Although this is technically an e-book blog, not a “Cherrypal blog,” I have nonetheless written the most about the devices of any blog so I feel a little bit of responsibility to the people who ordered them after seeing them here.

So here is a roundup of comments we have received today about the status of people’s Cherrypal Africa orders.

In summary, some people have had very good communication with Max Seybold (especially if they were proactive and called the number on the website to talk to him), while others are still upset that they have not heard anything.

Details after the jump.

”Broken Promises!”

“Ray” writes:

Broken promises!

I ordered mine on 12/16 (one of the first orders by my reckoning) and today (12/31) saw nothing delivered…

…so, two weeks and one day later and still no product.

Further, no replies to email inquires and the customer service # given on the paypal transaction page is an “incorrect” (fake?) number.

I’m seriously starting to worry now.

Nate the Great writes:

It’s Thursday, and I still don’t have it. I haven’t even gotten shipping confirmation.

“Nice to Get Info”

A tweet from Bryan Everly (who also posted a comment on the 29th about not having heard from Cherrypal) says:

Heard from #cherrypal CEO Max Seybold. Problem with my order and will be resolved by end of day or I’ll be refunded. Nice to get info.

I have asked him to post a comment with more detail.

“David” writes:

Ordered mine on the 22, says “pending” on the order (31 st) so probably not processed yet, far less shipped.

I suspect the slash dot effect, too much volume. My order # is in the eight hundreds, Nate who ordered his the day before might do some maths and we can get an idea of volume.

Even with the best of intension they may truly be toiling to satisfy this sudden increase in orders.

As most sales where probably via credit card in 30 days they will have the cash to make things happen.

I am ordering from the third world, OK “Island nation” world 2.5

This pricing, their willingness to take credit international cards and to directly ship to me make an irresistible combination.

Increasingly US suppliers only want local sales.

I grow accustomed to waiting

Least we miss the point, this can bring the net to another layer of humanity.

And finally, “Kate” writes:

Hi, I thought I’d leave a note here in case anyone’s looking for updates. I have spoken three times with Max Seybold, who has been very pleasant and apologetic about the glitches hindering the distribution of the first batch of orders. Here goes:

1. The phone line keeps breaking — and was out entirely for the first week of the Africa launch — but when it’s working, Max picks up the phone right away and ready to help out. He’s really nice, but there’s nothing he can actually do to fix the issues with the shipping because …

2. The distributor in Hong Kong bundled all the orders into one huge shipment without authorization to do so, so there was only one tracking number for all the laptops together as they made their way to Alaska. (This is why your order has never been updated from “Pending” status.)

3. Once in Alaska, the units shipped out individually — with tracking numbers — but the list of tracking numbers is fairly useless to Cherrypal, because they don’t know which order number belongs to which package. Max seemed reasonably confident that the shipment was “on time,” which I’m inclined to disagree with only because of the New Year’s Day holiday and Sunday (no mail). That’ll slow things up a bit. But from my conversation with him, it seems reasonable to expect packages to arrive next week.

This matches what I heard from Max when I spoke to him on the phone the other day myself.

This seems to be fairly good news even for the people who are having problems with their orders. (I should note I have not heard anything about the test units I am getting myself, which should be bundled with those orders.)

Given how much publicity the program has gotten, and how many orders they have received, it is easy to imagine how overwhelmed a company small enough that the CEO answers the phone and support emails himself could be by this level of popularity.

The addition of the double-holiday-season and the distributor foul-up seems to have created a “perfect storm” of problems, but hopefully they will be resolved soon.

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This article reminded me of the NPR piece on e-books we mentioned the other day. In that piece, various talking heads suggested that e-books were changing the way in which we read, and hence the way in which authors would have to write from now on.

On O’Reilly Radar, Sarah Milstein talks about the similar assumption that Twitter, email, and other instant, small-chunk communication methods are something entirely new and different and changing the way in which we communicate.

Milstein reminds us that in the 19th century, the mail was delivered in Victorian England as many as six times a day. (Found via BoingBoing.)

[Jane] Austen wrote more than 3,000 letters, many to her sister Cassandra. They corresponded constantly, starting new letters to each other the minute they finished the last one and sharing the minutia of their lives.

If e-mail and Twitter had existed back then, the Austens would probably have been using them enthusiastically.

