Skip to main content

Apple snaps up BookLamp to boost its ebook offerings

apple snaps up booklamp to boost its ebook offerings books
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Over the weekend news has broken about another Apple acquisition, this time involving ebooks. The Cupertino company has picked up small ereading recommendation service BookLamp, described in some quarters as the “Pandora for books”. The deal actually went through in April and the BookLamp.org website has now permanently shut down.

BookLamp is a small startup that hasn’t gained a huge amount of attention up to this point. Its services cover personalized reading recommendations and tools that are able to analyze a book’s tone, pacing, structure and style. It’s possible that Apple wants to use the technology to power the Books section of iTunes, though some commentators are speculating that it’s ready to launch its own rival to Kindle Unlimited.

After a huge ebook price-fixing lawsuit and Amazon’s move into phones, tablets and apps, Apple and Amazon are hardly the friendliest two technology firm around at the moment. Apple CEO Tim Cook certainly wouldn’t lose any sleep over encroaching on Amazon’s ebook turf, and as the Beats acquisition proved, his company isn’t afraid to expand upon and diversify from the digital content empire it has built up with iTunes.

“At first Apple and BookLamp talked about growing their current contract, but then they talked more from a strategic standpoint,” a insider source explained to TechCrunch. “What Apple wanted to do was, instead of contract, they wanted to make sure whatever work was done was done just for them. In broad strokes, the goal that [BookLamp founder Aaron] Stanton and three of the folks he was working with from the original BookLamp crew is to beat Amazon at their own game.”

After its hand was forced by rumors in the tech press, Apple released a short statement, which read: “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.” It may be some time before we see exactly why Apple has picked up BookLamp, whether it’s a super-smart recommendation engine or an ebook subscription service all of its own.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
David Nield
Dave is a freelance journalist from Manchester in the north-west of England. He's been writing about technology since the…
Apple’s removable MacBook mouse may be its weirdest idea yet
Apple's 15-inch MacBook Air placed on a desk.

Apple has experimented with various different keyboard and mouse ideas, and it hasn’t always got them right – just look at the butterfly keyboard and the “hockey puck” mouse. Despite all that, the company is apparently thinking of an even more outlandish idea that could come to future MacBooks.

As detailed in a recently granted patent, Apple is working on a MacBook keyboard that contains a removable key. This key, the patent suggests, could be used as an extremely small mouse that would be potentially no larger than the Shift key. It’s a pretty wacky idea, even compared to Apple’s previous design stumbles.

Read more
Your next MacBook Pro may get a major battery boost — here’s why
The MacBook Pro on a wooden table.

Ever since they changed from Intel processors to Apple silicon chips, Apple’s MacBooks have boasted phenomenal battery life. Now, it looks like the new 16-inch and 14-inch MacBook Pro laptops due out this year could take their battery power even further.

That’s if a new report from DigiTimes (via MacRumors) is to be believed. The outlet has claimed that the new MacBooks -- which it says will launch later this year -- will feature improved displays that are even more power-efficient than the company’s existing ones.

Read more
No, Apple won’t launch a $99 MacBook for this simple reason
Apple's 15-inch MacBook Air on a desk, with macOS Sonoma running on its display.

Earlier this week, DigiTimes reported (via MacRumors) that Apple was working on a bargain-basement MacBook in order to better compete with Chromebooks. Well, I’m here to tell you it’s an interesting theory -- except it’s almost certainly baloney.

On the face of it, it seems believable. After all, Google is doing very well in the education market, cramming as many Chromebooks into classrooms as it physically can. Why wouldn’t Apple want to get a slice of the pie?

Read more