With Apps, The NOOK Color Is Now A Smart Hybrid

Monday's announcement that the Barnes & Noble NOOK Color had launched its application gallery was much anticipated, with leaks and rumors galore over the last few months, as industry watchers have been curious how the eReader would adapt to a world in between the single mindedness of a Kindle and the do-anything catch all of a full-fledged tablet device. Full disclosures up front, due to my role at my6sense, I've known the Barnes & Noble app plans for several months, and our app was included as one of the first to be included on launch day. But as a user who already owns an Android tablet in the Samsung Galaxy Tab and a pair of iPads besides, I was independently eager to get my hands on these apps, and I believe what has been delivered is a smartly curated, less intimidating way to bring the best features of Android to users who don't want to lose the comfort or familiarity of a device centered around reading.


   My NOOK home screen with apps and the apps gallery

As was much covered by the mainstream technology press, the NOOK Color app gallery features more than 100 select applications across a broad reach of categories, with an emphasis on those that would be in high demand by the most active readers. For us, it made sense that those reading books might also want to read and engage with their social and news streams. For others, the option to bring to-do lists, email, comic book apps and more make sense in the intuitive seven-inch form factor. And yes, everybody loves games, and if a device has a screen these days, you know Angry Birds is there.

NOOK Color Apps for Sale

Much like Apple's iTunes store, the app store on the NOOK Color adds applications to a marketplace already designed for more traditional entertainment goods. Instead of music and video titles, magazines, newspapers and books are the headliner, with apps likely to play an increasing role over time. Without a full-fledged Android Market, with hundreds of thousands of apps, every app on the NOOK has a chance to be found, and its not amateur hour. Each app was planned for inclusion well in advance and carries the implied support of the NOOK team.

For Android users, the visibility of apps like Pulse, Epicurious and QuickOffice is comfortably familiar. Other titles have never crossed my radar. The addition of a standard email client that supports multiple accounts is also very welcome, eliminating yet another need for multiple devices when I can just close the page on a book (or close an app) and pull up email to both read and send messages, synced with your cloud server. With little fanfare, the NOOK has always also had the option to support your own media, including music files and photos as well, for a light multimedia experience.


  Composing and Reading Email on the NOOK Color

Those calling for the NOOK to become even more of a full-fledged tablet are trying to make it something it's not really aimed to be - no more than the iPod is trying to be an iPad. The single homescreen button and lacking hard-wired buttons for "Back" and "Menu", common on Android smartphones, takes some getting used to, but functionality to navigate one's library, content and the store is very easy to pick up. The apps each are intuitive, and if they assume back and menu buttons, as ours has, you can emulate that in software.

I see the NOOK as a serious hybrid. It's both an eReader and a tablet, but like the Prius, it's not going to beat a Porsche in a speed test for going 0-60. It just quietly does its job, has an amazing battery life, and brings the features you would expect. While the app store is only a few days old, I've already seen my interaction with the device change, transforming from one of passivity, mostly consuming content, to a more engaged role, creating emails, and interacting with new apps.

Disclosures: As noted above, my6sense, where I am VP of Marketing, is a launch partner with Barnes & Noble for their app store.

Physical Media Has To Go. I'm Digital Only From Here.

Moving across town last summer was a real eye opener in terms of seeing how tied we still are to physical things. Beyond all our sundry items needed to survive, there were boxes upon boxes of nice-looking and possibly interesting books and other media - DVDs, CDs, the occasional VHS tape nobody had bothered to toss. All of them took up room, and made for heavy lifting. But there's no real good reason, beyond nostalgia, to ever get any more. I want all my music, photos, videos and books to be electronic, and I want everything else gone - even if it looks great on the bookshelf. Same goes for my kids. Once they're done with their board books, I want them to get used to eReaders. By the time they reach school, textbooks should be relics of the past anyway.

Thirteen years ago, Apple did away with floppy drives on the iMac, ushering in a world where people did well enough to email items via attachment, or in later years, burn copies to compact discs. Ten years ago, I dumped my hundreds of cassette tapes in the garbage moving from one home to another on the Peninsula. Three years ago, I donated hundreds of my CDs to a coworker who liked the same music, and emptied my bookshelf to another friend who didn't mind dog-eared Stephen King and John Grisham novels. Even DVDs are too unwieldy at this point. For software installations, one installs once and the DVD is subsequently irrelevant. Purchasing DVD movies is completely silly in a world with significant storage space, and Blu-Ray never even entered my mind.

