The Wall Street Journal weighed in over the weekend with a very interesting and surprising rumor. Supposedly, Amazon has been shopping an “ebook subscription service” around to publishers, in an effort to bundle ebooks with Prime membership. Sort of like Netflix for eooks. The closest analog to this is the old “Book of the Month Club” type deals, but this is definitely a step up. It benefits consumers, but does it actually benefit the business of selling books?

First, let’s look at the specifics, as far as they’re known right now according to the Journal:

Amazon.com Inc. is talking with book publishers about launching a Netflix Inc.-like service for digital books, in which customers would

As a general rule we don’t cover rumors here on the site. Every now and then however there is a bit of juicy information that is so deeply rooted in fact that taking the leap toward believing the rumor is pretty easy. This is one of those cases and, truth be told, I have a hard time seeing this NOT come to pass.

We’ve all been hearing about ongoing negotiations between Apple and Nuance with regard to incorporating Nuance’s voice-to-text technology deeply in the next version of iOS. We’ve even see screen shots of the keyboard trigger for it. Now word comes that the functionality has been activated and implemented in some of the… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

Check the blogosphere and you will see a host of posts on dozens of sites announcing that the next generation iPhone will arrive in October. This is in contrast to the dozens of sites that recently reported that the new iPhone would appear in September. That, in turn, was in contrast to some reports a few weeks ago that the next iPhone would arrive in late August.

It is enough to make your head spin and… in the process… lose faith in any of the information spread throughout the tech-blog community. (See Mike’s and my … Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

We each wrote a post about a rumor that took on a life of its own and, in the process, lowers the credibility of all of us. With apologies to Dan Fogelberg and Tim Weissberg, the posts really are “Twin Posts of Different Bloggers” so we thought we would combine them into one. First up… Michael’s post…

And THIS is How Unconfirmed Rumors Become Fact

Yesterday at TechCrunch I saw this article talking about “Android’s Dirty Secret: Shipping Numbers Are Strong But Returns Are 30-40%“. I sent a message linking it to the Gear Diary team, but said:

Wow … what a crappy article. On the one hand, if

Looks like B&N and Amazon aren’t resting on their past successes. Rumors are pegging both companies as having some refreshed hardware coming soon, possibly a tablet for Amazon and an original NOOK refresh for B&N!

Let’s start with Amazon’s tablet. The rumor, admittedly unconfirmed, is that some sort of LCD-based device is coming from Amazon later this year to combat the incredible success of the NOOKcolor. Amazon has all the pieces in place for a fantastic device, with an app store, a tablet-optimized version of the Kindle app, plus the added bonus of Amazon MP3 and the new Amazon Prime video streaming service. It’s not really a shocker that Amazon will muscle into the tablet… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

There are three types of gamers in the world: those who own a Wii, those who would NEVER own a Wii (likely because they are too ‘hardcore’ for it), and those who have been waiting for the long-rumored price drop to $149. Well, it looks like the third group will finally have to make a choice – according sources reported at Engadget and many other places, on May 15th the Wii will officially drop to $149.

We try to stay away from rumors, but this one has become quite persistent as of late – for several months the same figure and approximate date have been tossed around. So let’s assume for a second… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

Good news for Harry Potter fans! There’s a rumor that JK Rowling may have finally been persuaded that the vast army of Kindles, NOOKs and iPads should also be sprinkled with some wizarding magic, and the Harry Potter series may actually come to ebook form!

According to The Scotsman:

The Edinburgh-based writer has an estimated £620m fortune following record-breaking sales of the Harry Potter books and the success of the film franchise, and publishing experts say the e-book rights could be another major money-spinner for her.

Liz Thomson, editor of book industry website BookBrunch, said: “I wouldn’t be surprised if the rights for the e-books are sold for £100m.