We assume today that instant, frequent communication is something unique to our generation. But past generations had it more frequently than we expected, if not instantly.

Likewise, e-book readers may change some readers’ habits, but the things they are reading will remain the same—including the public-domain titles by Jane Austen that are available at Feedbooks and Manybooks.

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Here’s something a little different (earlier than the books I normally feature.) A book that “deals with the present-day problems of visual expression” by the great artist/designer Gyorgy Kepes.

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We have already said plenty about the possible e-book reading potential of netbooks as opposed to dedicated e-book readers. Now here comes a whole new category of micro-laptop that might also be good for e-book reading, at a lower price point.

In the last few years, we have had notebooks, powerbooks, macbooks, netbooks…and now “smartbooks” and “webbooks”. ^* It seems as though every time computer manufacturers decide to make a different size of machine, they have to come up with a new name for it. Remember when we only had “laptops”? Or even just “notebooks” and “subnotebooks”?

How Smart is the “Smartbook”?

This latest new name, smartbook, refers to something even smaller and less capable than a traditional netbook—something between a “smartphone” and a “netbook” in size, hence “smartbook”. Don Clark of the Wall Street Journal has a piece previewing their appearance at next week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

According to the article, smartbooks are meant to cost less than today’s average-price $250 netbook, will probably have provision for a built-in cell connection, and will offload most of their functionality to the cloud.

They will use ARM CPUs for longer battery life, rather than X86, so they will not run Windows XP or 7. Instead, they will generally run a flavor of Linux, most likely Android. Hence, they will not be able to run the traditional Microsoft apps that consumers are used to.

The interesting thing is that, except for the cell connection, this sounds an awful lot like the Cherrypal Africa $99 netbook. Perhaps we should start calling the Cherrypal a “smartbook” too?

As with smaller smartphones and larger netbooks, these smartbooks will presumably make decent e-book readers. There are at least some e-book apps for every platform, especially Android. It depends on how good the user interface and ergonomics are.

But not everybody thinks there is really a need for smartbooks.

"It’s too big to be a phone and too small for easy content creation," says Roger Kay, a market researcher with Endpoint Technologies Associates. "There has been little evidence that people really like that category."

The Litl “Webbook”

But these “smartbooks” are not the only new tiny cloud computer on the horizon. Walt Mossberg, also of the Wall Street Journal, reviews another one: the Litl “webbook”. However, the Litl is at the other end of the price spectrum, costing twice the price of a higher-end netbook at $699.

The Litl is meant to do literally everything in the cloud, and as a result has almost no non-net functionality (and, in fact, no local storage whatsoever). Mossberg finds the Litl to be a “little” lacking, especially for the price; its ability to turn itself inside-out into “easel” mode for TV-like web info display is not terribly useful and its user interface is underwhelming.

Although Mossberg does not draw them, some parallels could be drawn between this “webbook” and e-book readers. The Kindle and Nook cost almost as much as a netbook themselves, and do so much less. Earlier e-book readers, such as the Rocketbook (hey, another “-book” name!) cost considerably more.

Is iSlate a “Smartbook” too?

The description of a “smartbook” as being like a smartphone only larger sounds suspiciously like Apple’s plan to come out with a tablet just like its iPhone (or iPod Touch) only larger.

And of course e-book reading is going to be a major application for this device if rumors are to be believed. But probably not the only application. The Apple tablet (whether it ends up being called “iSlate” or not) will likely be considerably more capable (and expensive) than the other “smartbooks”.

John Gruber of Daring Fireball thinks that it will be a laptop replacement—in other words, a general-purpose computer that will do the main things you want a laptop for in a more convenient form. Given that my iPod Touch is very nearly that for me now, I would believe it.

Whatever it will be, the Apple tablet will not be at the Consumer Electronics Show. Apple is not in the habit of sharing the stage. Apple is holding its next media event on January 26th, and will presumably unveil its tablet there.

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^*It is interesting to consider the way every new laptop category is called “(something) book”. I know it comes from the original term “notebook,” for a skinny laptop, but it almost seems as if the computer manufacturers were trying to help push e-books by subconsciously associating computers with books.

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Erictric has an article about these two upcoming applications and a link for you to sign up to be notified when they are released.

