As you may remember, I'm a big fan of eBooks. My plan was to buy the nook, but ended up with an iPad instead. It's able to read books from all the major eBook companies (which finally includes eReader.)

My last few eBook purchases have actually been Kindle books, because they were titles Mary wanted as well. It was very cool being able to read on my iPhone and my iPad, and have my place come along with me.

The one downfall of the iPad as an eReader is sunlight. The screen is really washed out, even in the shade, and is absolutely unreadable in full sun. Of course, this is where the Kindle, and other eInk based devices really shine.

The new Kindle pricing makes me wonder when I should pull the trigger. $359 (what we paid for Mary's Kindle) is way too expensive to have as a secondary reading device (secondary to my ever present iPad.) But $139? Maybe. I think $99 will become a magic price for a lot of people. I don't know what it will take for Amazon to cut another 40% from the manufacturing costs, but I'm sure they're working on it. It's obvious to me that they are selling Kindle's as a means to selling books, not for the sake of the hardware.

My wife owns a Kindle.  I've been buying Peanut Press (eReader, now Barnes & Noble) books for a decade.  I thought I would buy a nook, but the iPad changed all that.  Now I have all the platforms in one device.  No, it's not e-ink, but it runs Evernote, so its all good.
But that's not what this is all about.  Mary loves(d) her Kindle.  The size is great.  The books are usually priced competitively.  And Amazon had a great selection.  Enter Apple and their agency model.  First the price on Kindle books went up, plus they had sales tax.  Now, Mary is finding that series where she has multiple books in Kindle format are no longer coming out for the Kindle.  I haven't spent a bunch of time looking at which books aren't available, but I have to assume that Apple is at the core of this issue.  I guess I should really check to see if the books she can't get on Kindle are available in iBooks.  Actually, I probably shouldn't.  If they were, she might just take my iPad (something she's already threatened to do.)
I don't know what the solution is.  Realistically, I understand the publishers need to control prices.  If I believed the authors were making most of that money, I'd be even more behind it, but I don't think they do.  I'll be interested to see if authors can ditch the publishing companies.  Nine Inch Nails has done it on the music side.  Cory Doctorow has been releasing free ebooks of all his books for quite a while.  Both Amazon and Apple have self-publishing modes (assuming you buy an ISBN.)
I'm looking to the future of ebooks, but I'm frustrated that my wife can't get the books she wants.

As I tweeted the other day, I got to play with a nook at our local B&N. My experience was very similar to Carl's (believe it or now, we weren't together.) The most frustrating thing for me was the page turn time. The rest of the UI quirks, although annoying, I think I could live with them.

You see, even though Mary has a Kindle 2, this is the device I want. I already have at least 100 eReader.com books, which the nook will read. We don't really have that large of an overlap in libraries, anyway.

Well, it looks like good news is on it's way. Engadget is reporting that the nook is getting a performance boost this week, in the form of an update. Faster page turns, and reformatting. That's the one I need to see.

I wonder how good the staff our our local B&N will be about applying the update. Or maybe it will jsut happen automagically.

We were at our local brick and mortar Barnes and Noble yesterday. (remember those?) Over the Information desk in the center of the store they had a huge banner for the nook, with a December 14th sale date. Looks like they are getting pushed back. I was hoping to see one of the mock up displays, but I guess Pearland doesn't rate.