Palm Digital Media Wins Best eBook Publisher Award

[Ed Hansberry]

<a href="http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/micro_stories.pl?ACCT=153400&TICK=PALM&STORY=/www/story/02-08-2002/0001665351&EDATE=Feb+8,+2002">http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/micro_stories.pl?ACCT=153400&TICK=PALM&STORY=/www/story/02-08-2002/0001665351&EDATE=Feb+8,+2002</a><br /><br />"Palm, Inc. today said that Palm Digital Media was named Best eBook Publisher by Handheld Computing Magazine when it announced its list of Best Palm Powered(TM) Products of the Year for 2001 on Thursday. Palm Digital Media won top honors in its category for what the editors call the "amazing" quality and selection of its electronic books. Palm Digital Media offers more than 4,000 eBooks from most major U.S. publishing houses."<br /><br />Many of you will recall that Palm purchased <a href="http://www.peanutpress.com">Peanut Press</a> last year. It has since been renamed Palm Media and I agree - it is absolutely, bar none, the best resource for ebook reading. They have a fantastic Palm Reader available, free, for Pocket PC's, complete with ClearType support. I have spent more money at Peanut Press over the past 18 months than at any "old media" style book store. I have even hooked my wife on their content. Their method of Digital Rights Management is user friendly, using your name and credit card number to unlock the book once it is on your Pocket PC. There is no "device activation" or any other draconian methods handcuffing your book to a particular device. I encourage you to visit their site and browse around.<br /><br />I only hope that if something should happen to Palm, Inc. (<i>Ahhh-bankruptcy-chooooo!</i>) that someone will rescue Peanut Press from their clutches. ;-) Now, if I could just figure out a way to get rid of that Palm logo...

[disconnected]

I'm a big fan of the site too, but of course I want even more new books. And I'm looking forward to the new version, with the dictionary, that is available for Palm, and supposedly in testing for PPC.

About that logo -- I don't know if you're talking about the splash screen when you open the reader on PPC; if so, under Options/Preferences, you can uncheck the "show splash screen at launch" box.

[wiredguy]

Just curious... does anybody know if Palm Digital Media is part of PalmSource (the OS company) or Palm (the hardware company)? One may bankrupt before the other :).

[Ed Hansberry]

Unknown WiredGuy - We'll find out when Palm files their 10Q in March for their quarter ended Feb. 2002. They will state who got what and give complete financial results for both PalmSource and Palm Inc.

[thenikjones]

I agree - this app is one of my most-used PocketPC apps, so much better than Reader.
When I used it on my Visor, I'm sure it had options for screen rotation (for landscape use) and auto-text scrolling. The former I can do using NVD, but the latter would be really useful, as I use my Jornada in the gym when on a stationary bike, but get cramp from using the scroll wheel. Hopefully this omission will be rectified soon.

[Sslixtis]

I agree that the Palm (yuck) Digital Media reader is very nice however, I use Mobipocket alot more for the simple reason that BAEN Publishing has a "Webscriptions" section at their site that allows you to purchase eBooks 4 or 5 at a time for $15 in multiple formats ( MS Reader, HTML, Palm/CE, Rich Text, and Rocket). The Mobipocket reader is free and allows ClearType and screen color and font changes and it is free as well! And the best part is that you get newly published books from BAEN a month BEFORE they are available in Hardback! Long live Jim Baen! They have a free books section also, so you can check it out, it's under BAEN Free Library-http://www.baen.com/

[Ed Hansberry]

When I used it on my Visor, I'm sure it had options for screen rotation (for landscape use) and auto-text scrolling. The former I can do using NVD, but the latter would be really useful, as I use my Jornada in the gym when on a stationary bike
On the former, I never understood rotating a square screen.

On the latter - be patient. It is coming. :-)

[Mr. Pink]

and it is a complete finger saver :)

Mr. Pink

[Marcus]

I Agree that Palm Reader is far superior to MS Reater.

Peanut Press is the site that got me hooked on eBooks, but i have found that I much prefer Fictionwise.com. The site is much better laid out and easier to navigate and has an excellent sellection.

[James]

I love the Palm Reader, though I liked it more when they were Peanut Press ;)

There's something....unnatural...about seeing the Palm logo on a PocketPC screen.

The DRM that Palm uses is much more to my liking than the noxious DRM in the MS Reader. Won't find me buying anything in the MS format.

[Take1]

I agree that PalmReader is the best eBook reader ever created. The whole eBook process is FAR superior in terms of DRM and access to already purchased titles. The only thing lacking is the amount of reading material as compared to B&N or Simon & Schuster. I'd do all my shopping with Peanut Press if I could get the equivalent title selection as the 'biggies' carry.

The MS Reader activation had me in a precarious spot once I'd found that I had exceeded my limit on the number of copies I could 'activate' (4 to be exact -- 2 of 'em wasted on returned dusty HP56x devices!). I had to beg MS for an additional activation so I could read the $150.00 of Star Trek eBooks I purchased at SimonSays.com! Luckily MS came through and allowed another activation before the mandatory 180 day waiting period. If I buy another PPC before the remaining 120 some days are up I'll be asking for another activation :roll:

[thenikjones]

The reason rotating the square screen of the Visor was useful was that I could hold it more easily whilst on a stationary bike. Less of an issue with the Jornada 545 as the rubber strips make it more secure to hold.
The auto scroll would be a brilliant feature - can't wait :D

RE DRm and M$ Reader - I had similar problems with Audible.com - I sold my old 545 then bought another a few months later. After reformatting my PC I couldn't use any of my audible books. Although they are quite slow to respond to email, they did reactivate my devices and extend my subscription, but it is FAR more hassle than the solution that Peanut Press uses - definatley the way forward from a USERS point of view.[/quote]

[Peter Fry]

Re: Palm/PocketPC feature inequality

Auto-scroll is in for 2.0. Screen rotation is now the only feature that the Palm version has that I haven't added.

The problem, correctly guessed by several previous posts, is the non-square screen. This means that pages will end at different locations when rotated. I can easily add screen rotation, but there is that very nasty behavior that when rotated, the book will be re-paginated. I'll figure out some way to minimize the pain of screen rotation, but I can't entirely remove it.

I've added Full Justification to the PocketPC, so the PocketPC will have a feature that the Palm version doesn't have yet.

Re: When?

The Beta cycle is done, but I can't release until a few changes occur on the web site that handle the Pro version. I'll take a guess at early next week, but don't hold me to that. Our web developers are over-worked.

Re: Bankruptcy?

Thank you all for concern for my job. I think. :) I'm not worried, and you don't have to be. We (Palm and Palm Digital Media Group) are doing fine.