Unfortunately neither of them will display newspapers, magazines or blogs (and neither does the iPhone app) and the Blackberry application will be available in the US only. I’m waiting for the Mac application, myself.

(via Resource Shelf)

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BookofJoe is reporting that the Morgan Library in New York, along with the New York Times, have made the manuscript of Dickens’ work available on the web. The Times was allowed by the Morgan to photograph and display it. The Morgan displays the manuscript every year at this time but only one page is put on view.

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I usually spend New Year’s Eve at a friends home with champagne and a television set tuned to watch the ball drop.  I have a good friend though, who always starts popping a bag of popcorn during the last minute of the year, so that it finishes in the new year, claiming eating the “year old” popcorn is good luck.  Curious what other traditions people have I searched Oxford Reference Online which led me to A Dictionary of English Folklore, and this fascinating entry on folk traditions.

…For most English people, New Year’s Eve is either spent quietly at home, or at a party, which lasts till after midnight to ‘see the New Year in’. Such gatherings differ little from other parties, apart from the ubiquitous singing of ‘Auld Lang Syne’…The only other regular features of the season are the ubiquitous salutations of ‘Happy New Year’ and the tendency to make personal ‘New Year resolutions’. Nevertheless, there is a general awareness in England that New Year is really the Scottish celebration par excellence.

In earlier times, the season was taken more seriously. Many of the following superstitions and customs can be seen in the light of the principle that the beginning of any enterprise or period is vitally important, and largely determines its relative success or failure. The literature on New Year in the past is dominated by the custom of ‘first footing’ or ‘letting in the New Year’. Again this custom is nowadays associated mainly with Scotland, but in the 19th century it was known and practised over most of England as well, although clearly taken more seriously in the northern countries. In broad outline…—the first person to come into the house after midnight on New Year’s Eve had to have certain personal characteristics and to conform to certain rules in order to bring luck to the house for the coming year. The details of the custom, however, vary considerably from place to place, and there seems to be no discernible pattern. In most places the first footer must be dark haired, or dark skinned, but some insisted on a fair haired or light complexion. Almost invariably, a male first footer was required, and some stipulated a married man while others required a bachelor, while some say flat-footed or cross-eyed people must be avoided. It was common for the first-footer to carry symbolic gifts—bread and coal being the most common commodities, but whiskey, and ‘something green’ (i.e. alive) were also popular. In some areas, the first-footer was called the ‘Lucky Bird’. On entering, the first-footer would sometimes remain silent until he had poked the fire, or had placed coal on it, and several references maintain that he should enter by the front and leave by the back door…In almost all cases the first-footer was rewarded with food, drink, and/or money, and people who fitted the local ideal for first-footer often made a substantial sum by going from house to house (by arrangement) early on New Year’s Day. The seriousness with which some people took the first-foot rules is evidenced in various sources, such as the following reported in N&Q (7s:10 (1890), 5): reporting on a trial in Mansfield (Nottinghamshire), and explaining why a young woman was walking the streets at one o’clock in the morning, it was stated that she had returned from the midnight service at her local church but her mother would not let her into the house until her father or brother came in first, which was some hours later…

Most of the customs already discussed cannot be shown to be very old, and the picture of New Year before the 19th century was very different indeed. Despite its ubiquity, neither the phrase nor the custom of first footing can be traced before the turn of the 19th century—even in Scotland—and most of the other beliefs detailed above are not found before the 1850s. As is well known, the name for the New Year in Scotland is Hogmanay, and this, in various spellings such as Hagmena, was also the regular terms in northern England and the earliest use of the word so far discovered is in Yorkshire. An entry in the household accounts of Sir Robert Waterton, of Methley, in 1444, records payments for a big ‘hogmanayse’ and a little ‘hogmanayse’. The entry is all in Latin apart from that word… The OED, after admitting that the word is ‘of obscure history’, proffers an Old French word, aguillanneuf, as a probable source, meaning ‘the last day of the year, new year’s gift, the festival at which new year’s gifts were given and asked with the shout of aguillanneuf’, which almost exactly fits the descriptions of New Year between the 15th and 17th centuries, where the emphasis is on gifts and visiting. The oldest references to gift-giving at New Year refer to royalty and nobility exchanging expensive presents, as far back as the time of Henry III…and up to Elizabeth I…More modest traditional gifts were oranges stuck with cloves, gilded nutmegs, capons (from tenant farmers to landlords), various other foodstuffs, and papers of pins. The earlier visiting custom is again mostly reported from Scotland, but again it is clear that it was also common in northern England. It consisted of bands of young men (later children) going from door to door on New Year’s Eve, singing and expecting gifts…

