it dropped to last Monday after Barnes & Noble introduced a new WiFi-only version of their competing Nook e-reading device at $149 and dropped the WiFi+3G original version of the Nook to $199.

There’s action in the ebook reader market, yes there is. Indeed, earlier today, Woot.com, fresh off its purchase by Amazon, was offering a limited supply of Kindles (the regularly $189 Kindle 2) for just $149, and those sold out by noon.

Now the questions remains as to what is the best choice in an ebook reading device:  the Kindle, Nook, or iPad (with apologies to the many other ereaders out there from Sony, Kobo, and others). While the answer may be an individual preference, it occurs to this writer that perhaps the best answer lies in a combination of more than one device. More on that another time… soon.

Well, I haven’t pre-ordered… yet.  I’m debating between the WiFI and the WiFi+3G models, and leaning toward 3G.  But the presence of a new white MacBook in my world (yes, the cult finally has me) has impacted the urgency and cash-flow available for another mobile information device.

While much debate has also arisen in the tech world about the merits and failings of the iPad as Apple has designed it, check this article for a very interesting point of view on that debate:  http://speirs.org/blog/2010/1/29/future-shock.html

As for my take, looking at what the iPad appears to be, I can sum up what I believe it is and isn’t like this:  much like the first Macintosh, Apple is targeting the iPad as the 21st century information device (notice I didn’t say computer or netbook) “for the rest of us.”  Something simple and easy that everyone can use for those things most people use actual computers for at home.

That means the iPad is NOT intended for the uber-geek computer user who wants and needs all the latest features like built-in physical keyboard, Flash compatibility, HD web-cameras on front AND back, super-multitasking OS, analog game controller, biometric access swipe, etc.  The iPad is meant for the average consumer who wants a decent sized portable device to do a few things, each one at a time – browse the web, read and write simple emails, play games, manage photos, listen to a little music maybe, watch TV shows and other video from iTunes, and maybe even read some books.  That’s all.  Simple.  Perfect for my parents and your grandparents.  And it’s even good for those uber-geek computer types like me who just want a simple device to do those very things sitting at the couch or on that beach lounger.