

O'Reilly books launched on Inkling (iPad, iPhone & Web)  - stevehollaar
https://www.inkling.com/store/brand/oreilly/

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tylerritchie
This seems like an interesting attempt on O'Reilly's part to justify an
electronic price greater than the print price (as of today at Amazon). I will
fully acknowledge that the potential utility of an electronic edition of this
style of book is superior to that of the dead-tree version. But I can't really
accept the price.

I see that Campbell's Biology is still outrageously expensive as well. Can I
even resell my Inkling books? If the answer is "no" then students should just
buy the used dead-tree version of texts on amazon and resell them. Especially
Campbell.

Also, I want to middle-click the tiles to open the book in a new page. Shame
on you Inkling for breaking that.

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mattmacinnis
Tyler,

I wouldn't read into the O'Reilly prices too much. They must balance a lot of
pre-existing agreements with other distribution channels, and as you probably
know, Amazon often sells print titles at a loss.

Campbell is a similar situation, but it's available by the chapter for $4, and
that's how most students are buying it -- getting just the pieces their profs
assign.

As to the middle-click / option-click problem, we're aware, and we consider it
a bug. We'll fix it. We are ashamed!

~~~
tylerritchie
I probably came across a little too harsh. I think Inkling is awesome, I'm
just still grumpy at publishers.

In the case of Campbell the _a la carte_ Inkling prices are such that a
student can get 60% of the book at the point they reach the full price of the
book. I know at many universities Campbell is the primary text used for first
year biology students so going through 60-80% is not unheard of. At that
consumption rate I would be better off buying the book used from Amazon, using
it, and then reselling it at a loss of $20-$30. If a student doesn't want to
deal with reselling his or her book they can even rent Campbell for ~$70. As
it's a, first year, general biology book keeping it for reference doesn't make
a huge amount of sense for non-pre-med biology students.

I really don't blame Inkling for this, I just think that Campbell would be a
reasonable text at a quarter to half the current price (with individual
chapters similarly reduced) which would compete nicely and directly with the
rental text market.

All that said, per-chapter certainly benefits students who tend to not buy the
texts, but would like access to particular chapters.

Additionally, buying an Inkling text with half a dozen other students and
sharing becomes an enticing proposition (that probably terrifies publishers
and probably violates the EULA and TOS).

Anyway, I'm excited about Inkling, and hope that authors and publishers fully
embrace it and similar platforms. I'm not excited about future students still
being gouged for a medium that is dirt cheap to reproduce.

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joshschreuder
Looks like an interesting idea. I particularly like the in-line discussions.

Is there a list of books which feature the coding widget? I imagine this only
applies to the interpreted languages like Python and Ruby?

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mattmacinnis
Coding widgets are in the JavaScript titles to start. More to come.

~~~
joshschreuder
No worries, thanks for that.

I have bought a book or two, and noticed that the site remembers both my CC
details (this is alright) and also my 3 digit CVV. Isn't there a law against
storing both for the purpose of future purchases?

I'd feel a little more comfortable if I was asked to enter the CVV every time.
This is not inconvenient for the user as far as I can see.

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mattmacinnis
We do not store your CVV, actually. We just don't use it. Interesting that
this leads one to an uncomfortable conclusion -- thanks for the feedback.

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joshschreuder
No worries at all, I was trying not to swinge accusations at your company :)

I don't use my CC that much online, but I can't remember the last time (if
ever) that I wasn't asked for a CVV on a future purchase after saving my
details. Amazon still requires it for transactions even though my details are
saved.

It makes me a bit more uncomfortable, because it removes that extra security
layer between someone breaking into my account, and someone buying something.
In another situation they would have to have my account details and my CVV
(which may in fact, not be that hard to obtain, but it's a little more peace
of mind).

Just some food for thought. I do like your site!

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eridius
Amazon certainly doesn't require it for 1-click purchases, and I don't think
they require it for shopping cart purchases either if your CC is saved.

Typically sites that save the CC do not save the CVV, but they only require it
on the first purchase.

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incision
This looks lovely.

I'm a fan of Inkling, disappointed at its absence from Android and hopeful for
the day that textbooks - printed, interactive or otherwise don't cost $160+.

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snowmaker
Very cool. Does anyone know if humans manually reformatted all of these to
include special Inkling features, or whether they automatically generated them
from ePUB files?

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mattmacinnis
(Matt, CEO of Inkling here.)

Humans did not manually reformat these titles. The source was EPUB, and there
was some clever automation to start. The semantic structure, internal content
links, remarks and glossary entries were done essentially algorithmically.
Enhancements and the ability to see code in the book were done systematically,
and sometimes manually.

All of this was done using Inkling Habitat, our (as-yet unreleased) integrated
content development environment. It makes this stuff much more scalable, and
as we continue to roll out cool brands like O'Reilly, you'll see increasing
amounts of media and interactivity where stuff like that makes sense.

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mbtimney
I've been following Inkling pretty closely for the last year or so, and have
been incredibly impressed with the work they are doing. I'm excited to see
O'Reilly on the Inkling platform, and can't wait to see what they do next!

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bdcravens
Surely a coincidence, but with a variety of titles shown, not a single Ruby or
Rails title.

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mattmacinnis
Indeed, nothing against Ruby or Rails. Actually, I think we used Ruby in the
process of building these titles with the following library:
<http://nokogiri.org>

Sometimes editioning and other considerations prevent us from doing a certain
title immediately, but we do plan to bring the whole O'Reilly library to the
platform over the next few months, including Ruby and Rails content.

(In the meantime, maybe you can learn a real language? Tee hee. Kidding. omg.)

(p.s., we're hiring. Just not Ruby engineers.)
<http://www.inkling.com/careers>

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noirman
Awesome job, Inkling (& O'Reilly). Wish all programming books are like that.

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ivanzhao
This is amazing! How can I create a book like this myself?

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bradneuberg
By using Inkling Habitat!

