Since April when I received my iPad, I have not purchased a single magazine or book in dead tree form. This was not a conscious decision or strategy, but merely a consequence of the convenience of iBooks and Zinio Magazine Reader.
Two eBooks that I recently read and enjoyed very much are Daemon and Freedom (TM) by Daniel Suarez. The story is about an MMOG that takes over the world. It’s extremely well written and the author is a programmer, so the technical details are believable.
Be sure to get both books. The first one — Daemon — ends without a satisfying conclusion, and Freedom will not make much sense without first reading the Daemon.
Since the iBookstore is not visible in iTunes and there’s no gifting option in iBooks, one way to give these books as a gift is to purchase a regular iTunes Gift Card or Gift Certificate. You may also find specific iBooks gift cards in some stores.
The iBookstore lives a somewhat schizophrenic life. You can’t search or browse books on the web or in iTunes, like you can with apps and music. But yet it is part of the iTunes payment infrastructure. The only way I’ve found to create links to specific books, like the ones above, is to use the Tell a Friend feature in iBooks.
January 2nd, 2011 at 19:17
I had been thinking about the green question that iPad and
the spread of eBooks raised. I’m not an expert in paper production
neather in eletronics (more especific iPad) manufacturing process,
but I would like to understand the ecological damage caused by the
production of a ton of paper and the damage of the production of an
iPad. I think that maybe, the production of an iPad costs more in
term of ecological damage than reading print publication in the
entire life. Considering that in some 2 or 3 years, people are
gonna buy a new version of iPad, the green advantage should be
understood before even spoken.