San Francisco — The crowded e-book market has just squeezed further for one more contender, as Google’s eBooks platform is about to hit the big time, or at least try to. The first dedicated e-reading device for search engine giant Google’s nascent digital books platform will be available at Target stores nationwide on Sunday, July 17. The device would be the iRiver Story HD.
The 7.3-ounce iRiver Story HD, goes on sale July 17, at Target’s online and retail stores, which retails for $139.99 and has access to more than 3 million free titles through Google via Wi-Fi, is in itself a captivating story.
Interestingly, its integration with Google eBooks makes it the first device in the world to adopt the open platform, which like Apple’s iBooks or Amazon’s Kindle store, empower readers to browse and purchase a vast collection of digital books through WiFi, which could add another wrinkle in the rapidly expanding e-book market.
“The Story HD is a new milestone for us, as iriver becomes the first manufacturer to unleash an e-reader that is integrated with Google eBooks,” said Google Books product manager Pratip Banerji while noting that the iriver Story HD is the first of many more Google eBooks-integrated devices to come.
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The Iriver Story HD e-reader goes on sale for $139.99 on July 17. (Credit: Iriver)
Impressively, the iriver device sports an electronic paper display made by LG, offers the world’s first high resolution XGA (768×1,024 pixels) and has 63.8 percent more pixels and faster page turns, thanks to an advanced processor from Freescale Semiconductor based on ARM Cortex technology.
Google describes the Story HD as lightweight (207g) and slim (9.3mm) and comes with a built-in QWERTY keypad, and supports EPUB and PDF formats with DRM. It also has built-in Wi-Fi and allegedly gives you up to six weeks of battery life from a single charge.
“It also includes over-the-air access to hundreds of thousands of Google eBooks for sale and more than 3 million titles for free,” writes Banerji. “With the Story HD you can now browse, buy and read Google eBooks with your e-reader through Wi-Fi, rather than downloading and transferring them from computer to e-reader with a cord as you can already do with more than 80 compatible devices.”
“We devised the Google eBooks platform to be open to all publishers, retailers and manufacturers,” says Banerji. Besides, “You can also store your personal ebooks library in the cloud — picking up where you left off in any ebook while reading as you move from laptop to smartphone to e-reader to tablet.”
Google unleashed its eBooks platform in December, bringing eBook content to desktop browsers as well as mobile devices such as those that operates on Android or iOS through a mobile app.
But the one thing about e-books is that consumers seem to really appreciate actual, dedicated hardware. The new iriver Story HD adds an option for those aspiring for a “pure” eReader experience with high-contrast electronic ink. However, it is worth noting that Google says that any eReaders that support Adobe’s eBook platform can already use Google Books.
“Manufacturers like iRiver can employ Google Books APIs and services to connect their devices to the full Google eBooks catalog for out-of-the-box access to a complete bookstore,” says Banerji.
Whether or not Google eBooks can do for e-readers what Android did for smartphones remains to be seen, but this is certainly a step in that direction. Google eBooks currently counts over 250 independent bookstores among its offerings.