Ebook is hot nowaday. Many bookstores are closing down due to high operating cost. Page One turned to it's final page in Feb. Harris in Great World City also closed down. Even my favourite bookstore in Funan for I.T books also closed down and is now operating online. I guess with the popularity of tablets, ebooks will eventually become main stream. For one, ebooks are convenient to get and are cheaper. In this island, sad to say there are some limitations. Here we have no access to itune store so getting ebooks from itune is out unless you have a US credit card or someone bought you a Apple gift card, but you have to change your location to US by registering a US address. Apple don't seems to care where you download the content from as long you fulfill the above mentioned criteria.
Amazon, that;s a different story. Amazon do track where you download the content from. You can also register yourself with a US address to access the kindle ebook store but again you cannot buy ebook without a US credit card. However you can use any credit card to buy Amazon gift card which can be used to buy ebooks. Seems like a loop hole? Remember what I mentioned. Amazon TRACKS where you download the content. If you use a US register address to buy ebooks and download the content in this island, sooner or later they will send you email to verified your US address. In some forums, people have mentioned that Amazon will eventually block your ebooks download. To fellow islanders who want to buy Kindle or read ebooks on iPad using kindle app, this is a nightmare. Just let you know, to download kindle app for Apple, you also need a US registered address Apple ID. You might be asking why. Apparently this is due to censorship and distribution rights issue here.
There are alternatives. You can get ebooks from Skoob (By Singtel) and read them on Apple IOS, Android and PCs. Kobo is also another alternative.
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