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creativebitsorg: Introducing Shutterstock’s New Look http://t.co/95FWHJHD
Mike Parker Leaving Tribal DDB
Another Tribal SF departure, you say? Well, after two tours of duty at Tribal DDB, the last one being a two-and-a-half year stint as both president of U.S. operations and managing director of the network’s Bay Area branch, Mike Parker is now leaving the agency. Sources familiar tell us that Parker is winding things down over the next few days at Tribal and eventually heading over to McCann Erickson’s San Francisco branch to take on the role of chief digital officer. No official date, though, has been set for Parker’s arrival at McCann.
The exec’s relationship with Tribal dates back to 2000 when he joined up with the agency’s Canadian operations, where he spent seven years and last served as managing director. In between his two stints at Tribal, Parker spent two years as director of digital strategy at Goodby.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Evernote buys Penultimate app developer Cocoa Box
Evernote is on the move, reporting a US$70 million financing round last week and plans to "grow its user base in new regions, expand its offering into new verticals and enable the company to make strategic acquisitions." One of those strategic acquisitions was just announced -- Evernote has purchased Cocoa Box, the developer of iPad note-taking app Penultimate.
It's a perfect match of two products. Evernote (free, paid subscriptions available) brings not only storage and access of "everything" (notes, business cards, photos, drawings, web pages, food experiences, travel documents, ad inifinitum) to the Web, but also provides cross-platform apps to search and add to the data store. Last fall Evernote added Skitch to its stable of apps, and now the acquisition of Penultimate ($0.99) brings even more power to the Evernote ecosystem.
Penultimate was recently listed by Apple as the fourth-best selling iPad app of all time in the United States. Considering that two of the best sellers are Angry Birds editions and the other is Apple's own Pages, you could say that Penultimate is simply the best-selling productivity app for the iPad.
I had a chance to talk to both Evernote CEO Phil Libin and Cocoa Box founder Ben Zotto last Friday, and both are ecstatic about the marriage of the two firms. Both Evernote and Cocoa Box are located in the Bay Area, which made the acquisition even more convenient.
Phil noted that handwriting is about a quarter of all of the content on Evernote. Cocoa Box added Evernote integration to Penultimate in January, and many Evernote staffers use the app on a daily basis. Now that Penultimate is part of the Evernote family, it will be much easier for Ben and his team to add Evernote functionality.
One of the early benefits of the acquisition should be improved handwriting recognition. At this point in time, Penultimate users can send their handwritten notes to Evernote, where they're transcribed to editable text via picture-based handwriting recognition. Now Penultimate can be tweaked to capture handwriting stroke information and send it to Evernote for faster and more accurate recognition.
Ben mentioned that up until now, Penultimate has been a fairly self-contained piece of software. Plugging it into a system like Evernote will make the app a view into an Evernote world, bringing along such improvements as better search capabilities. He also noted that their plans include getting Penultimate onto more platforms; unfortunately, I neglected to see if the iPhone was one of those platforms.
Along with the many other apps that are part of the Evernote ecosystem -- Evernote Food, Evernote Hello, Evernote Clearly, Skitch, Evernote Web Clipper, Evernote Peek, and a growing number of third-party apps -- Penultimate adds to the overall usefulness of Evernote. Phil Libin once noted that he wants Evernote to last for at least one hundred years, and with tools like Penultimate added to the mix, that dream is getting more likely every day.
Show full PR text EVERNOTE ACQUIRES DIGITAL HANDWRITING APP PENULTIMATE
Penultimate is the Fourth Best-Selling iTunes App of all Time in the US
Mountain View, CA - May 7, 2012 - Evernote, the company that's helping the world remember everything, today announced the acquisition of Penultimate, the most popular digital handwriting application for iPad, and the fourth best-selling iPad app of all time. The acquisition will allow Evernote to expand its handwriting capabilities, while also making Penultimate available on more platforms and devices.
"Digital handwriting has been around for decades, but it has never gone mainstream because the hardware and software simply weren't aligned. Thanks to Penultimate and the iPad, that's all changing," said Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote. "For the first time ever, writing on a tablet is really great, which is why we chose this moment to make the acquisition. We have big plans for Penultimate that will both enhance the app and bring more capabilities into Evernote. It's already the best handwriting app out there, and it's only just getting started."
The Penultimate app is designed to resemble a physical notebook. Individuals can use a finger or stylus to take notes wherever they like. The application allows users to choose from a variety of paper types, ink colors and line thicknesses. Notes taken in Penultimate can be saved directly to Evernote with a single tap.