The fact that Scotland and England have different views of the relative importance of Christmas and New Year is the result of the divergence of religion during the Puritan revolutions of the 17th century. As is well known, the gradual increase in influence and power of ‘Puritan’ Protestant sects across much of Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries brought increasing pressure on saints’ days and other festivals which were branded as Catholic inventions. Christmas was thus increasingly discouraged and finally banned altogether in England in 1645. At a popular level, there was thus a tendency for people to transfer their celebrations from the dangerous Christmas to the secular New Year. At the Restoration, Christmas was reinstated, only to be removed again in Scotland, by the Kirk, in 1688–90. The stage was thus set for the two countries to go their own way, and Scottish people made New Year their main midwinter festival.

Details of New Year celebrations up to medieval times are sketchy, although if the Church condemnations are to be believed the people certainly indulged in some sort of behaviour which offended ecclesiastical sensibilities. The upper echelons of society had New Year feasts, although, as noticed in the entry for Christmas, there was a strong tradition of the ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’ and it is thus not always easy to separate Christmas and New Year. Reading between the lines, the main thrust of the Church’s disquiet was concerned with divination…which, as already stated, would be a logical thing to be doing at the start of a New Year. Beyond this the picture is even more speculative, but ‘… there is sufficient to argue strongly for the existence of a major pre-Christian festival marking the opening of the new year, at the moment at which the sun had reached the winter solstice, and its strength was being renewed. There is testimony to this in the Anglo-Saxon, Viking and Welsh components of the British heritage’…, but what they did is still open to debate.

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Chip Rosenthal a fait un intéressant calcul sur le coût des DRM via un e-reader. Comme beaucoup, Chip hésite. Doit-il acheter un Kindle ? Trouvera-t-il suffisamment de livres qui l’intéressent dans la galerie marchande de l’éditeur Américain ? Si parmi tous les lecteurs électroniques, le Kindle est le plus à même de couvrir ses besoins (par l’étendue de son catalogue) reste que son achat est loin d’être pérenne. D’ici 3 ans, délai obsolescence des technologies, que deviendront les livres électronique qu’il aura acheté ? Pourra-t-il les reverser dans son prochain appareil ? Et qu’adviendra-t-il des contenus qu’il a acheté s’il décide de changer de liseuse, si le modèle le plus performant n’est alors plus chez Amazon ? D’où son idée de calculer la taxe DRM, c’est-à-dire le coût des livres qu’on aura envie de remplacer en fin de vie de l’appareil (pas tous les livres achetés donc, mais seulement une proportion d’entre eux selon le type de lecture ou d’achat que l’on fait).

Partant de là, Chip fait quelques hypothèses :
- il achète une 20aine de livres techniques par ans.
- le coût moyen est de 30 dollars
- le Kindle coute 259 dollars.
- les versions de livres sous Kindle sont en moyenne 10% moins chers que les versions papier.
- la durée de vie du Kindle serait de 3 ans.
- il estime qu’il voudra garder 50 % des livres achetés au bout de 3 ans.

Et quelques rapides calculs. S’il continue d’acheter des livres papiers, sur 3 ans, cela lui coutera 1800 $. S’il passe au Kindle, cela lui coutera 1620 dollars (soit 180 dollars d’économie) ce qui ne compense pas le prix de l’appareil de 259 $ : dans son cas, passer au Kindle coûte donc déjà plus cher que de rester au papier ! Pire, si on ajoute la taxe DRM (donc la moitié des livres qu’il faudra racheter d’ici 3 ans), le Kindle devient franchement prohibitif ! 2365 $

Décidément, on est encore loin de produits qui libèrent le pouvoir d’achat des lecteurs.

Via @nitot.

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According to Douglas Moran of Gear Diary this problem has been fixed. Douglas says that this is a result of something B&N did on the server end, not the app end, because a new app has not been issued yet. You can take a look at his article here, where he relates his conversation with B&N and his successfully opening large books.

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