Now practically the only physical media I bump into is when a book author wants me to do a review, or when coffee table books are passed along as questionable gifts. Even USB flash drives are starting to feel like old media to me at this point.

In a world where I am constantly connected to some gadget, be it a phone, a tablet or a laptop, it takes serious will power to unplug and dust off an old tome whose number of uses is limited. The books I've been sent to review are piled in a corner on my desk - some probably good, but I might even buy the digital version rather than lug around a heavier three-dimensional copy. The stray Netflix DVD we have around the house just causes me to nag my wife into making our subscription digital only, and everything else I just want to give away in a massive garage sale - cheap!

The long-desired paperless office remains elusive, but for much of the home, it can be obtained. My music is streamed on Spotify, with some playlists and artists saved as digital files. My movies have a short shelf life, typically the 24 hours allotted by Apple TV before they disappear. And I've been reading all my books on the NOOKColor and on the Google Books app. There was a time when people would argue it was worth paying a premium for the physical copy of an item, but now it seems they should have to pay me for the inconvenience.

Being digital only means that exceptions to the rule can fall through the cracks. Bills delivered in the physical mail don't get paid as quickly. Notifications from the DMV can get missed, and late fees occur. It's a problem that hasn't been perfectly solved, and it could just be me making an excuse. But as I see it, if there's an option to go digital, that's my choice. With bandwidth and storage space being what they are, my infrastructure isn't optimized for yesterday's media delivery.

Tablets Have Great Battery Life. Everyone Else? Not Really.

Despite my consistent begging for true wireless power (since 2007, at least), as ubiquitous as WiFi, only baby steps have been taken in the last few years to divorce us from our dependence on power cords to satiate our hungry electronic devices. As our devices become more capable, and we are seemingly constantly connected, incremental improvements in battery capabilities seem to be offset by parallel technology advancements, including faster, hotter, CPUs and features like multitasking, push notifications and real-time updates that drain the batteries of even my most advanced devices like a thousand pin-pricks to a taut water balloon.

There has become a dichotomy in my home between the power haves and the power have nots. Try as I may, my every trip requires careful planning of packing of power cords, overnight charging of some devices, and continuous charging of others, via adapters in my car's cigarette lighters or fruitful discovery of power outlets in restaurants, cafes, airport terminals and practically anywhere I can find them. To illustrate how obvious my issues are, one highlight of Christmas 2010 for me was my wife's purchase of a dual USB charger for the car, so I could charge both my phone and a tablet at the same time. Yes, it's that bad.

(Also on this topic: Charge Me Up: No Batteries Are Good Enough from June 2010 and line of site: Next Gen Batteries, where art thou?)

On the good side of power consumption, one finds obvious winners. The iPads go days without needing to be charged, assuming only infrequent use. The Barnes and Noble NOOKColor holds its charge for more than a week's time, if you are not reading every day. I've been absolutely comfortable taking Google's Chrome CR-48 notebook with me without packing my power cord, and can see eight hours of continual use before searching for a solution, and the Samsung Galaxy Tab, so long as its brightness is not at the highest position, simply needs to be charged each night, after a full day's work.

In contrast, I need only look up every few minutes at my MacBook Air's battery percentage to see the numbers slowly decrease. After a good two hours' effort, even without streaming music or Flash games, I'm well under fifty percent. And the pain in terms of battery life for my Android phone (the Epic 4G) is as bad, if not worse, than my experience with the HTC Evo, and before it, my iPhone 3G. Even with all sorts of work to turn off WiFi or GPS when unneeded, and using BlueTooth only in the car, the phone seems to live a mere four hours, whether I use it or not - and I'm not even getting close to mentioning talk time. At CES, I even bought an external battery extender, that supposedly gives a charge and a half, but it too seems to serve only to make my phone hot to the touch before both die.

The issues with keeping my phone up and running have become something of a laughingstock with friends who see the issues firsthand. Barak Hachamov, my partner at my6sense, sees my dance with electricity as we go meeting to meeting, and my wife knows I leave my phone plugged in at all times when I am not using it. There's no doubt I would probably make more phone calls on the device, if I wasn't constantly glaring at it sideways, or wondering why the battery seemed possessed. Trust me, I've been happy with Android from day one, and love it on my Galaxy Tab, but the Epic's great keyboard hasn't been enough to outweigh the battery problems and iffy GPS. It's enough to have me asking every Googler and non-Googler I know how well their own Nexus S devices are working, to see if I should stomach an early termination fee (ETF) and switch again.