"Technology often distances us from things that feel natural and human. With Penultimate, our goal was to use the most advanced tools to enable something that was at once powerful and familiar," said Ben Zotto, creator of Penultimate. "I'm thrilled to join the Evernote family. Their vision and expertise will help bring exciting improvements to Penultimate, and together we'll elevate the importance of handwriting within Evernote."
Availability
Penultimate is available for $0.99 from the iTunes App Store.
About Evernote
Evernote is helping the world remember everything by building innovative products and services that allow individuals to capture, find and interact with their memories. Evernote apps are available on all major computer, web, mobile, and tablet platforms. For more information, please visit: www.evernote.com
Evernote buys Penultimate app developer Cocoa Box originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 07 May 2012 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
creativebitsorg: Adobe Ships Creative Suite 6 http://t.co/R2owImg6
Scroll PDF in Finder in Column View
[kirkmc adds: Several points. First, in Column View, you need to have Show Preview Column checked in the View settings. When you select a PDF, its first page shows in the Preview column. From there, you hover your cursor and see two arrow buttons. You can either click on these or scroll.
This might be useful if you just need a quick glance at a file, but once you've selected the PDF, you can view it in Quick Look by pressing the space bar, which lets you see the document at full size.]
GIMP 2.8 gets a major facelift
Popular Mac, Linux and Windows image editing app GIMP has been updated to version 2.8. This latest version overhauls the UI to offer a new single window mode that lets users edit images, choose tools and set up docks all within one window. Earlier versions of GIMP had multiple windows for tool sets and images, which was confusing for some users accustomed to a single window work environment. If you like the multiple window paradigm, don't worry as GIMP lets you choose between multiple or single window mode.
Besides a new UI, GIMP 2.8 lets you setup multiple column dock windows, edit text on the canvas and group layers. It also streamlined the saving and exporting of images. You can read the full list of changes, which includes many smaller tweaks, in the release notes for version 2.8.
The GIMP 2.8 source code is available for free from GIMP's website and requires you to compile the code before you can run the app on your machine. Binaries packaged for installing on the Mac will be available soon. While you wait, you can check out an excellent overview of GIMP 2.8 from Ars Technica.
GIMP 2.8 gets a major facelift originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 07 May 2012 09:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Blind Item: When Programmers Attack…Each Other
It’s been a good while since we’ve heard a tale of drunken agency hijinks, hasn’t it? Well, according to one tipster, an alleged brawl broke out from a booze-soaked evening-not at some agency party, mind you, but after just another round of late-night imbibing at the office. As is the norm with blind items, we’ll leave the incriminating names/associations out and leave the guessing game to you. Time to play Mad Libs again, and oh yes, it’s a geek fight, folks.
“Last Friday [ed: meaning April 27] in the _______ office at _________, two programmers got into a brawl when they were drinking late at work. One of the programmers hit the other with a champagne bottle causing police to be called and 17 stitches and staples to be administered to victim. The assailant wrote an email over the weekend assuming he was fired and did not even come to work. He was terminated on Monday. Police are reviewing case for criminal prosecution. Guess disagreements with alcohol get ugly at the ____________ office. I do not work there but numerous people I know have confirmed this story. ________ is the attacker and _______ was the victim apparently. You can’t make this up…”
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Rumor Roundup, Episode 3: Your parts are leaking again
As expected, last week was a slow one for actual Apple news. Equally as expected, rumors of increasingly dubious parentage were shoehorned into various sites' RSS feeds to pad out the news cycle. In the old days this kind of "news" might have been used to line the bottoms of bird cages, but today all anyone does with birds is launch them at pigs with a slingshot.
Claimed iPhone 5 SIM Card Tray Appears Identical to iPhone 4S (MacRumors)
Just when you thought iPhone parts leaks couldn't get more yawn-inducing than slightly different Home buttons, MacRumors lets us know that parts supplier SW-BOX.com supposedly got its hands on some "iPhone 5" SIM trays. These new SIM trays are almost identical to those in the iPhone 4 and 4S, suggesting the next iPhone won't be much different in design.
WhooOOOOoooo! Tk, tk, tk. That was the sound of the wind blowing through a ghost town and a tumbleweed blowing by.
