Adobe Reader for Android ... Now Supporting Six Languages

Adobe Reader Blog: "It’s here – today we added support for five additional languages for Adobe Reader for Android: French, German, Italian, Spanish and Dutch. In this update (V9.0.2) Android phone users in these locales can now view and interact with PDF files in the language most convenient to them. It’s easy and just a few clicks away to download (click from your Android device) this free update in your own language from your Android phone. Once the update is installed, Adobe Reader adopts the current language settings of your smart phone for any of the supported languages."

Kurzweil's Blio

Technologist Ray Kurzweil's soon-to-be-released Blio eReader software comes free. The software will drop at the same time the bookstore opens. The bookstore has been developed in partnership with Baker & Taylor. Blio runs on - literally - anything: hand-held devices, PCs, tablets, whatever. It can handle color and supports multimedia. Unlike standard dedicated reader software, it preserves a publisher's original formatting (important with many textbooks, cookbooks, how-to books, childrens books, etc.) Kurzweil says Blio is "the new touchstone for the presentation of electronic books, magazines, and digital content." There is also a read-aloud feature. Supports XPS, PDF, ePub. Beta testers have reportedly been impressed. But ... a very late entry into the marketplace, and formidable (to say the least) competition.

More Apple WWDC iBooks Noise - Syncing, PDFs, and Agnosticism

From MobilitySite:

Slipped into all the noise of the iPhone 4 announcement, Steve Jobs had some interesting [comments] concerning the future of iBooks. As we all assumed he would, he followed the normal Apple pattern of announcing expanded functionality for a product announced in the previous big event. In this case Apple is opening up iBooks to PDF reading, annotations and proper bookmarking, which are very important steps in the evolution of the product.

Even more interesting is that Apple is moving iBooks squarely into position to compete with the Kindle head on. For one thing, they are porting the iBooks functionality to the iPhone as well, and I assume the iPod Touch if not now then in the near future when they release iOS 4 for that device. This gives at least a hint that Apple is buying into the prevailing business models for other ebook vendors such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble, that ebook reader software should be agnostic, and not be tied down to a single device. Whether this means that we will see Apple providing the iBooks software for Windows Phone 7 or Android, I don’t know yet…however I am almost certain we will at least see iBooks Reader for Mac and Windows. Remember that Apple’s media empire didn’t really get going until they provided iTunes for Windows.

In addition, Apple is taking the incredibly important step of making books you buy from the iBookstore load and sync on ALL devices running iBooks. So when you close your book on your iPad, it opens to the same place on your iPhone. This mimics Kindle’s WhisperSync technology which would be essential if Apple means to seriously compete with Amazon in ebooks, especially since B&N PROMISES this ability, but their forums are filled with comments that it has yet to work. If Apple can sync iBooks between the iPad and iPhone before you can sync B&N Reader between them, or between a Nook and your iPhone for that matter, then that will give Apple a major advantage. ...

Apple Grabs 22% of eBook Market for Past 65 Days, Announces iBooks Enhancements

All of this from the San Francisco Apple Worldwide Developers Conference as reported by AppleInsider's Sam Oliver:

Apple revealed that iBooks will allow for wireless syncing across devices, including purchased content and user-added content such as bookmarks, notes and highlighting. The wireless capabilities will be available free of charge for iBooks users on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

[Steve Jobs also announced a new version of the iBooks app] due out later this month that will add new features that will let users highlight text, paste sticky notes, bookmark pages, and add bookmarks to the title's table of contents.

[Jobs said that the new iBooks would] add support for PDFs, a feature widely requested for its e-book platform. The new update will be available later this month, and will feature a separate bookshelf for users to view their PDF.

In the first 65 days [of the iBookstore], Jobs said users have downloaded more than 5 million books -- amounting to 2.5 eBooks for every iPad sold and giving Apple a near-instant 22% slice of the eBook market. Five of the six largest publishers in the world are on board with iBooks, releasing content for the Apple-supported format.

Note this useful analysis from the Nieman Journalism Lab's Joshua Benton:

In the two months since the iPad launched — and with it Apple’s new ebook platform, iBooks — Apple has taken over a remarkable 22 percent of the ebook market. (That’s based on data from five of the six major publishing companies; the sixth, Random House, isn’t on the iPad.)

In one sentence, Jobs revealed more hard data about ebook sales than Amazon has in 2.5 years of the Kindle. (I exaggerate, but only slightly. Amazon still hasn’t unveiled any hard numbers on Kindle device or ebook sales. Maybe this will prompt them.)

Those Apple ebook sales are based on the 2 million iPads sold, which are the only Apple devices that have iBooks. But iBooks is coming to the iPhone and iPod touch later this month — around the same time Jobs said the 100 millionth iPhone OS device will be sold. In other words, iBooks’ momentum is about to get punched up.