Is this Apple's e-book trojan horse?
Tyrese Gibson's Mayhem is a comic book – the first standalone print publication for sale in Apple's iTunes LP format.
Tyrese Gibson’s Mayhem is the first digital book for sale on iTunes 9 – perhaps an early sign of Apple’s (AAPL) desire to take on Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle and Sony’s (SNE) Reader in the digital book market.
I would have missed the significance of Mayhem on iTunes if I hadn’t run into Gibson himself on Wednesday. After the Steve Jobs iPod keynote, I spotted the actor/singer known for roles in action movies like Transformers 2 in the demo area where attendees were playing with the new iPods and software. He had a laptop open and was doing a few TV interviews about his Mayhem project, and its debut on iTunes.
Gibson isn’t the first person you’d expect to make a mark in the comic book business. For one, he’s not a longtime comic book fan – he only recently got interested in the medium while attending the Comic-Con convention to promote the movie Death Race. After seeing the devotion of die-hard fans there, he was determined to get in on the action – and he conceived of Mayhem, a vigilante tale with a diverse cast of characters.
Take a look at the Mayhem comic iTunes LP ($1.99), and it’s easy to see the potential of book or magazine sales over Apple’s digital store. For starters, Apple has amazing reach – there are more than 100 million iTunes accounts connected to credit cards, which is a sizable audience. In the Mayhem iTunes LP itself there is a beautiful flow to the action; new panels zoom into the foreground as others fade away.
And it’s not just text and images; both audio and video come along with the package. The interface is designed so that it would obviously work nearly as well on a touch-sensitive tablet – or even on an iPhone – as it does on a full-fledged PC.
Perhaps that’s because Apple itself had a hand in designing this digital version. While hanging out with Gibson, I also briefly spoke with the two creators of the Mayhem iTunes LP, Sam Herz, one of Apple’s user interface engineers for the iTunes Store, and Barry Munsterteiger, creative director for rich media and Internet technologies.
The pair said that while working on Mayhem, they created some tools based on standard web technologies like HTML, Javascript and CSS that others might be able to use to create iTunes LPs. But they’ve since turned over their work to higher-ups at Apple, and they’re not sure what will happen to their work.
They might not know, but we can hope: Though CEO Steve Jobs has publicly talked down the idea of Apple building an e-book, he hasn’t closed the door on a multi-purpose device that does the same thing – something that might look like an oversized iPod touch. Maybe the tools Apple created to digitize Gibson’s Mayhem comic will be part of an author’s kit with that oft-rumored Apple tablet?
first of all for eco friendly people these e-books save trees, so it stops paper use and stop waste build up. I dont get what the problem is. Is it because the author of this article didn't think of it first. And regardless of when a person becomes a fan of something u cannot take the passion they have for something and blow it off just because they just began to like it. Oh and when you spoke with Tyrese did you tell him these things to his face or did u just wait to write a backhanded article on him?
Hey Chris,
Perhaps in the UK only middle-aged women know how to read, but here in the states many of us love books. Also, look at how you contradict yourself – think about it – the less people are interested in reading an actual book, the bigger the market would be for interactive, "wizz bang" media.
Agree with the comments 'a book is a book…' et al. For the many who don't know and understand the book market, most books are bought by middle-aged women. I suspect these people are not interested in noises and colours coming out of a book. They want to read in silence or listening to music or on a beach etc. These extras might be of interest to kids and young adults with short attention spans but not the majority of novel readers. Those who think this is going to be the next big thing; how many novels have you read in the last week? My wife reads three or four novels a week, every week; she is not in the tiniest bit interested in books that go wizz bang, but she is interested in an e-reader as long as 'it doesn't make a noise when I turn the page…' Multiply her book buying by x million middle aged women and that is a big market.
Mac tablet…. sure. I believe that WILL happen for sure.
A dedicated e-book reader will never happen under the Apple logo as Jobs has said.
Why not? Becuase e-book readers are a solution to a problem that DOESN'T exist! Books are already portable! No one has any need to carry around hundreds of books! And they're cheap (relative to a dedicated electronic device)! I know there are other ancillary benefits to e-readers, but they don't warrant a $xxx price tag.
Do you remember the first tv shows and movies on iTunes and where they came from? Disney.