B.S. detector reading: 9/10. Parts supplier no one's heard of? Check. Parts "leaking" to the public over five months away from the time the next iPhone's likely to launch? Check. This rumor isn't just clutching at straws, it's dreaming about clutching at straws.
Liquidmetal Inventor: Apple Will Use It In A 'Breakthrough Product' (Business Insider)
Business Insider takes a break from its usual schtick of behaving like the National Enquirer of the tech world and does an actual interview with a verifiable human being. If you're at all familiar with Business Insider's usual attitude toward all things Apple, you're probably as confused as I was. Anyway, some guy named Atakan Peker claims Apple is a long way off from using Liquidmetal in large scale deployment on any of its products.
B.S. detector reading: 0/10. Peker ought to know a little bit about how well Liquidmetal can scale, because he helped invent the stuff. He thinks it will take three to five years and hundreds of millions of dollars in investments and R&D before Liquidmetal can be widely deployed.
All this means is for the next couple years, any rumor that proclaims "all-Liquidmetal iPhone is coming out soon" is going to max out the B.S. detector.
Yes, Apple is still working on haptics for touch devices (9to5 Mac)
Remember how the night before the newest iPad launched, the internet went bananas for a few hours and thought the device would debut with haptic feedback? Remember how, predictably, that didn't happen? Oh, how we laughed. It was a simpler time. But 9to5 Mac is certain that recently unearthed patents mean Apple is still on the Haptic Trail. Would you like to ford Speculation River, or caulk the iPad and float it across?
B.S. detector reading: 8/10. I've been following Apple long enough to know that more than half the stuff it patents never shows up on store shelves. Apple may still be considering implementing such functionality in future devices... or it may have decided to abandon that route and go a different way. A patent doesn't offer proof of either decision.
Apple's 'iTV' might not launch until 2014 (BGR)
An analyst from JP Morgan spins the Wheel of Fortune and decides the Apple HDTV isn't coming until 2014. I'd like to solve the puzzle: "Making it up as I go."
B.S. detector reading: 7/10 -- and it's only that low because I agree the "iTV" probably isn't coming before 2014. But I only say that because, for reasons I discussed last week, I don't believe Apple is ever launching its own HDTV.
Having recently gone through the head-spinning and utterly confounding experience of buying a new HDTV myself, I agree it's an industry ripe for disruption. But I'm also more convinced than ever that it's an industry Apple's better off leaving to the other suckers. Let Samsung, Sony, LG, Panasonic, and the rest of them slug it out over who gets to sell TVs to people who are just looking for the cheapest way to watch Game of Thrones without having to squint to tell the difference between Gruff Old Knight No. 4 and Gruff Old Knight No. 7.
Apple television not expected to 'break the bundle' from cable (AppleInsider)
AppleInsider looked at the same JP Morgan analyst's thoughts on the proposed Apple HDTV and focused on his remarks regarding the "disruption" the device might bring to the industry. The headline kind of spoils it; JP Morgan's analysts don't think wild-eyed claims that the Apple HDTV will finally save us from the tyranny of cable providers hold much water.
B.S. detector reading: 5/10. The film, TV, and cable industries saw what happened to the music industry in the last decade -- Apple slowly upended the entire market and now holds almost unprecedented influence over how people buy and listen to music. Cable companies will do absolutely anything they can to stop that from happening to them -- no matter how many of their customers they tick off in the process -- so an iTunes-centric HDTV is probably going to send content owners scrambling to divorce themselves from Apple as quickly as they can.
I'm pretty sure the only reason these media companies even tolerate the likes of the current Apple TV box is that it's a relatively low seller, a tiny blip in the marketplace. If Apple launches what amounts to the iPhone of HDTVs, expect those same companies to "turn traitor" before Tim Cook leaves the keynote stage.
The New iPhone: Size, Screen + New Connector (Plus iPod touch) (iLounge)
The next iPhone will supposedly have a 4" screen and will be about 10 millimeters taller and 2 millimeters thinner. (That popping sound you heard just now was someone having an aneurysm from me mixing Imperial and metric units in one sentence.) The dock connector will allegedly be a redesigned, smaller port.
B.S. detector reading: 7/10. Lots of sites re-reported iLounge's crystal ball gazing like it was brought down from the summit of Mount Sinai, simply because some of iLounge's past guesses have been accurate in the past. All this iLounge post really did, though, was collect several months worth of rumors in one spot and slap some halfway-decently Photoshopped pics on it.
