Is the New Nook a Fail on the New iPad?

Now that e-books are starting to take over regular books, you see a lot of people exchanging cash for iPad.  Publishers have taken note of this, which is why most books now are available online. People also prefer e-books nowadays because they are more affordable.  They are also more convenient to get since you just go online to buy and download your copy to your e-book reader.  Of course, you can carry thousands, even millions of e-books with you wherever you go.  That is definitely something you can’t do with traditional books.

There are a lot of e-book reader applications you can choose from if you do not have an actual e-book reader like the Nook or Kindle Fire. There are also browser-based readers, which do not need to be installed, and you can use any web browser you have on your tablet PC or laptop.  One popular example of this is the Calibre program, which allows you to build an e-book library on your PC or laptop. 

Another example is Nook for Web.  The great thing about it is that it allows the user access to the Nook digital bookstore as well as their personal libraries.  This would be a great way to enjoy your books on your tablet PC.  Although the Nook is primarily for the Barnes and Noble e-book reader of the same name, the app can actually be used (with some features disabled for non-US users) on other e-book readers and tablet PCs, including the iPad and Android devices.

However great the idea is, this web-based reader does not work at all with the iPad or the iPhone. There are some rules and policies created by Apple to police the development of its applications that disallows users to link to a digital bookstore aside from theirs.  This move will not allow you to purchase books within the Nook application.  By making their reader web-based, Nook is supposed to bypass the said policy.  However, for some strange reason the Nook does not work that way at all.  It always gets an error message that says that reading online requires a desktop browser.

This may have caused a number of loyal Nook users to threaten to sell iPad and just stick with their dedicated e-reader.  The thing is, for bibliophiles, having access to as many titles in an e-bookstore is of utmost importance, and as much as Apple can try, they are still a good number of titles away from retailers such as Amazon and Barnes and Noble.  Apple may not really feel this though, as these disgruntled users may just buy a Nook and keep their iPad at the same time.

There are no other reasons given in this matter as the application works well with web browsers used on Macs and PCs. So if you are thinking of exchanging cash foriPad and making it into an e-book reader, take note of this fact.