Herein you’ll find articles on a very wide variety of topics about technology in the consumer space (mostly) and items of personal interest to me. I have also participated in and created several podcasts most notably Pragmatic and Causality and all of my podcasts can be found at The Engineered Network.
Server Disruptions
My website hosting provider has recently changed over to newer, faster servers and in the process managed to intermittently take Tech Distortion down several times over the past three days. Hopefully now the dust has settled and everything will return to normal. I appreciate your understanding and again apologise for any inconvenience cased.
eBooks Heading the way of Music
Thanks no doubt to great eBook readers like the Nook and the Kindle, and quite likely also partly driven by the iPad, eBooks are reported as growing at an accelerating rate according to a report published by The Association of American Publishers. The numbers of interest to me are:
| Year | eBook Share |
|---|---|
| 2007 | 0.58% |
| 2008 | 1.17% |
| 2009 | 3.20% |
| 2010 | 8.32% |
Over time Apple and Amazon eroded the Music industry from CD sales to Digital sales and now the trend is repeating itself for book publishing. Just as the majority of music released today is still released on CD and DVD, so to will books still be printed. Just less of them. And that’s not really a bad thing.
The Windows 8 'App Store'
Updated photos in Chinese were released two days ago by cnbeta in Chinese but the original English screen shots were released/leaked/faked back in January - I traced them to Neowin but may have come from another source originally.
There’s two debates: 1) are they real? 2) if they are real what are Microsoft thinking?
I have no doubt that Microsoft will be releasing an App Store for Windows and I’d say there’s a good chance these are an early working version of their application. Frankly after Apples runaway success, if you’re in the operating system game it seems insane not to have an App Store of your own. Whether or not Microsoft can create the same environment of security and confidence and extract payments from users for that software remains to be seen.
Not surprising that Microsoft are challenging the name “App Store” in the US Trademark and Trial Appeal Board PDF but then again they trademarked Windows not that long back. It makes sense to try and piggy-back on Apples success. It’s just how Microsoft roll…
Gartner Reports That Apple will Rule the Tablet Market
First of all, who really believes this stuff? (I don’t like linking to Engadget directly but I had trouble finding the original source given my broadband is acting up right now).
I mean really - who in their right mind can believe Gartners predictions about anything? The best way to plan your business direction is not based on predictions about the future since nobody knows what’s going to happen. If you want to pick a platform to bank on the time being - pick iOS for tablets since it’s been out there for a year now and it’s selling really well. If you want to pick the current number two runner - pick Android. The Xoom is out and selling okay. So far that’s it. We’ll get back to y’all once WebOS and the PlayBook finally show up to the party. Until then, if you see a prediction from Gartner, press your ignore button. Really. Save yourself the time - unless you want a chuckle.