You know what I think would be absolutely hilarious? If the next iPhone looks exactly the same as the last two. Same screen size, same form factor, just with a slightly faster CPU/GPU. Apple is already selling around 4.5 iPhones every second (not an exaggeration), but still everyone seems convinced the company needs to do some radical redesign if it wants to stay ahead of its competitors. I'm pretty sure the "disappointing" sales of the iPhone 4S and iPad (3) are proof enough that Apple no longer needs to change things just for the sake of changing them -- if it ever did.
Apple expected to expand store-within-store presence at Walmart, Target (AppleInsider)
Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster walked through an Apple "mini-store" at a Target. After browsing the shelves and chatting with a Target salesperson, he somehow became convinced Apple will widely deploy these mini-stores in both Target and Walmart locations across the United States.
B.S. detector reading: 5/10. I'll give Munster credit for actually doing some on-scene investigating (that's how I used to refer to my Target shopping trips, anyway). But it's pretty much equivalent to me eating at my local Burger Fuel and saying, "Man, the Bastard Burger sure is tasty. You know who'd love this thing? Drunk college kids. Headline: Burger Fuel to expand from New Zealand to Ivy League colleges across the northeastern US."
iPad tablet market share will dip to 50% by 2017, study says (AppleInsider)
NPD claims the iPad will account for only half the tablet market five years from now. As evidence, NPD researchers waved their hands over a pile of gnawed chicken drumsticks scattered on the NPD's throne room floor and proclaimed, "THE BONES HAVE SPOKEN."
B.S. detector reading: 10/10. This survey is even worse than one I saw last week, which claimed essentially the same thing would happen in 2016. Predicting what any segment of the tech market will look like five years from now is like forecasting the 2096 US Presidential elections. (I'm voting for Kodos.)
How Apple will become a mobile carrier (GigaOM)
Famed blues guitarist "strategic advisor" Whitey Bluestein claims Apple is about to sell mobile wireless services directly to its iPad and iPhone customers. He then laid down an astonishingly funkadelic bass groove that I've been humming all week long, to the annoyance of everyone around me.
B.S. detector reading: KABOOM! Wow, good thing I keep a backup detector in my desk, because the first one is toast. "Apple will strike wholesale deals with several mobile operators so that Apple can provide wireless service directly to its customers, as Apple Mobile," Bluestein claims, ignoring three different Apple shades of Apple reality in one Apple sentence.
Look, there's no question that dealing with wireless service providers is one of the worst parts of owning an iPhone or 3G iPad. Imagine that owning a car meant it ran out of gas at random and without warning, or that it couldn't drive to certain areas of the country in the first place, and even with those irritating limitations you endured monthly chain-whip floggings at the gas station to sustain the privilege of driving your car.
AT&T in particular has earned every last bit of enmity its customers (and former customers) feel toward it. Recent remarks from its CEO suggest the company's only regret is it didn't figure out how to overcharge for data services sooner than it did. "You lie awake at night worrying about what is that which will disrupt your business model [...] If you're using iMessage, you're not using one of our messaging services, right? That's disruptive to our messaging revenue stream." These are actual words AT&T's CEO said, presumably right before doing donuts in his Ferrari in a parking lot that used to be an Indian burial ground.
I don't know about you, but I'm finding it difficult to sympathise with a company that charges about (back of the envelope math) $1.60 per kilobyte for data related to sending SMS texts. But does that mean Apple's going to swoop in and rescue its users from these digital highwaymen? Not a chance. Let's dismantle Whitey's groovetastic bass line phrase by phrase.
"Apple will strike wholesale deals with several mobile operators" -BZZT! Nope. Mobile operators are already milking more money directly from their customers than Apple's going to be willing to throw at the likes of AT&T and Verizon. And even the dumbest of wireless providers still has to be smart enough to know that letting Apple wedge itself between them and iPhone users would be a last, well-deserved nail in the coffin of companies that like to pretend they're anything other than digital plumbers.
"Apple can provide wireless service directly to its customers" -BZZT! Name one possible benefit to Apple if it does this. The company would have to hire loads of support people to answer (and endure) the usual questions and tirades from customers dissatisfied with their wireless service. Instead of being able to do what it's done for the past five years -- shrug and deflect blame for terrible service on the carriers, where it usually belongs -- Apple would have to shoulder the burden (and cost) associated with users bellowing into their iPhones in the scarce seconds between dropped calls.