(If you prefer iOS, note the same issues on iPhone from July 2009)

The gulf between what I see as fantastic power managers like the CR-48 and the tablets versus my other laptop and my mobile phone experience is mind-boggling. On one hand, you see things that seem to run forever, while on the other, things are feeling like they are going backward, teasing me into thinking I should just marry up a simple feature phone for calls with a plan-free Android device that lives on WiFi. But that's crazy talk.

At a panel in the first half of 2010, I was asked about what I thought would be hot markets to invest in, and I quickly mentioned two places - the first being teleportation, and the second being true wireless power. I stand by those demands. If Google can build self-driving robot cars, surely there's a department in the back finding a way to solve power consumption issues on Android phones, or finding unique ways to tap into static electricity, solar energy or something. Maybe I'd even accept a nuclear-powered laptop in exchange for going sterile. After all, with 3 kids under 3 already, I'm not exactly hurting for a full house.

Power cords are a menace to convenience. Crappy batteries are significant hindrances to us getting the full capabilities out of our laptops, tablets and mobile phones. From my experience, the tablet manufacturers are doing a great job, and the CR-48 is a fantastic first volley into the less-demanding laptop sector. But if there's any revolution I want to see in tech, it's this one. No more widgets and doodads until you solve this very basic thing for me - for all of us. Please.

The iPhone Fanboys Can't Handle the Truth On Android

The big news in this weekend's blogosphere circles around predictions that 2011 will be even more dramatic a success for Android than 2010, and unsurprisingly, the iPhone-aholics are coming out of the woodwork to tell us that this is a terrible thing, cornering the discussion into one where we are supposed to believe Google's march into smartphones is only winning due to price, and that the iPhone 4 (and its successors) are dramatically "better", however that is measured, than Android alternatives. This position is no better exemplified than by Robert Scoble's post saying Fred Wilson and Fortune are Right About Android (but I hate it). This follows onto Fred's position that entrepreneurs and VCs need to get ahead by investing in Android and not iOS. This mirrors my comments from July when I said mobile app developers should look to Android before iPhone and iPad.

The differences between Apple and Android this time around are not like Apple and Microsoft of 1995, even if this is the lazy man's way out to compare the two battles. Scoble says, pleadingly, "I sure hope Steve Jobs has one of those moments where he shocks the world again and keeps this game interesting." I'll tell you what, this game already is interesting, and not because the rest of the world is waiting to see what Cupertino develops in an effort to copy its innovation extremely quickly.

I once felt the same way about my iPhone and still feel the same way in many regards to my MacBook Air (even though I am currently typing this on the CR-48). But the reality is not that Apple has held the exclusive to innovation in this space over the last 12-24 months or even longer. Android led the way in true multitasking on the phone, offers a superior GPS experience with top-notch places and maps, and is years ahead of Apple on voice search, it seems.

On Christmas, a friend of mine asked if I had ever shown my kids "Ivor the Engine" on YouTube, similar to Thomas the Train who is well known here. Even though I was uncertain to the pronunciation, I simply clicked the voice search button on my Samsung Epic, said "Ivor the Engine YouTube" into the phone, and I had a video playing in full color in seconds. Android made that happen, and while I am eager to see Apple integrate Siri, who it purchased at the beginning of 2010, I believe the tremendous investment Google has made in search and voice search specifically will keep them ahead here.

The truth is that Android can go feature by feature against iPhone now. iPhone is not yards ahead of the competition, and while there may be some clear places where Apple is ahead, it comes down to an individual's preference now, including their choice to have a keyboard (which Apple seems not interested in doing), their choice of carriers (still limited here, even if Verizon comes to the party), or many other factors. This is not like the Microsoft of the 1990s, where Apple's lead was obvious and Windows 95 was arguably the first usable OS on that platform to be considered Mac-like.

The way you can tell when tech connoisseurs have crossed the line from data to emotion is when they use blanket phrases like "In my usage of the Android-based Samsung Nexus S, I’ve found it’s still behind Apple’s iPhone in almost every way," which Scoble drops in his post. If you strongly believe a high pixel density Retina Display is demanded, great. If you think FaceTime is something you use all the time and it trumps Qik, great. But blanket statements don't work for the true nature of the mobile landscape today. Android really is that good.