And which company was purchased by Disney 2 weeks ago? Marvel.
Do you get it?
See the post "The Apple tablet can save comic books" on Living Digitally:
http://www.livingdigitally.net/2009/08/the-apple-tablet-can-save-comics.html
Christian
IMHO, e-books are … books. Silent, words on a page, y'know … books. Made for reading curled up on a sofa, or while riding mass transit, or when slumped against an airport terminal wall.
"Multimedia e-books" are not books. They are multimedia presentations that include text, audio and video.
This is very different from a book.
I know that some of you who are not too familiar with books will argue that it is a small difference, and therefore that "multimedia e-books" is not the misnomer that it is in fact. But that does not make something that is not a book .. a book … does it?
Personally, I look forward to multimedia presentations (sometimes called "movies" or "slide shows" or "interactive entertainment") on small-screen devices, but let's rethink jamming them into the "book" category, okay?
Every kid I know wants to create comic books and get them distributed. My guess is that the volume e-comic-books on iTunes will eventually dwarf the number of apps being sold at the App Store.
"…."Maybe the tools Apple created to digitize Gibson’s Mayhem comic will be part of an author’s kit with that oft-rumored Apple tablet?"…here we go again — around and around the rumor mill we go, the rumor mill we go…around and around the rumor mill we go, etc, etc…"
Not a rumor, this is the tech that they ANNOUNCED yesterday called iTunes LP for music and iTunes Extras for movies and other content (and was widely rumored before that as 'cocktail').
"I can never figure out why tech nerds never seem to realize they are in such a tiny minority and how they think doesn't reflect the masses way of thinking at all. They believe that if a product's hardware doesn't suit them as being on the cutting edge it will be a failure."
They hate Apple for proving them wrong over and over, for one thing, and for making a big part of their human capital almost worthless. These guys have always derided anything Apple did, then went gaga over Microsoft's hobbled, derivative version years later. Why is it that computer support people only need to support TWO operating systems (not counting all the various flavors of each) but they can't be bothered to know more than one?
Also, they like to think they have 'CHOICE' and trumpet that loudly, but really all the PC hardware is generic and there isn't much more difference in the better stuff than was Apple offers, and Mac or PC you have made your one choice as to operating system.
Finally, my favorite aspect of this is the guys who think they 'built' their computer just because they plugged the powersupply into the completely assembled, generic, mobo and disks. And put it all in an incredibly ugly case. Bravo, tech nerds! You saved a hundred bucks or so. Now go do something useful for a change.
Let's face it, Apple has the most complete ecosystem to pull off a successful tablet launch. Everyone seems to keep griping about how impractical the hardware is (I suspect that it's mainly tech nerds saying this), but if Apple can offer easily downloaded multimedia content for the masses, a tablet will go over big time for the majority of non-tech users.
I can never figure out why tech nerds never seem to realize they are in such a tiny minority and how they think doesn't reflect the masses way of thinking at all. They believe that if a product's hardware doesn't suit them as being on the cutting edge it will be a failure.
@ Tom Wahl & Jon Fortt,
"Multi-media e-Books"… you just nailed it. That's the future. iTunes is getting ready.
Being a part-time novelist myself, I got to agree… text + audio + video.
And this won't stop to books… think presentations, etc here.
It is going to make the documents reading activity much more productive.
Indeed, a multi-touch device (especially a tablet) is the proper one for that purpose.
And I don't even talk about all kind of input functionalities… clearly, it's the next revolution.
As far as I can tell, I believe you just nailed it right on the head! Multi-media e-Books with the Apple flare for slick interactive presentation via an iPhone-style touchscreen interface, perfect for an Apple tablet. Great catch (great scoop).
…."Maybe the tools Apple created to digitize Gibson’s Mayhem comic will be part of an author’s kit with that oft-rumored Apple tablet?"…here we go again — around and around the rumor mill we go, the rumor mill we go…around and around the rumor mill we go, etc, etc…
Very good article. Indeed, the "Touch" and iPhone are powerful, versatile, "disruptive" devices. If you think you see them everywhere NOW, come back in a few years!
Not buying books doesn't save trees. Trees are a renewable resource grown specifically because of the high demand for paper. If you truly want more trees to be planted, increase your paper usage! Send a message to the paper-making companies that you support the planting of new trees!