A deal the carriers would never go for, coupled with one of the top five worst strategic decisions Apple could possibly make? Sure, why not? Other than being the dumbest idea I've heard in months, I don't see any downsides!
That's it for the rumors this week. By this time next Monday, we'll know the precise dimensions of the next iPhone's mute switch, the launch date for Apple's VHS/DVD combo player, and exactly how much of the tablet market the iPad will hold in 2018.
Rumor Roundup, Episode 3: Your parts are leaking again originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 07 May 2012 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Morgan Spurlock and Friends Launch Commercial Production Company
It looks like documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock is using his exploration of the advertising industry, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, as a blueprint for his new commercial business venture, Warpaint Productions.
Merging his NY-based prodco, Warrior Poets, with Greatest Movie co-producer Keith Calder‘s LA-based company, Snoot Entertainment, Warpaint is launching with the assistance of 16-year industry veteran, Shannon Lords. In a statement about the merge, Spurlock said, “After working directly with brands and advertising agencies in the placement expose ‘The Greatest Movie Ever Sold,’ as well as directing multiple commercial spots for other production companies, I saw an opportunity to create a much more director driven entity.”
Warpaint currently has nine directors signed on, including Spurlock (The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, JetBlue, Hunt’s, Ally), Rupert Wyatt (Rise of the Planet of the Apes), Gary Hustwit (Helvetica, Objectified, Apple), Adam Wingard (You’re Next), Liz Garbus (Bobby Fischer Against the World), Adam Lisegar (LonelySandwich.com), Michael Tucker (Fightville, Gunner Palace, Mastercard), Maggie Choo (Nike) and Damien Toogood (Olympus, Target, Pepsi). See more at Warpaint’s website here. Also, yes, Spurlock is using his work with POM Wonderful as a case study, so feel free to wonder aloud if this was Spurlock’s long-term plan with Greatest Movie all along.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Portfolio Night 10: ‘The Right Moment’ for Young Creative Talent
Creative directors: They’re busy people. And, though you may think you have the most visionary and groundbreaking portfolio in the history of advertising (you don’t), it doesn’t mean creative directors are going to drop everything to look at it. In fact, if they do, it’s probably a pretty bad sign.
However, there is a right time and a right place for you to shove your portfolio in the faces of well-known advertising pros. In fact, “The Right Moment” is the campaign tagline for the 10th annual worldwide “Portfolio Night” presented by the crew at IHaveAnIdea. Starring in a series of promotional spots (created by kirowski Isobar and Umbrella) are DAVID The Agency founder Anselmo Ramos (host of Portfolio Night in Sao Paulo), Ogilvy & Mather China CCO Graham Fink (hosting Portfolio Night in China), Dare London ECD Flo Heiss, Lean Mean Fighting Machine founding partners Dave Bedwood and Sam Ball, and David&Goliath founder/CCO David Angelo, who, if we’re to believe the above video, must love having a glass office that he can write on.
PN10 happens worldwide on Wednesday, May 23, and though it’s natural to be a bit skeptical that this is your best shot for being discovered by internationally regarded agencies, watch this video from LA’s PN10 host, 180, about fulfilling its promise to offer a full-time gig to the best portfolio of the night in 2008. Watch the rest of the videos in “The Right Moment” series here, and good luck to the young creatives looking to kickstart their careers.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Extended Stay America
Boca Goes Global
GSD&M Wins Walgreens
Well, guess you can’t win ‘em all, McGarryBowen. Barely a week after narrowing its agency search down to two finalists, GSD&M and the aforementioned McGB, Walgreens has reportedly decided on the former. Here’s a note a tipster sent to us around 9:45 this morning: “GSD&M is new agency of record for Walgreens, besting BBDO, McGarry Bowen and united Publicis offering (they were the incumbent).” The “Publicis offering” we believe they’re referring to is the digital marketing work for the chain, which was previously handled by Digitas.
Neither GSD&M nor Walgreens responded to our inquiries this morning. According to AdAge, the review didn’t include multicultural, media or digital media planning/buying.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Account Manager Has ‘Jerry Maguire’ Moment, Fires Off Farewell Note
We don’t know Jerry Comyn from a hole in the wall, but we can at least appreciate the man’s bravado after reading a letter he sent last night to those on his mailing list. Comyn, you see, has been a national account manager on-and-off for OOH advertising giant Titan for the last few years, but now it appears that he’s done some soul-searching and wants out of the biz for good. We’ve reached out to Comyn to make sure he still feels this way the day after and are waiting to hear back. But anyhow, on with the show (the full note is after the jump):
“Hello all,
Having spent the past 18 years of my life in advertising sales, TV, Radio and Outdoor, I’ve always wondered why I was in a business I detested. For years, I couldn’t figure it out, and then I realized what was motivating me, MONEY! There are few careers where one (we called ourselves a business of C students) could earn so much money for doing very little.
