Palm Reader Pro Named Best eBook SW at PPC Awards

Palm Digital Media, announced that Palm Reader Pro was named Best eBook Reader at the Pocket PC Awards 2002 ceremony held at the Pocket PC Summit in Hollywood Oct. 23. The Pocket PC Awards are organized every year by Pocket PC magazine to honor the Best Pocket PC products.

This year 436 software titles from 57 categories were nominated for the awards. Out of those, 158 were selected as finalists, and 57 emerged as winners. The finalists and winners were selected by a board of experts, which comprised some of the most respected and knowledgeable people in the Pocket PC community.

"It's an honor to have Palm Reader Pro singled out as the best in its category," said Jeff Strobel, Director, Palm Digital Media. "We strive to give our customers the best possible experience when reading an eBook. This award acknowledges that our continued effort to add new technology and refinements to our eBook reader makes a difference."

Palm Reader Pro incorporates two of the most requested features from Palm Digital Media customers, a built-in dictionary and more font choices. The eBook reader uses new font-smoothing technology that works with bitmapped fonts on color or gray-scale devices. It supports the Agfa Monotype and ITC eBook Font Paks, which contain a variety of fonts designed to enhance the reading experience. Looking up words in the built-in Webster's New World Vest Pocket Dictionary is as simple as holding the stylus on the word for a few seconds. More information about Palm Reader can be found in our comprehensive review.

In addition to the Pocket PC, Palm Reader eBooks can be read on Palm Powered handhelds and the portable computing solution Dana by AlphaSmart. Palm Reader for Desktops extends the top-ranked eBook reader to the four major computing platforms, giving users the flexibility to move their eBooks easily between Mac or Windows computers and their handhelds.

Palm Digital Media, formerly peanutpress.com Inc., is a subsidiary of PalmSource, Inc., the Palm OS subsidiary of Palm, Inc. Palm Digital Media offers a catalog of almost 7,000 titles from most major U.S. publishing houses which be purchased from Palm Digital Media and more than 20 online booksellers such as WHSmith Online, a division of WH Smith PLC, the largest book and magazine retailer in the UK, OfficeMax, Powells.com and Penguin UK.

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A bit funny to me

I_M_Anonymous @ 11/6/2002 10:57:11 AM #
that Palm's product won PocketPC award!

RE: A bit funny to me
T.W.G @ 11/6/2002 11:00:39 AM #
simply cool, isn't it :-)


Thomas W. Geuting

RE: A bit funny to me
alexp @ 11/6/2002 11:14:25 AM #
While it is funny that a Palm-branded product won a PPC award, let's keep it in perspective:

Palm Reader was originally developed by Peanut Press, and it was called Peanut Reader. Palm purchased Peanut Press sometime back, renaming it "Palm Digital Media." So Palm Reader is NOT a creation of Palm, but a property of Palm.

Still, kudos to Palm for having the smarts to buy Peanut and to keep a great product going.

RE: A bit funny to me
mashby @ 11/6/2002 12:23:15 PM #
True, but it's still funny.

Michael T. Ashby
Director
InterPUG
http://www.interpug.com
RE: A bit funny to me
Galapagos @ 11/6/2002 2:05:43 PM #
Not to discredit the efforts of the developers of the Palm Reader. But it is in actual fact a new version of the Peanut Press Reader. Palmsource (when it was still Palm) bought Peanut Press and rebranded the reader.

It is still pretty cool to see most things that originated on the Palm-Plattform outperform original PPC-Products e.g. PIMs work better on Palm, Docs-to-Go and QuickOffice offer a better Office-integration than the actual PPC-Microsoft products. And Palm Reader beats Microsoft Reader.

RE: A bit funny to me
alexp @ 11/6/2002 10:35:57 PM #
I agree--further evidence that Palm-based products outdo PPC drivel.

I remember reading at one time that PPC developers were working on a PalmOS emulator "so PPC users can also use PalmOS and have the best of both worlds."

Personally, I can't wait. One day, then, they'll give an award for the best overall program for the PPC, and the winner will be...PalmOS.

RE: A bit funny to me
PacManFoo @ 11/7/2002 8:52:56 AM #
Yea and Microsoft "Created" all their software.

RE: A bit funny to me
Nate @ 11/8/2002 2:09:40 PM #
I've used the PPC version and quite frankly I don't think it's the best ebook reader. That award would still go to Starbuck, IMO. Not that Starbuck is great -- they haven't updated it in at least a year and it's buggy on PPC2002, but it's still better than the Palm Reader.

LOLIES!

chainrust @ 11/6/2002 12:03:44 PM #
PALM WON THE PCO|\tet pc ward!
LOLO!

Hopefully . . .

Ronin @ 11/6/2002 1:49:21 PM #
This will be consider a vote of confidence for DRM that is less draconian then that of the Pocket PCs Microsoft Reader and the industry will follow suit.

I personally, believe that if we must have DRM for e-books then PalmReader's approach is the best balance I have seen between protecting copyright and preserving a positive user experience.

In the Spirit of Umoja,
Ronin

RE: Hopefully . . .
rickyspears @ 11/7/2002 5:34:07 AM #
I agree. If other companies would do DRM (Digital Rights Management) the way that Palm has has with PalmReader, I think that we would see a change in the industry for not only ebooks, but mp3s, and other digital as well.

For those of you haven't purchased an ebook from ebooks.palm.com, your credit card number is the key for unlocking the book on your device. You can certainly share your ebook with family or friends if you wanted to, but they would have to be close enough that you would trust them with you credit card number. If you purchased a print book or packaged music CD, you would probably only loan it to others in your household or very close friends. Palm's DRM bings this to electronic media.

RE: Hopefully . . .
MikeInDM @ 11/8/2002 8:48:57 AM #
When I purchase a print book, many times, I sell that book to a store like the 1/2 Price Book Store or even at garage sales.

Just because the book is digital doesn't mean that I shouldn't be able to sell it second hand.

That's why my e-book purchases have only been reference books that I anticipate using on an ongoing basis.

Mike

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