“Experts believe that move

(image courtesy ConspiracyLOL)

I might be seeing conspiracies where there aren’t any, but I think I see a pattern in many business decisions going on in the eBook market lately. We’re all sitting on the edge of our seats waiting for the outcome of the in-app purchasing drama, and so far no one’s (overtly) talking. But reading between the lines tells a very different story…

1) Apple can’t be happy with how iBooks has performed so far. 100 million books downloads is an empty number, especially since everyone who downloads iBooks gets one download to go with it. With a very low number of books in iBooks (just around 100,000, versus… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

If you take a close look at the site over any given period of time you’ll notice that there are some types of content you see elsewhere that is rare here are Gear Diary. You won’t find a lot of posts having to do with the latest rumor coming from the blogosphere; after all these are simply rumors, and more often than not they end up being false in the end anyway.

This is particularly the case with Apple, although I’ll admit that when it’s a day or two before a key press announcement, if the overwhelming consensus is that the rumor has merit, then we will cover it. But I digress.

But speaking… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

Person A to Person B- “I want you to ask me two questions. The first is ‘What is your profession?’ and the second is “What’s the hardest thing about your job?’”

Person B to Person A- “OK. What is your profession?”

Person A to Person B- “I’m a blogging comedian.” And without waiting for the second question continues, “Timing!”

Okay, so maybe the joke doesn’t translate to written text all that well but the truth is, often times, TIMING IS EVERYTHING. And no one seems to do the timing thing better than Apple. CES 2010 was filled with chatter about the iPad even though Apple wasn’t there and the iPad had yet to… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

Image via Tech Crunch

Judie and I have been discussing the Verizon iPhone 4 announcement all afternoon.  The pros, cons, new features (there aren’t many), etc.  One of the main, if not the only difference, between the Verizon iPhone and the AT&T version is the mobile hot spot feature found on the Verizon version.  The Hot Spot feature allows up to 5 users to connect to the iPhone’s internet connection and share it to get online.

After seeing the Verizon iPhone 4 demoed following the announcement we learned that the Hot Spot features appears to be part of iOS and the Verizon phone is running a new version of the iPhone operation… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

Original Image courtesy of DroidDog

A few months ago I received a tip that the Nexus 2 was going to drop sometime in August. We had a short post on it here at GearDiary and I was  of course hoping rumor would turn into reality. Well, that month(s) came and went with no new Nexus in sight. Last night the rumor came creeping back up this time wreaking of fresh Gingerbread and Super AMOLED screens. When I get the time I like to tune into the Radio Android show hosted by Scotty Brown. Other than a lesson in beer and shots, the show discusses current Android topics and devices and is fueled… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

A post over on 9to5 Mac points to a new book over on Amazon UK that suggests iLife ’11 is due in November and, surprise surprise… includes iOS compatible apps.

That’s all very interesting and would be a nice turn of events, especially since there are a number of tasks I much PREFER to for using an iOS app than on an iMac, but there is one problem… iOS apps are designed for multi-touch. I have to imagine that trying to make them mouse-enabled would be, at best, inelegant.

Then I got to thinking… I ALREADY HAVE a multi-touch device that I use with my iMac… my MagicTrackpad. Then I got to checking… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

It looks like there are rumors of some new Sony ebook readers coming out this fall! Supposedly they’ll be model numbers PRS-350 and PRS-650, effectively updates to the current PRS-300 (Pocket edition) and PRS-600 (Touch edition). In addition, the PRS-650 is rumored to have 3G (and maybe WiFi), so it’s almost a mashup of the Touch and Daily Editions Sony currently sells.

The only bright spots are that there may be note-taking options on the PRS-350, and both devices are going to have an updated interface. From reader comments on my post about Sony’s ebook future, it seems the one positive in the current lineup is the notation ability on the touch edition. So including it… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

Original Image courtesy of Google

The Nexus One was the first of many dubbed Android Superphones. Even though relatively low sales eventually may have been the demise of the device, it now holds a place in the hearts of Android fanboys and developers alike. The Nexus One has seen its last (virtual) store shelf, and is now said only to be available for developers to purchase. It’s the only phone to directly receive OTA updates from Google and is the first device to officially get Froyo.

Just a few days after Google officially killed their one and only pet project, Neowin reports that the next version Nexus phone is just around the corner. The post… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...