Update: Comyn himself says the letter is not referring to any one company, but was written in general terms and encompasses his experiences of years in the advertising/media business.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Yep, Marty Cooke Did Leave RAPP
As his LinkedIn attests, Marty Cooke is going solo after nearly 30 years of toiling within the walls of agencies ranging from Chiat\Day to DDB to SS+K. Cooke, who has spent the last two years, give or take, as U.S. chief creative officer at RAPP, is “…going to be working out of an office in Soho” and “will be launching a line of architect-designed furniture, working on several issues and developing my own line of design products.”
Prior to joining RAPP, Cooke spent 10 years at the aforementioned SS+K, where he last served as CCO, and enjoyed an eight-year run as a creative director in various Chiat offices before that. We’ve been told Cooke’s last official day at RAPP was this past Friday.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Monday Morning Stir
-BBDO NY is urging Americans to make a “Vacation Declaration” as part of a new, integrated campaign for Orbitz (spot above). link
-Another report says advertisers are “uneasy” with Facebook. link
-So…can Draftfcb’s Chicago hub turn things around? link
-Six Flags has joined in on Nokia’s Lumia 900 marketing blitz. link
-L.A.-based prodco Duck added director Knife Party-aka Simon Robson-to its roster. link
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Adobe Creative Suite 6 Now Available for Purchase
Photoshop CS6 And CS6 Suites Now Shipping
Talkcast tonight, 10pm ET: Listener's choice
Tonight's Talkcast is all about you -- not that it isn't about you every week, but this week in particular. It's our Listener's Choice show; we discuss what you want to discuss, help solve your tech problems, mull your crackpot theories. We welcome your calls, questions and comments at 10 pm ET, 7 pm PT tonight live on Talkshoe.
To participate in the call, you can use the browser-only Talkshoe client, the embedded Facebook app, or download the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client; however, for +5 Interactivity, you should call in. For the web UI, just click the Talkshoe Web button on our profile page at 4 HI/7 PDT/10 pm EDT Sunday. To call in on regular phone or VoIP lines (Viva free weekend minutes!): dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 -- during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *8.
If you've got a headset or microphone handy on your Mac, you can connect via the free X-Lite or other SIP clients -- basic instructions are here. Skype users with dial-out credit can call in via the service, or use those free iPhone minutes. Talk to you tonight!
Talkcast tonight, 10pm ET: Listener's choice originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sun, 06 May 2012 20:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
You're Our Editor: iBooks Author or ePub for the iBooks store?
Normally we turn to the TUAW Brain Trust for your opinions about hot topics in the news and your predictions about the future of tech. Today, we're switching things up. Instead of asking about where things are going, we're asking you about strategy.
Here's the situation: Like many authors, TUAW blogger Steve Sande and I have fallen in love with Apple's iBooks Author page layout tool. When writing our book about preparing your computer for the upcoming 10.8 OS X upgrade, we decided to create an iBA version for iBooks and a standard Kindle edition for Amazon.
Although frustrating to use at times (it's still early days in iBooks-ville, such as where's the "Split into new chapter at this point" option?), we loved the look and feel of what iBooks Author produced. It's slick, it's hot, it's yummy. We uploaded our product last week using the nifty in-app "Publish to iBooks" feature.
Then people started asking us: "What about us iPhone users? Don't we get to read the book too?" You see, here's the problem: iBooks Author doesn't do iPhone. It's an iPad-only product.
And there is the heart of our dilemma. Should we invest the time, the extra ISBN, and the extremely high annoyance overhead to convert our Kindle version to an iBooks-compliant ePUB via our old creaky copies of Pages? (We mean it about the annoyance. It's a huge pain.)
You tell us. We're going to go with your advice. We're giving you a poll and the comments are open for your opinion. Should ebook authors make an end-run around iBooks Author to create iPhone-compatible ePUBs that reach a wider audience or are we wasting time and effort on a format that can never really compare to the iPad experience?
You're Our Editor: iBooks Author or ePub for the iBooks store? originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sun, 06 May 2012 12:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
