With Amazon's Kindle DX available in Australia and Apple's iPad on its way, JOHN HARRIS looks at how 2010 is shaping up as the Year of the eBook

Every now and then, as I walk my daughter to school, she asks me to hold her backpack.

I’m generally happy to hand it back because of its textbook-laden weight – and she’s still only in year five.

On our daily pilgrimage, a common sight is secondary students staggering along lugging over-stuffed ‘bookpacks’.

It’s a great commendation for chiropracty as a career path.

It also validates the value of electronic books – aka eBooks –screen-based devices that display text from a range of electronic publishing formats.

eBooks have been around for years in one form or another, but have never really taken off.

Reasons vary from poor title availability in the early days to poor design, short battery life and eye-straining screen performance.

However, 2010 is shaping up as the year of the eBook (not just because I used that headline on a press release back in January *).

The prediction is based on events suggesting that eBooks are moving from the novelty shelf to the mainstream market.

In January, Amazon.com began selling its Kindle DX e-book reader in Australia along with a bunch of other countries.

The Kindle DX has a 9.7-inch e-ink display with a 1200x824-pixel screen resolution and 3.3GB of storage, enough to hold about 3500 books. As well as reading various eBook media formats, the US$489 device supports PDF, Microsoft Word documents, JPEG images and MP3 music files. It can also download new books from Amazon.com via a wireless service.

The same month, Apple’s modest CEO Steve Jobs announced the “magical and revolutionary iPad”, an iPhone on steroids with a 9.7-inch, LED-backlit display

At 1.27cm thick and weighing just 680 grams, the iPad is promised to let users browse the web, read and send email, enjoy and share photos, watch videos, listen to music, play games and, of course, read e-Books. Apple also boasts a 10-hour battery life.

The significance of Apple’s entry into this market is its track record of delivering hot-selling products, such as the iPod and the iPhone.

iPad Wi-Fi + 3G models will be available in Australia late next month. No prices are available yet, but guestimates are in the $649-$699 range.

Not only multinationals are getting into the eBook act. Adelaide company Ubiq Technologies intends to release its own eBook reader, the QuokkaPad, in the next few weeks.

As well as reading eBooks, PDFs and software documents, its eight-inch colour touchscreen recognises handwriting input and has a virtual keyboard. The device will cost about $450.

With this sample of eBook activity, the long-suffering students of Adelaide may never again be able to use “I forgot my book” as an excuse.

And their parents will save on chiropractic bills.

* John Harris is managing director of Impress Media Australia which issued a press release for Ubiq Technologies in January this year. Email jharris@impress.com.au

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