When I first took the plunge into Android after Google I/O, I was almost as wary as when I had to sit down with a Windows NT box for my first Valley job. I was sure it would be terrible or I would be lost. But I kept being surprised by how the device just made sense, and how the device in many ways was better than my experience on the iPhone. In the six months since, we've only seen Android phones improve, with the expansion of Samsung's Galaxy S series, the Droid Incredible, and the introduction of Android tablets like the Galaxy Tab and Barnes and Noble's NOOKColor. I voted again on Android this Christmas when I bought my wife the NOOKColor, which she'll be using to read voraciously at the expense of her iPad use, with a slimmer form factor and reduced weight.

What was wrong about Microsoft's monopoly position in the 1990s was that they used their market strength to thwart innovation and win with business muscle and side deals rather than through value. That is not what is playing out here again. That Apple has opted out of some business relationships and reduced its potential routes to market while Android hasn't is their choice, and it's making them a ton of money. Apple is still winning as a company and will be a strong #2 in this market, and #1 in profit, as that's their focus.

If the assumption is true that Android is expanding primarily due to low-end handsets, we should be asking Apple for an iOS compatible option at a lower price point. Where is the MacBook or Mac Mini of iPhones? If the company ends up being niched at the top in price while others are providing more options, that can't be a strike against Android, but instead a business decision on the part of Cupertino.

The world of mobile is better with a strong and smart Apple in it. But don't get blinded by the Apple fans trying to define Android as a cheaper, inferior solution. It's not. Get your hands on any high quality Android device at a Sprint store or a Verizon outlet or an AT&T store or a Best Buy to try them out. Even an open minded Apple fan can respect what's happened and should be able to see innovation taking place as well as serious market momentum.

NOOKColor Combines Specialization, Potential & Android

In a world full of multi-purpose gadgets which ping, beep and blink at you to signal more messages coming your way to demand your attention, there's something remarkably comforting about a device like Barnes & Noble's NOOKColor, which is designed not to distract you with many things at once, but instead, to bring a powerful reading experience. I've been using the NOOKColor as my primary reading device for the last month, and it's easy to see what the product does very well. The availability of instant access to popular titles on demand, color magazines and newspapers, included apps and simple access to the Web if you want to take a break between books has made the NOOKColor an easy add to our house. I am reading more, and saving money as well as bookshelf space by going fully electronic.

Electronic book readers are not new, of course. Amazon's Kindle epitomizes the market, while the NOOKColor is B&N's second go at it, after their first generation black and white device claimed 20% share. The iPad has its iBooks application, and Sony is still somewhere out there with its eReader. But the NOOKColor hits a very interesting middle point of being impressively designed for reading, while building on extras in the background that actually make the device have incredible potential - including apps from their specialized market, and a real Web browser that can tackle even the oddest of page layouts, thanks to its Android core.


   
My NOOKColor Library, Reading the Big Short

I've long been interested in an electronic book reader device, but none of the Kindle's iterations have been appealing to me - looking like a 1980s throwback with 1950s TVs' color options. The iPad's iBooks application is nice, but the device honestly seems too heavy and cumbersome for long periods of reading. In contrast, the NOOKColor's reading space is about the size of one paperback's page, and is easily held with one hand, flipping pages with the other.

While it can be tempting for Android fans to beg the NOOKColor to add the full Android market and essentially become a low-priced 7-inch tablet, its focus on access to new reading material and having a versatile reading experience define the product. B&N's expertise is in its cultivated lists and access to titles, along with offering WiFi access in every store, along with the ability to preview any book while on their network, just as you could thumb through any book in any retail store. A nice twist.

Browsing Twitter.com On the NOOKColor

One of the reasons I was intrigued by the NOOKColor was its promise to bring interactive children's books that could be read aloud by professionals, and not tired dads. Sure enough, those titles are widely available, with all the bright color imagery in most youth titles these days. But for my age, I was more than happy to pick up the latest Stephen King and John Grisham novels, finally get access to The Big Short by Michael Lewis and yes, even read Decision Points by our 43rd president - something I had no dream of doing in hardcover. Using a fun feature, I was able to post that I'd finished the book to Twitter. You can even post your status mid-way through the book if you want to keep social connections updated.

You wouldn't even know you were running Android 99% of the time you use the device. The home button displays your purchased items, and a second click brings up options for the B&N store, your library, and more. Where Android kicks in are "Extras", which includes some apps, like Pandora and Chess, and "Web". While you're probably not going to make the NOOKColor your primary Web surfing device, it's great to have in the background if you absolutely must check a few news sites, blogs, or even Twitter. As the Market offerings expand with the NOOKColor's growth, I would expect the app experience to play a larger role, of course.

