The e-reader wars have begun in earnest (well, in the US anyway) as some of the biggest selling devices in the market went beneath the $200 mark. Amazon’s Kindle and the Nook from US book giant, Barnes & Noble have both dropped prices significantly, with the former falling by a huge $70 to $189 (€154). Barnes & Noble meanwhile lowered the price on its 3G compatible Nook to $199 (€162) from $259 (€211).

A Reuters report notes that shares in both companies fell about 3% as investors feared intense competition (hello iPad) could lure away buyers of e-books. Profit margins on Barnes & Noble’s Nook and Amazon’s Kindle are estimated by analysts to be relatively modest, but the devices are important to attracting book buyers.

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It seems that Apple’s upcoming iPad tablet won’t be shipping with the company’s iBooks software, one of the main talking points of the device.

Not bundling iBooks seems a strange move

It seems that Daring Fireball’s John Gruber has applied some fairly close reading to Apple’s description of its upcoming tablet device. Apparently, when it comes to time to list the various bits and pieces that the iPad has to offer its users, Apple describes the iBooks app by saying that,

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With the trend started by the Amazon MacMillan spat, towards ebooks costing as much (if not a little more) than their physical counterparts, is being more firmly cemented over time, it’s interesting to see statistics from iTunes pricing model.

Looks like these bad boys will be sticking around for a while yet

According to MediaMemo, it seems that Apple gave music publishers the ability to raise the price of their music on its iTunes service early last year, which resulted in some record labels bumping the prices of some songs upwards, while others took the opportunity to drop the prices of certain tracks. The overall result has been an interesting one.

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It seems that Amazon’s ability to offer ebooks at a lower price than Apple’s announced iBook shop is being eroded more quickly than even dire predictions had supposed it might.

Looks like physical books could turn out to be cheaper...

Word comes from Gizmodo that more of Amazon’s “big six” publishers have been pushing prices up to the higher price point for “hardcover bestsellers,” which is an interesting term to use in an entirely data environment. After MacMillan’s move on Monday to see prices bumped to the $15 mark on certain titles, it seems that other publishers have come pouring in with similar requests to make of Amazon’s Kindle Store.

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It seems that Amazon has been living it up, thanks in no small part to massive sales of its Kindle ebook reader over the Christmas block.

Amazon seems to have KINDLED a virtual book market... please, shoot me.

According to Cnet, Amazon has had a very fine year indeed, with revenue up to $9.52 billion, a fairly staggering increase on last year, to the tune of 42%. Indeed, reports also indicate that Amazon has seen profits rise by around the 70% mark, which is nothing to be sneezed at. Apparently, the fourth quarter of last year (which happily enough includes both Christmas and the US’s Black Friday sales) was the most profitable quarter the company has ever seen.

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Another day, another e-reader. Seriously at some stage in the very near future these things are going to come free with your Corn Flakes. Anyway, Taiwan-based Delta Electronics are set to begin marketing a new 13.1-inch color touchscreen e-reader and an 8.1-inch monochrome touchscreen device with a release date for both said to be around the June mark. Using e-paper technology from Bridgestone (yep, the tyre guys), this move from Delta will have the knock-on effect of heating up the e-paper competition between Bridgestone and current market leaders E-ink.

Expect an e-reader to fall into that bowl soon.

Back to the product though and ComputerWorld notes that “The new colour e-reader should show up alongside a number of new devices using colour e-paper screens, as the e-reader market transitions away from monochrome. Barnes & Noble’s Nook e-reader, for example, uses a monochrome six-inch e-paper screen by E-ink Corporation, with a smaller 3.5-inch color LCD screen lower down. The Delta device uses colour e-paper and does not have an LCD screen.”

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Acer is set to expand into both the apps and e-book markets in the first half of this year it has been announced. The world’s second- largest computer vendor told the world’s press today that their applications store will offer “hundreds” of apps, “otherwise you can’t call it an apps store”, while their e-book reader will feature a 6-inch monochrome screen.

Acer are looking to expand their business after a bump in popularity over the past few years.

Businessweek.com reports that Acer will enter markets dominated by Apple and Amazon in offering downloadable software and e-book readers by June and Jim Wong, president of IT products division of Acer believes these moves will help the company boost its net income margin to 3% within two years, Wong said.

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Amazon.com has sprung a little surprise this morning by announcing that they will be soon releasing the Kindle Development Kit. The kit will allow developers to develop “active content” for the Kindle platform, to take advantage of the e-reader’s electronic ink display, Whispernet 3G technology, and days-long battery life.

Get the development kit next month

The beta of the development kit for the e-reader will be released in February and it will include sample code, documentation, and the Kindle Simulator, which helps developers build and test their content by simulating the 6-inch Kindle and 9.7-inch Kindle DX on Mac, PC, and Linux desktops.

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Users of Amazon’s Kindle have rebelled against the policy of delaying sales of digital versions of books, campaigning to lower sales of the books in question.

'One out of five stars, because the other version is late...'

It seems that, according to the Guardian, Kindle users who have been less than impressed with the timing of ebook releases this year have taken matters into their own hands. The victim in all of this (on the book side) has been Game Change, which details the race for the US presidency in 2008. The Kindle version of Game Change has seen delays, with many citing piracy fears as the reason.

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It seems that the trend towards the adoption of ebook readers has some book publishers worried over the possibility that their content will see illegal piracy on the rise.

Word comes via TorrentFreak that, despite the general lack of bestselling authors in the list of the top 25 most pirated books last year, many publishers seem to fear the ease with which their content might be distributed illegally for the ebook reader-enabled population. Indeed, as a result of their generally small size once digitised, book publishers could potentially have more to fear from piracy than publishers of more data-heavy media.

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Amazon’s Kindle has been the driving success behind Amazon’s digital shop for selling ebooks, where most imagine Amazon makes the real money from its Kindle line. Now though, the DRM that keeps everything secure has been cracked.

The Kindle store has been rolled out to desktops and Apple’s App Store (meaning the iPhone and iPod Touch) already, but it seems that some just can’t wait to make the Kindle’s shopping options available to other devices. Things are certainly heating up around the Kindle lately, and Apple seems happy to make the service available on as many devices as possible with BlackBerry and Mac versions both due at some point in 2010.

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Amazon has slowly been rolling out Kindle functionality to a range of devices that have nothing to do with its own Kindle hardware except that, with the addition of a dedicated app, they’re capable of being ebook readers.

Last month, Amazon released a Kindle app for Apple’s iPhone and a standalone Kindle desktop app for those of us who’d like to read ebooks from the comfort of our desks. It’s certainly an interesting idea, and one that ensures that Amazon’s customers are more open to the idea of picking up a piece of its own Kindle branded hardware, having already interacted with the hardware.

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