In contrast to my experience with my Android phones (the HTC Evo and the Samsung Epic 4G), battery on the NOOKColor is fantastic. I haven't had it go head to head with the iPad or the Samsung Galaxy Tab, but all three tablets can go days without a charge, and see several hours of use without decrease.

The NOOKColor can also be connected to a laptop via MicroUSB, to transfer files, charge, or pass over screenshots. I pulled MP3 files from my laptop to the NOOKColor and can listen to music in the background as I read, or I can take pictures of my kids and make them the device's wallpaper. This makes it much more like a simple Android tablet than a simple reader.

I Can Update Social Services With my Reading Status

The NOOKColor is only $249, which is lower than the Galaxy Tab or iPad, and comes with integrated WiFi, but not 3G. The low price is enticing, and actually plays into the same strategy of Apple's iPod, with the device leading to more software sales. I am now buying books for $10 again, when I had pretty much walked away from long-form reading off the Web. You can even buy editions of the Wall Street Journal for a buck, if you like. The device's form factor is sturdy and comfortable and is playing a major role in our home's gadget hierarchy.

You can find out more at Barnes & Noble's NOOKColor site. Sales have been fast and furious, so it's probably too late to pick one up for Christmas, but it should be on your personal list, even if you're not gifting it to someone. It's the best reading device in our house, and it's got a Web browser to boot.

iPad Tablet Competition Reacting Fast, Expanding Market

When Apple introduced the iPod, there were already a number of hard disk MP3 players out there. It wasn't clear to everyone that the move into this market was a good one for the company, and its initial sales didn't hint at the juggernaut it would later become. This was due in part to its Mac-only start, as well as its need for Firewire, but also due to needing to publicly define a market, improving upon the established competition and convincing the public that this product was a must have. Over time, the public got it in a big way, and the iPod became a cultural icon, selling nearly 300 million units. Later competition to the iPod from Dell, Microsoft and others was clunky, and sales were comparatively pathetic.

iPod Sales Growth by Year (Wikipedia)

When Apple introduced the iPad earlier this year, they were not the first tablet PC provider, but they set the standard again - helping to transition the market from a geeky niche to a consumer product millions are lusting over, just as they had done with the iPod. This time, however, it seems the competition is faster to respond, and with better quality peers - backed by able competitors, starting with the expanding variety of Android tablets including the Samsung Galaxy Tab and MotoPad, to BlackBerry's PlayBook, which are taking the iPad's queues in terms of appearance and functionality, and getting out there not years after the iPad, but only a few quarters.

The BlackBerry PlayBook

Regardless of your personal preference for Android or the iOS, it seems apparent that Apple will have a battle on its hands that is better coordinated, and on more fronts, than it did with the iPod. They don't have two years to slowly define the market and get the product right.

On Monday, it was announced that Samsung's Galaxy Tab had sold 600,000 units globally in the first month it was available. This contrasted with the iPad selling more than a million units in the same time period. Knee-jerk horse race focused reactions, like this one from VentureBeat said things like "So just a month in, the first model in a new series of Android-based tablet computers is already losing to Apple’s market-defining iPad."

It's a good thing markets aren't made in thirty days and that brands know better to ignore bloggers when it makes sense. If markets were made in thirty days, Apple should have walked away from the first generation iPod. And it's also a good thing this isn't a zero-sum game. There are going to be a lot of people who have room for Android tablets who didn't have room for iPads, and there are going to be others, like my house, no doubt, that will have both.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs roundly mocked the first Android tablet entrants to the market, saying their 7 inch screens would do them in, contrasted with the iPad's nearly 10 inches. But his comments smack more of preemptive market protection, as Apple no doubt plans to offer a family of iPads, as they have laptops and iPods for the last decade. As someone who has the Barnes and Noble NOOKColor, which has an Android foundation and one of those smaller screens, it's clear to me there is room for both. The NOOKColor review is for a later time, but there is absolutely a space for a tablet that can be held one-handed, and with the variety of Android manufacturers that are out there, there will no doubt be a variety of designs consumers can choose from - not a one size fits all strategy.

Apple is on quite a roll. There is no debate, really, with the stock at all-time highs and the company expanding its corporate offices in Cupertino, purchasing land from HP, and their product line is fantastic. But they cannot rest easy. The market is being defined, and a single month's sales are just that - a single month's worth of data.